A Priori Adoris

Perhaps the product of fleeting phantasmagoria.

 

I saw her from across the room, crimson lips parted over a glass of scotch.  I had drunk lakes of passion dry, and yet, looking at her, I felt as though I’d never tasted lust until my eyes had swallowed her.  I licked my lips, a sweat sprouting instantly from my forehead.  I knew instantly I would never know that particular heaven that was her kiss, but I dreamed of it all the same.

I realized I was staring too late, her dark green eyes like chemical fires scanned to me and became affixed.  I could see the question forming in her mind.  Why is he looking at me like that?  Her head tilted mere nanometers in quizzicality.  I sucked in a breath and was painfully aware of the awkwardness I exuded.  All the practice in the world, and a pretty face can bring you back to the gawky nervous adolescent you were in high school.  I couldn’t even avert my eyes, transfixed as I was by her gaze and unspoken question.  I tried at a half smile and felt I had failed miserably.

Surprisingly she offered back what I thought was a warm conciliatory smile before taking another slow swallow from her glass.  I thought this farce was coming to a close, but I noticed her eyes had never left mine.  Surprisingly the extended eye contact did not perturb, nor seem uncouth.  I felt I was sharing a secret with a lover, expressing a hunger I felt in my marrow.  I felt she felt this too. 

I was afraid to end the contact, either by engaging or fleeing.  I wanted that moment, that feeling to pervade the rest of my existence.  I wanted to lose myself in it, to become catatonic under its power.  Before I was aware of my actions I was moving towards her, slow deliberate steps I had never before been able to make.  They had a power of their own, and I was simply carried in their wake.

I sat across from her, noticing that the glass had never left her lips.  I could see her chest moving in short, fast heaves.  She was afraid, and I suddenly felt ashamed I had forced my presence upon her.  I looked away, heat rising to my cheeks.  I looked back, mouth open with the beginnings of apology when her hand found mine on the table.  Somehow I kept myself from jerking it back in reaction.  Her skin was fire and lightning.  I looked down to my hand, mouth still slightly agape.  The red fingernail polish matched her lips perfectly.  For the first time, I found my voice, and it cracked from unuse.

“I have to know you.”

“I know,” was all she said in reply.  Her voice was light, with anticipation, but I could hear the strength inherent in it beneath the willowy fear.   She lowered her head, and her oaken curls fell over her face.  I had never experienced so many perfect moments in a row before.  It was like predestination, and we were helpless before the weave.

I swallowed hard, gathering my resolve into my lungs.  “I have never seen anything half so viscerally beautiful as you drinking scotch in my long, bitter life.  I have seen the temples in Singapore, the beaches of Australia, the markets of Bahrain, and none of these are as simply perfect as your lips upon that glass.  I have never spoken this way before, to anyone.  I have never truly wanted anything, like I want to know you.”

For a while, she sat quietly, staring at me.  I could feel her hand tremble over mine and I watched her swallow her fear.  “At first I wasn’t sure why you were looking at me.  I figured it was the same as every other man here, ogling me and thinking…,” she shook her head and continued, “But then you swallowed me with your eyes.  I felt helpless under them.  I’ve never seen hunger before, not pure, unadulterated like that.  I never knew I wanted to be looked at like that.”

She tightened her grasp on my hand, rising from her chair.  Reflexively I followed her up, and she led me out of the bar, into a night that we didn’t inhabit, so much as it surrounded us.

Reviews

[Heather]

I was captivated as soon as I finished the first sentence. The ending was also blissful, I loved how you ended it with how the night surrounded you both. The conversation in the middle seemed like it should have been introspective instead of spoken out, but that could be because no man has EVER talked to me that way. I have only read it in books that men talk like that. I could start rambling here about that but let me stick to my review...Very well done, I loved the language, it created a great picture. I say any woman you meet in a bar that drinks scotch like that...should be walked up to indeed. And where are the men that talk like that? That is the man every woman wants to meet.

[Kenneth Compton]

I suppose the problem is that men that talk like that always tends to look like me! lol Thanks for the kind words. I don't exactly know why I wrote that story, but I'm glad you liked it.