We talked, today, she and I. Iâve seen her, noticed her, but, today, we talked. Thereâs something in the way she presents herself, in her speech patterns, that I like. Something that feels comfortable. I didnât say as much as she did. I tried to lead her to places that let her talk more. I have the urge to talk with her, again.
I donât know why Iâm writing this.
I talked with her, again. She was in the same place as the other day. I canât tell if she likes me or is just being polite. I walk right up and start talking to her. There I am, taking up space with my presence, no escaping. A polite person would just go with it, knowing theyâve been trapped into a conversation. She did seem happy to see me, though. That moment of recognition became a shining smile. I do like listening to her.
She doesnât really know that Iâve been making time to visit. I couldnât escape this thought: that weâve only had these few conversations as a result of her politely surrendering to my imposition. I had to get going and was saying goodbye to her. I let her know that things would be busy for me, but I could find time to spend, if she wanted. I told her I would understand if she had other things she needed to do. I gave her an out, I had to. There was no hesitation on her part. âYes, please. If you canâ. Â When I realized I had been holding my breath, I let it out as quietly as I could, so she wouldnât notice. âCome back, please,â she said, smiling. I told her I would.
Sheâs clever and cutely amusing. She is not aware that she is particularly so. It doesnât glare at her as it does me. Her responses to me pointing it out usually start with, âIâm justâŚâ followed by an explanation of her mundanity. Iâll have to keep at it. A woman should know that sheâs enchanting.
She called me silly and when she did, she touched my arm and said my name. I watched her say my name. I like the look of it on her lips. Here I am looking at her lips, feeling the place where she touched me, as if sheâs ruffled my pores. As if she were liquid and has just left some of herself on me. I feel stupid and for just a second, somehow untethered. Iâm wondering how ridiculous I seem and can hear my own voice, saying, âsay my name, againâ. She does, looking at me. I have no clue what Iâm doing, but I seem to be doing it, anyway.
Weâve been talking for weeks. Not every day, but itâs become more frequent. I like the feeling I get when Iâm around her. My stomach does strange things. I feel compelled to talk with her and feel it in my belly. Itâs a tightness, like thereâs something gripping. Then I see her and it lets go, but I still feel it. It quivers and writhes, but not unpleasantly so. Itâs as though thereâs a thing that was stressed and is now feeling playfully boisterous. I wonder, when I walk up to her, next time, if Iâll notice the transition. Is there some line Iâll cross, some set distance from her that will let my stomach unwind? Can I stand on one side of the belly barrier, taught, then step into the other side and feel it let go? What would happen if I straddled the border? Iâm an idiot.
I am sleepless. We talked, today, and I was asking if she thought celebrities were sexy. She told me sheâs got a couple of celebrity crushes, but there are qualities she looks for that usually run deeper than what you can see on a screen. I thought that was a good answer. She mentioned qualities I have. Sexy qualities, according to her. I said so. She said, âwell, yeah, youâre sexyâ. I laughed it off.
Now, I canât sleep. How can I sleep when Iâm sexy?
She was teasing me when it happened. She says Iâll say something very sweet and be clueless that Iâve done so. Sheâll be looking at me, with whatever emotion Iâve just stirred, and Iâll  ask her if thereâs something on my face or something. She was mocking me and laughing and talking fast. Iâm watching her face and hearing her laugh and I had to kiss her. So, I did. She stopped talking. I kissed her, again. When she finally spoke, she said, âare you going to kiss me, again?â.  I was and I did. There are lots of things I donât know, but I know I want to kiss her again.Â
She is, though it pains me to use such a banal comparison, like addiction. As much as her presence feels like pleasure, her absence feels like need. That makes me question the very nature of pleasure. How much pleasure comes down to a sense of relief? How much pleasure is no more than the final recovery of something you were lacking? Water when youâre thirsty, food when youâre hungry, a lazy rest after a sleepless week, a first kiss.
Tonight, I was inside of her, for the first time.
I took my time, not trying to be particularly sweet or gentle, only wanting that very moment to last. I was eager, but in no hurry. Poised between her legs, seeing her, feeling her arms around me, I curved my hips forward. When I entered, penetrating that wet, welcoming kiss, I let out a quiet moan. A soft cry of relief.
I want to suck her straight into my veins.
I am beset by dichotomies. Itâs easy to marvel at them. The way I get that feeling of both thrill and comfort. With her, I have a sense of familiar belonging, all while my heart is furiously strumming beyond the bounds of my chest. Itâs like fried ice cream. Like a tender kiss and a desperate thrust.
We are to the point where if we stop, someone will be hurt. Weâve been here for a while, but you donât notice it until you start to worry about losing it. Suddenly, youâre in the deeper part of the ocean, at the brink of where it becomes open sea. You didnât plan to be here, you werenât looking to be here, but here you are.
I donât know what comes next or how to proceed, only that I am here with hope and trepidation. It makes me hesitant and I know she feels that, I have no doubt.
The air changes when she steps out from her shower; my eyes donât need to see it to know she is walking out of the mist like Venus reborn. I am pondering through the window and see her reflection as she approaches. She wears a towel around her wet hair and nothing else. Her breasts graze my back as she comes up behind me and puts the side of her face on my upper arm. She calls me her reluctant storm and I want to fuck her until I expire.
She was laughing. She was laughing and I never wanted it to stop, not for anything. Not until I had struck every undignified pose, danced every jutting, awkward dance. She was laughing and I was a god, grand and ridiculous. A god with the power to call forth an eruption of joy in tangible, rippling peels.
She slowed, because I was running out of material, and she said, âIâllâŚâ, but never finished, because I wriggled my eyebrows, sending her into more giggles. The wind was knocked out of me as it hit me like a physical thing. I had to sit down.
She loves me. She loves me and sheâs been waiting for me, just patiently waiting. Of course she wasnât saying âIâllâŚâ she was saying âI love youâ, but stopped herself. It came crashing down on me at once, the signals Iâve missed in thoughtless ignorance. I canât breathe. Of course I canât breath, how can a man be this stupid and still have enough brain power to operate a pair of lungs? Sheâs been hiding it for fear of my own hesitancy. All her passion and fire, waiting. Patience like a mountain. Only a fool could keep missing this inevitable moment and there is no greater fool than I. I look at her, really look. At her, into her. She loves me. This amazing woman, remarkable from tip to toe. I am overcome, she sees my eyes welling and she isnât laughing anymore.
âI love youâ, I said to her and couldnât say anything else. She stared at me and I nodded, because itâs all I could do. I wanted to tell her that Iâm sorry it took so long, that I should have been telling her every day for a long time, but I shrug, because itâs all I can do. She climbs into my lap, facing me and places her body against mine and says âI love you. I love you I love you I love youâ, holding me, her hand on the back of my neck, âI love you I love youâ, her breath in my ear, âI love youâŚâ. I donât feel the least bit smart or manly or funny. I feel like a lump. But itâs alright, because sheâs saying I love you over and over, and I keep hearing that itâs okay, that sheâs got me, that sheâs always had me. That itâs okay that Iâm a moron, because she loves me and sheâs going to keep on doing it. I am a lump with arms and I use them to crush her to me.
Iâm going to ask her to move in with me. I think sheâll say yes.
Itâs been a while since I wrote in this notebook or even saw it. At least a couple of years. I remember how it was, how I had held myself back for so long it was like a rubber band being stretched back and back and suddenly let go. I was energized. I asked her to move into my place. She said no. Her explanation was horrifyingly slow; a painful display of attempting to avoid hurting my feelings that kept her from getting anywhere near the point. It eventually became clear that while my place was larger and arguably nicer, she preferred the quaint charm of her house and would I âpretty pleaseâ, move in with her instead. I restarted my heart and said yes.
Weâll be moving out, soon, into a place we both picked out. Itâll be ours. Thatâs how I found this notebook, going through clutter, deciding what to pack and what to throw out.
She still likes to tease me about how reticent I used to be. âWhat were you waiting for?â, she asks. âI donât know!â, I reply. âHow could you not know?â, she asks. âIâm probably not very smartâ, I reply. She calls me cute and I tell her Iâm too big to be cute. Of course she giggles at me. I let her tease. Having me embarrassed is a rare opportunity, so she takes full advantage. I think she finds it endearing.
The other day she was laughing out of nowhere as she remembered something. She walked over and stood before me, slinging her hip to one side and said, âbig strong man was out of his depth, because he wanted meeeeeeâ, she sang, spinning away⌠and consequently almost spun into the wall, instead of through the doorway. She laughed at herself and made a quick exit, leaving me with my red face and reluctant smile.
Later, we were lying in bed, facing each other. I was doing what I often do, talking with her and hoping sheâll keep talking. She was laughing, then said, âI was practically begging you to make a move. Any move!â, the pitch of her voice going up with her rising incredulity. I said, âAt first, I really thought I was beingâŚâ, it took a moment to find the word, ââŚobtrusive!â, immediately shaking my head at myself. She said, âI wanted you so bad. You made me feel⌠goofy and tongue-tied just being around you. But I couldnât stop talking!â. And sheâs off⌠Â
I am listening to her every word as well as her rhythms.
Sheâs talking about how she was afraid that her incessant jabbering would scare me away, how the words would come helplessly spilling out of her mouth like a stream of magicianâs handkerchiefs. My body relaxes, my eyelashes become lazier.
Sheâs talking about the first time I kissed her, that I didnât use my tongue, and how her ears were ringing. Â I am listening to her lips.
She talks about the first time she spent the night; smiling as I slept, absorbing my scent, listening to me breathe. I hear the lilt of her emotions, the cadence of her little laughs, her hesitations; the climaxes of her sudden realizations. Itâs like music. She could talk about anything: relationships, politics, hair, childhood. Iâll never be more at ease than I am in those moments, when sheâs telling me a song.
It was my turn to talk. I could tell by her face. Her expression seems more open, her eyes become brighter, somehow. She stretches back, assuming the posture of the listener, waiting for me to reminisce. I ask her if she knows what kept me from blowing it, from ruining the whole thing. She smiles. âSelfishnessâ, I say to her, âpure and simple. I wish I could say it was something more noble. I was, in fact, painfully aware of how deserving you are of anything I could give you and more. But Iâm selfish. I found youâ. I brush a piece of hair back from her face and say, âWhat felt important was that I found you and wanted to talk to you. That I started learning you. It didnât matter that I didnât have a plan or a clue or even that I might not be good enough for the job. I selfishly clutched you to me because I found you and I wasnât about to give you upâ. Iâm stroking her cheek with the backs of my fingers. âI discovered youâ, I tell her. âI discovered you and Iâve been discovering you ever since. I have no intention of stoppingâ.
I watch her pretty eyes begin to fill with tears. She slaps me in the middle of my chest and buries her face right where she hit me, saying âyou always say just the right thingsâ. I may never understand how something that makes a woman want to cry and strike a man can be considered âjust the right thingâ. She takes my face in her hands, looking in my eyes and says, âyou are more than good enoughâ. I kiss her instead of arguing. She would only disagree. I am not, nor will I ever be good enough for her. But no one is. Iâm only okay with that because sheâs mine. And because Iâll never stop striving to be exactly the kind of man she deserves. Sheâs worth at least that.
I was thinking of throwing this silly notebook away and now Iâm writing in it. I donât know that Iâll ever write in it again, but I seem to be unable to bear the thought of discarding it. It may be a sentimental decision, but Iâm keeping the journal. Apparently, it says just the right things.
Since this journal is yours now, I guess I can stop referring to you in the third person. Hi there, Little Smile. All of that was so long ago, but it doesnât seem that way. You know Iâm awful with dates (or as I like to say, âchronologically challengedâ) and Iâm guessing youâre surprised I would remember an anniversary of when we first talked. You tell me youâre fine with me occasionally forgetting dates, because I remember whatâs really important. With some things, it isnât so much remembering as being unable to forget.
One last sojourn into the memory vault:
It was right before we moved in together, I was in the comfy chair, in pajama bottoms. You werenât wearing much at all, only my unbuttoned shirt. I pulled you onto my lap and you laid your head against my shoulder. I touched your chin, tilting your head up to me and said, âIâm keeping youâ. As you can see, I meant it.
I hope you enjoyed this old notebook, my musings of secret fears, hopes and infatuations. Reading it over, I can see I donât have the same fears I once did, and my hopes with you have changed, as well. The infatuations, though, have stayed the same. You are a source of endless fascination to me.
I could fill the rest of these pages with ways I love your eyes or your skin. I could talk about how you make this absurd life meaningful. I could rattle off the innumerable ways in which you are unfairly sexy. But Iâm leaving the remainder of these pages blank. Itâs an open chapter, another horizon for us to explore.
I look forward to the days ahead and look dearly on the days weâve had together. I still carry you around in my blood. And in my pocket. It still pleases me that when someone catches me with a mysterious smile on my face, itâs you. You are that little smile.
Happy Anniversary, baby.
-Yours, yours, yours, without reserve,
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
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