Maybe I really want…

Sometimes I lay awake at night and think I’m a reincarnation of a person who isn’t even dead yet. I know that sounds super fucked up, but when you listen to a song and every word is spot on how you feel – how can you not?

Especially when you’re so accustomed to dreams that are so vivid, so complex, you are convinced they are a past life memory.

And what I wouldn’t give to find a soulmate. Someone else to catch this drift.

I don’t sleep much, sometimes. I often go a month with no nights sleep of more than 4 hours sleep in a row. I get a bit wired. I get a bit strung out. I say things I shouldn’t, or that I don’t mean. The nightmares leave me in a waking sweat, or on the surprisingly rising frequency – waking screaming. It’s good I live alone now.

Does it even matter anymore, anymore?

And all I really want is some peace man. A place to find a common ground. And all I really want is a wavelength.

Awakening Dreams

Awkward silence.

I sometimes wonder if it’s just me that notices. Notices the way he slyly grins at me with a curious expectation, and how I have nothing to say. The dead air falls between us, and it is evident to the others standing around the table – drink in hand. Worse, it’s evident to him.

I have things to say. I have words. I have actions, too. None of them are appropriate for the company we keep tonight. I can see through his steel gaze and I know he has similar thoughts – but he’s tired.

He’s always tired, now.

So am I. But I know how to fake it. I know how to play hard and work hard, and there is a certain respect you earn from that. Having said that, he will always have my respect. I will always want his approval. I will always strive to make him look at me with that awe I glimpse in his eyes occasionally. What ever it takes. Literally.

The night draws on and he vanishes without even saying goodbye. It’s a clear message and doesn’t surprise me. My actions probably deserved it – I couldn’t even hold small talk. I just stood there undressing him with my eyes, as he did to me. Alarm bells for everyone around us. I could have at least asked about Christmas…

Three days later I awake from a strange dream which features him. Those feelings I was trying so hard to suffocate surfaced, stronger than ever before. A loneliness crept between the sheets of my bed and seeped under my skin.

I thought I had rid myself of this hateful curse…

Goodbye, again

“Do you have a minute for me to pop in and say goodbye?”

“Of course I do.”

I open the door and enter, and he instantly smiles. I feels so at home. I hate it. I walk over to his desk and drop my bag.

“Take a seat,” he indicates across his desk. I pull a chair towards him and sit, straddling the back rest, facing him. His eyes close slowly and his smile broadens.

“So, where are you going?” He asks, opening his eyes slowly and watching me.

“I’m doing some contract work. Make a lot of money in a short period of time. You know how it goes.”

He nods, relaxes a little. “Where from there…?” he watches me, curiosity crawling across his face. But I feel like he knows the answer.

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to work out what I want to do with my life. I think I might travel a bit. Just go to places where I find people interesting and see what I think. See if I find my feet that way.” I feel so relaxed now. I feel our souls talking to each other. We fit, we match. It’s so right and so wrong and so perfect and so…

“You have freedom. You can go and find your calling in life. Is it worse to be trapped? So you know you want to find something else, you know this isn’t what you want to do… but you have to do it. To pay the bills. Is that worse than having no income but so much freedom?”

I instantly realise he’s talking about himself and his situation, but I don’t want to let it on. I like to toy with him like a cat and her half dead rat.

“I don’t understand the question? Are you saying is what I’m experiencing worse than having a job you hate?”

He smiles, and looks me dead in the eye. “That’s exactly it.”

“Why aren’t you happy?” I jump straight to the point. His sly smile that I love so much, that I want to kiss off his face and treasure, grows across his face, “you’re the one who wanted this. You told me that. You said how much you wanted this job.”

“Sometimes… ” he pauses and looks out the window, which is unlike him. I want to hold him. In moments like this we seem the same age, with the same problems, with the same missing pieces of each other that we need… “I feel like there’s more to life than this office.”

Silence falls between us because I’m grinning like a stupid love-struck teenager at a school dance.

“I know exactly what you mean. And there is. And maybe we will never find it.”

His smile returns and he gives me that knowing look where he sees inside me, and I share that and see inside him.

“You know,” I say, standing up and preparing to leave, “you and me. We’re people who want what we can’t have. We will never be satisfied by what we have in the moment.”

He stands up and embraces me. His chest against mine brings back memories. My knees shake and I hold him tighter. He responds in kind. Then we part.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says, holding my hand a minute.

“I don’t think I could be.”

Just…

His hand traces my collarbone…

So gently. I arch my neck backwards, exposing more of my chest. I want his hand to linger and explore further, roll down the curve of my breast.

He pulls back a moment but leans forward. I can feel his breath gentle on my neck, and he turns his head – unsure if he will kiss me below my ear of whisper a dirty tale to make me groan.

I remember just hours before. I lean in another office dorway, making serious conversation. He walks past and our eyes meet; he makes a point of swooping my figure once more and grinning like a lion finding his prey. I meet his stare and grin back.

Yes. I look good. I’ve lost 4 kg since sunday and the boys notice. I don’t mind.

He goes his way for the day, and I go mine. Later, I walk past a meeting room as he exits. Our eyes lock. A smile, so foreign to my lips, sneaks across my mouth; a longing… A patience worn thin… An exchange of some deeper recognition. The smile is returned with a darkness in his eyes which has always made me want to undress. I sigh and return to my desk.

Many hours later the office is quiet. I work patiently on a project I wish to use to impress a client. The buzz of the aircon switches off, indicating the hour after which I should have already left for the day. Slowly, I pack up to leave.

Then he is there.

Everything about it is unchanged. Such passion. I break a button on his shirt, he rips the zip on my dress. 

I had missed this.

And here he is, about to kiss my neck. I shut my eyes and pretend it is him.  The man I still long for like a lovestruck teenager. In reality, this new found fling treats me right. And for now, this will do.

But soon the teasing needs to end.

Your illusion is more than what you could know.

“We’re not 16 anymore”

Speak for yourself, I wish to reply. Shove it in his face. Shame him. Make him feel how I feel right now, when he shows me the truth – someone finally brave enough to show me the mirror. “See,” I feel him say, “Look at yourself. See what you’ve become. Are you proud?”

“Does that matter?” I answer to both his imaginary response and the reality.

I look into his eyes. So much honesty is there – I’m pleasantly surprised. He doesn’t come across as someone who would be so brutally honest. For the first time, in a long time, I feel bad about it. I enjoy being bad, normally. I enjoy labels with a connotation suggesting I wear leather and g-strings of lace. It’s not entirely un-true, but if the illusion is true… is it then just a stereotype?

“To me it does.”

Ouch.

I’m not used to this. Even married men don’t have this level of integrity around me. I enjoy it, though. I watch as he downs the last of his beer, smiles, and goes to leave.

I reach out, my hand on his.

“Why don’t you stay… just a bit.” He sits back down, a curious but excited expression in his eyes; “I have handcuffs in my car that need christening.”

He smiles then, and leans toward me. His eyes do that thing I am so accustomed to – since puberty.

“I’d love to. But you’re taken.”

And for the first time in my life, that is actually an issue.

I did not make this. Someone else did. Thank you.

Dangerously, Mr Spader.

I lean on his desk, slowly and seductively stretching my legs out towards him, leaning on the heel of my knee high boots. His eyes follow my legs, linger, and then again follow my body to my face. I smile, seductively. I don’t want any possible misunderstanding.

His hand rests on my thigh, and I allow it. I don’t move at all, just watch his face. He isn’t very good at poker faces and that sly cheshire cat smile clearly shares with me that his thoughts are as dishonest as my own.

“You know,” I break the awkward silence, “you’re my James Spader.”

His face wrinkles into a tell-tale confused expression, and I long to press my palm to his cheek and kiss his lips. But I don’t. That’s not appropriate here.

“Boston Legal? The Blacklist?” His eyes soften as he recognises the names, “he brings out the worst in woman. The way he looks at you, the way he talks. He makes you want to do bad things in glass offices.” His hand climbs my thigh, and I open move my leg a little. Yes, you’re welcome here.

“That’s an interesting take on things,” he says while his eyes take in my tight singlet and equally tight jeans, “what makes me like him?”

I’m getting too confident, I know. I don’t know if he likes it, but I assume so with how his hand lingers and his eyes wander. “You have similar mannerisms. It’s a good thing.” Why does he do this to me? I’m weak to his touch and his stare. I get nervous. I’m trying so hard to act confident and in charge of the situation, but I’ve told no lies – this man has an effect on me like none I’ve ever experienced. I may as well let it all out, I guess: “I don’t see you for weeks, months, on end. I think you mean nothing. I convince myself of it. I think I can move on. Then you appear out of nowhere and I can’t think of anything else,” I sigh watching his hand grip my inner thigh gently, “it’s… ”

I don’t know what it is. Maybe he does?

“Dangerously exciting?” He is grinning while his hand doesn’t falter.

“You hit the nail on the head.” I want to kiss him. I want him to undress me. His hand falls from my thigh, and his eyes say it all.

Yes, but not here.

Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.

I don’t know where I am half the time. In my head I swim in circles. I’m easy to impress, I tend to be overly positive and ambitious, and when I fail… well, I fall into a deep depression of anxiety.

I thought it was because I was someone else. I was always trying to be a different person. I’m never me, I’m never the same. Everyone knows a different version of me and who I am and what I am. Maybe that’s who I am. A bitza, created by different pieces of the same species. A mutt no one wants to adopt at the pound.

It would be fine if I didn’t feel so passionately about some things. But I do. And it changes, frequently. Is that okay? Again – I’m just swimming in circles with the thoughts in my head. “Is this okay? No. But maybe… if?”

I’m away so much. For work, for study. I’m learning so much. About myself, about life. I’ve become so much more than I used to be – I used to be someone drifting unsure between bedrooms in the night, looking for something to make me whole and settle me down. That’s not what I am and I know this now. It’s okay to be lost for your life time. You learn a lot more than those who aren’t. We’re a rare breed of mutt.

I meet new people. New men without rings on their fingers or woman at home. They don’t always interest me but are fun while I’m away, others are a bit more fascinating. They tell me stories which amuse me, or they just flatter me. I don’t mind that. I’m not used to being called gorgeous, beautiful or sexy. I know I am, but my confidence turns most men away. That’s how I find those who are more interesting.

It’s late at night while I watch the news alone. My phone lights up.

“I’m missing seeing you every day.”

I want to reply with “join the club” but I don’t. I’m disappointed it’s not from the man who does have a ring on his finger and commitments to keep. I always day dream that one day I will get that call, that everything was pushed aside and he’s all mine.

It’s a day dream. I need to let it go.

Mistakes

“Tell me about the beaded g-string.”

I can’t help myself. I’m a green eyed monster, and I’m getting old. While my skin is still flawless and men dream of caressing it, my body taught and slim, fit yet soft, I am still aging. I feel it internally. I don’t function as I used to. But at this, I can still pretend.

I watch as his eyes change and that smile I adore crosses his lips. I’m still so confused as to the purpose of that grin. I adore it. I dream about it. When I close my eyes it burns my eyelids. There’s something about those lips…

“What do you mean?” He leans close and I notice how I could reach out and unbutton  his shirt. My hands grasp the table top.

“Once you told me there were three. Two others besides myself. And the first… Well, you know.” I can’t watch his face anymore because of how I feel. Bursting from the inside out. Millions of memories telling their story now.

His hand touches my shoulder and my skin tingles fiercely in response. I want him, it seems to say, let him carry you away. But my mind is intact. I lean back I meet his eyes. I can’t smile.

“Apparently she was a lot like me…”

His silence and the lost twinkle in his eye makes me regret bringing it up. Instantly I try to console him, hand to chest.

He gets up and leaves. I don’t blame him. 

Back here

I love him.

I try so hard not to think of him, to move past him, to strike him from my mind… But every now and then I see him, my heart skips a beat and I can’t think about anything else. I turn red. My eyes glaze over. I can’t handle another woman flirting with him or him ignoring me. But he has to. I need to accept it.

But I love him.

And it hurts so much more now that I’m back in this city where the waves crash the shore and we swam together, solving the problems of the world… And I want so badly to re-live it. I feel it is a requirement for me to breathe and I can’t commute it in my mind.

Because I love him.

I shouldn’t, I can’t… It’s desire, and it makes no sense in this setting. It’s not right. It’s all so wrong.

But I love him.

So in the flash hotel with the sea views I curl in my bed and cry silently about memories, about dreams, about pain, about unspoken promises… And somewhere in my confused mind I hear the words,

“But I love him.”

I should have confessed this to him years ago.

Where the world swings

It’s so hard to pretend.

I used to be the queen of fake. I would scream in false ecstasy while a man was on top of me, I would feign care when a familiar face would come to me with a problem. I was good at it. People believed me and liked me for it.

Now I turn bright red when he enters a room. Now I stutter when I see him. Now I can’t stop thinking about him, even two hours at the gym pounding out my feelings leaves me wanting him more.

I can’t tell if I’m lying to myself now. Did I come back for myself, for my family, for my career? That’s what I tell everyone, when the awkward questions arise. But in reality, when I’m unable to sleep at night, I have to question my motive.

Because seeing him, speaking to him… Touching him… It arouses something I can’t be without.

He isn’t visible anymore. He hides behind doors too heavy and important for me to open. He has watch dogs, and he doesn’t need to voice how careful we need to be. I can sense it, and as much as I have less to lose than he, it still wouldn’t be wise to attract attention.

But how I long for it.

The subtle touch of his hand on my shoulder. I can’t help myself, my eyes shut and I lean into his body – our souls appreciating completion in that moment of stillness. So close. We could be set in stone like this, I think, and nothing would change.

Then the door handle turns and his hand drops, my head slips and I open my eyes – blushing. A school kid caught behind the bicycle shed. I am no one, the burning red cheeks go unnoticed as I slip out the door and into the hall way. An anonymous shadow flirting with the boss. So common.

If only.

I don’t know how to act anymore. I don’t know if I should escape, which would make sense, or if I should go with the flow. The latter is dangerous. I don’t want second best anymore.

I’m hungry for reciprocal feelings, and that’s not fair of me.

But I long for it.