There is an explosive amount of chemistry here. It’s visceral, palpable, electric, raw. It comes out when we tie, when we fuck, when we talk, when we catch eyes across the room and smile. It’s movement and energy. There is nothing static here; it feeds and builds and brings muscles to move, grasping, squeezing, holding. It’s a chemistry that drips of sex appeal and aesthetics. It’s the kind of thing you want to see because it looks like film noir and grunge, sensuous and sharp like the afterbite of spice.
That part is easy. It’s pretty, it’s engulfing, it’s an energy shot straight to the heart, an adrenaline boost, a coiled spring. It’s fun. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t come for this; of course I did. The spike, the rush, the liquid heat of sweat and liquor and cigarettes mix like paint on my skin, staining me burgundy and gold. Of course I came for this.
But it’s not the thing that resonates through the steady mountain drive, with the same songs repeating over and over until I can’t hear the words anymore. It’s not the flash and sparkle, the obvious, the parts that anyone can see just by watching the way we interact. It’s softer. Quieter. The moments of collision where movement stops.
A glass of good scotch and I’m rambling because I get wordsy when I drink. Stories and memories and tales that sound fantastical outside of context- and maybe inside, too, if the context of my life wasn’t already a bit dependent on suspension of reality- and he’s listening, rapt attention, drinking in words that are gushing like waterfalls.
Later: “I like your stories. I like hearing them,” he says and, straddling him, I can feel the rumble of his words reverberating through his chest and into my thighs and my skin soaks it in without a thought to question or wonder why.
Admiring his handiwork, my love of boxes and craftsmanship and luminescence colliding in a singular piece on the table, and he scoops up something small and red sitting on top.
“For you.” He hands me a small Charmander made from a 3D printer, and all I can think about is that this disturbingly pretty and delightfully sadistic boy compared my hair to the Charmander evolution line, and it makes me melt a little more each time I see him light up with silly, nerdy glee.
These moments. The ones where we curled up watching Princess Mononoke and ate messy, cheesy tater tots at a local sandwich shop, when he looks at me and sees me in moments when I have no guard and no filter-and I remember being afraid to let him see these places in me- and a different light comes into his eyes when he smiles.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask, each time it happens.
He shrugs, smiles more. “Nothing,” he says, “I’m just happy.”
“I’m just happy,” he says, and I realize that he is reminding me how to breathe, how to close my eyes and take a leap and he is holding out his hand, coming with me. I’m scared, but I can feel his hand in mine. I can’t breathe and I am jumping anyway and trusting these rusty, old wings will find their beat and he’s watching me and smiling and likes what he sees and fuck, I’m silly and smitten and I had forgotten how much fun flying can be.
And so I remember the way his hands grasped at the sheets before he came, and I remember the way he looked at me after. And I remember the way his face looks when he’s thinking about something I’ve asked, the why or the how behind an action or feeling, parsing out words in his mind and fumbling through them out loud. I remember the feeling of waking up beside him, realizing that I slept through the night in someone else’s room, beside the unfamiliar pitch of someone else’s body and waking to the contented light of a red glow. And I remember fumbling my way through words that were important to say- because I needed to say them, not necessarily because he needed to hear them- and not knowing how to look at him but feeling the smile coming through the sunlight.
That smile, though. That smile gets me every time.
And I remember the moments when everything else falls away, the freezeframed moments, the pause before exhale, the infinite time between seconds where my stomach drops and I suddenly remember that flying is the first step to falling, but I’ve already let go of the ground.
Monomaniacism 