Next to her

You’re sitting next to her and she’s talking about her life and you want to know everything about her: What makes her laugh, what makes her smile, what makes her happy, what makes her sad. You want to know her favorite everything: colors, books, films, singers. You want to ask her endless questions and you thought you’d never want to ask those questions again. But here you are, doing it again. And it feels good. It feels real.

As you listen, you can’t help gazing into her eyes and wonder what the world looks like for her and you’re thinking you’d like to watch those eyes close before she goes to sleep and you definitely want to be there when she opens them again in the morning. You’re thinking of her mouth, you’re restraining yourself from kissing her, because you know she doesn’t want you to, but you want to so bad, it almost hurts. You have a feeling that her lips would taste like raspberries. Her skin like apricot. And if you can’t kiss her, you’d like to brush her lips with the tip of your thumb, with your eyes closed, to not just see her, but feel her.

Of course you also look at her fingers as she talks and you wonder what it would be like if you could hold her hands. For just a minute. Hold her hand, caress her tongue with your tongue and look into her eyes. Sensory overload. It is unthinkable.

Of course, you can’t help but think of the other things, such as what is her favorite position in bed and what her moans sound like, or if she bites her lower lip to stifle the screams. You wonder what it would be like to run your fingers all over her naked body and use your tongue, from her neck to her perfectly-shaped breasts, to her flat stomach and lower still. And you're thinking about falling asleep next to her, holding her, basking in the afterglow, your bodies still glistening with sweat.

Meanwhile, she’s still talking and you’re still listening and you wonder what her boyfriend looks like and if he knows how lucky he is and if he treats her right. If he makes her smile at least once a day. If he dreams of her nightly and feels inspired by her.

You hope so. You really do. Because hope is all you have.