This happens to me so rarely, that I feel immediately seen. It happened once before and set me up for nefarious means so that reminder bangs around my brain. Tread carefully. I feel clumsy, my limbs are loose like glue being squeezed through a spout.

Everything speeds up again. My mouth is dry, sweat prickles at my armpits. Oh, shit. Now I’m moving too quickly, overcompensating for the treacle it felt I had just been encapsulated in.

Soon we sit across from each other, trying to decipher the story the other’s skin tells. Cockerel and king, moon and marigold. Each glancing at the other and ricocheting when feeling discovered. Glances that say so much in silence – yes, yes, I can feel it too.

I feel the cadence of my breath conveying what my voice cannot. I want to sit here for hours taking him in, to overdose on lust and breath. I don’t care about anyone else sitting there. Not at all. I want to savour this person, enjoy him like a thick milkshake, taking my time, pausing while he melts a little more, allowing me to suck him in. 

A sense of intimacy makes me want to reach out and touch his arm, I can’t, I don’t know this person. I’m on a swing rushing forwards, his image becomes massive, filling my field of vision as I swing into him. But I retreat just as he gets close enough to taste, hastening back before shattering upon impact.

It goes on like this for a while, each of us oscillating to and from the other. A burning rush of knowing only to be whipped back to reality. I’m hyper aware of my body, I can feel him slyly looking, in that way men can do, and I don’t care. I am not self conscious. Eat me, roll me around in your mouth, slurp me up like gnocchi.

My memory is punctuated by these intense moments. Hours elapse and I’m waltzing through them, feet only grazing the surface. I feel myself preening, the scarce times that I drench myself in extroversion, saving it for when it counts. I want him to want it all. My hands are supine under his gaze, my jugular revealed. It’s all here for you.

I provoked him with Pony and Poison, revealing my every intention with no shame. All the while aware of every tickled glimpse, every enquiry, every smell. All of it tingling with a sense of urgency. Yes, yes, I can feel it too.

Hours clamped in that awkward embrace, everyone could see. The unfurling of two creatures gives off a distinct odour, the atoms around them vibrate. We hissed together, amusing the onlookers, those hours spent, clamped in that awkward embrace, my foot in his armpit.

He curled around my legs, so close I could feel the substance of his breath and the blaze of his body. Watching me watching him. Everything so hushed and immediate, all words spoken without hesitation, divulging so much in tone and emphasis. Usually I’d be reserved, impassive, wishing to control too much of myself so as not to feel exposed. This time I didn’t care, I wanted him to see it all and rip me to shreds.

The indiscreet power of anima and animus projected us through time. I lost myself in him for a moment, arriving that night with a massive whump, back in the now. Oh, to have stayed lost in that glorious soup of infatuation and desire. Allowed myself to say “fuck it” and sacrifice my reality for a few hours more.

I gave myself permission to indulge in his majesty before running away. Watching his beautiful long, deft hands move over another while appreciating the feel of his voice boom through my chest. All the things he said and did, sprinkled with a wicked grin – yes, yes, I can feel it too. 

I love remembering this. Him preening for me. Everything we had done mirrored the other. Such a luscious memory to dip into, like being draped in heavy velvet, mmm, I could crush the hell out of him.

But I ran, into the night, looking back for only a moment and seeing him full of bewilderment. I wanted to call out from the darkness, tell him “I can’t” even this would have ruined me. I didn’t stand a chance.

In those moments that man had plunged his hands into my chest. Feeling around with tenderness until he found a rib, gripping the one he had endeavoured to find, caressing it. “There my dear.” He tied a tether to that rib, it would bind me to him forever. While the tether may have eroded, the knot remains, until my bones crumble, the knot remains. Sometimes I reach in there and touch the knot, reminding myself of that sliver of time. I think about it until I’m slick and ashamed.

Oh, shit.