Page 19 of Way Down Deep

You make me spend ages coming up with just the right colour of my eyes—something pretty, but also something that isn’t lies. They are smooth stones at the bottom of the ocean, dull at first glance, I think, but hinting at a hidden blue light. And when I’m done with thinking this up, I turn to my hands, as soft and plump as sleeping birds.

They look new, my hands. As if I’ve never done a thing with them.

I suppose I haven’t. I’ve never slid my fingers over the hard slant of a man’s shoulder blade, searching for all the grooves and jutting parts that I so long to feel. I don’t know what it’s like to find the parts of his body that make him gasp and arch.

But I know where they are.

I think about where they are on you.

I would be thinking about them as you kissed me, on that platform.

Tell me more about kissing me on the platform.

11.19pm

I’d start softly, just a glancing of my lips, the tiniest bump of the tips of our noses, the mingling of shallow exhalations, the rough brush of my chin against yours. I’m habitually overdue for a shave, so while the touch is gentle, my jaw won’t be. I hope that’s all right.

I’d want to kiss you so softly that it’s like a whisper in the crowd. Make you focus until the bustle of the platform fades to nothing and you can hear my breathing and the parting of our lips. So quiet I can hear the pulse that’s thumping against my hand.

Now you tell me what comes next. If this is your first kiss, let’s make it everything you’ve been wanting. Worthy of a movie.

It seems there’s so much you’ve never experienced. I won’t make a fetish of it, but I won’t lie—I want to be the one to bring those things to you.

You say your hands are like birds. Have you heard of bowerbirds? I saw a documentary about them when I first moved here. They live in Papua New Guinea, and the males build these elaborate nests to impress the females. They stack and pile and ornament them with bright, ripe berries and shiny beetle shells and flowers and stones and all sorts of things.

That’s what I’d want to do. Lay everything out before you, every sensation and sound and smell and sight and taste that comes with sex, sweet and dark and filthy alike, and watch you inspect and explore every one. Watch you unwrap each new thing like a candy and slip it past your lips, hover it under your nose, hold it to your ear or cup it in your hands.

Now you tell me, how do you want to be kissed?

11.50pm

Ohhhh yes that all sounds so good. The way you want to touch me. The things you want to offer me. But please don’t be afraid of making it a fetish, if the fetish makes me feel like this.

All new and open and ready, just waiting for you to go farther.

Because that’s what I want.

Farther.

More.

Faster.

Filthier.

I want your kisses somewhere other than my lips, every single one of them rough with that stubble, burning with that stubble. Turn the skin of my throat red with it, and don’t you dare stop there. Every inch of my body is as pale as milk—it all needs marking. It needs you to score great grooves into the curves and planes, until I’m covered.

Until I’m gasping.

Because I know I would be. I run rough things over my throat, the slope of my breasts, my stomach, just thinking if that’s how it would feel. And when I think I have it right, the air rushes out of me. Sounds push past my lips—ones that I’ve never let out before. Usually I put my fist in my mouth. I cover my face with a pillow.

But somehow I think that would be the wrong move with you.

I think you would want to hear me.

Oh god, I hope you would want to hear me.

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