Sorry this one's a bit short, it was far more difficult to write than I anticipated. I knew where I was coming from, and I know how the next chapter will go, but I wasn't quite sre the best way to get from point a to b.

But thanks for sticking it out and reading!

Needless to say you didn’t rest much that weekend. You were nothing but teeth and nails and jutting hips, throaty moans and heady sighs. You left me breathless and bruised, the sound of my name through breathless pants ringing in my ears. I wanted nothing more than to discover every inch of your milky flesh, further enveloping myself in your intoxicating heat. The floodgates had opened, leaving us with an unquenchable thirst for one another.

Soon there was no longer an inch of my apartment that didn’t leave lingering thoughts of you, and my desire to further engrain those memories. Glimpses in the mirror would surely show hues of purples and blues on my taunt skin. Reminders of your touch, your heady breath, your weight against mine. (I was yours, you’d breathe between nips, and you wanted it to show.)

Space where words were left unspoken, was always shortly filled by the warmth of our skin. We never spoke of what we were, it seemed we didn’t need to; the air between us left little to question. Nights with you lasted longer than they had previously on my barstool. They now trailed from stool into supply closets, your car, my bed. (And plenty of places in between.)

What we had found together was beyond lust, it was more than the simple craving of flesh. It was a craving of connection. It was sweet glances, grazing fingertips, fleeting kisses. It was sighs and moans and friction. Anything to stave off the bitter chill of distance. For now it seemed that was all we needed. (That was all I’d ever need.)

I was you muse, you laughed one evening, fingers running deftly across ivory, ledger lines filling with your scribblings of composition homework. Nothing was better than these evenings to me. You sitting at your piano, speaking through triplets and trills and rests, spilling every thought that words could never quite articulate. You were more than a muse to me. You were the fire in my chest, the air in my lungs; the divine spark of life. 

Things were less worrying in your presence. The angry storm of discontent within me calmed in your arms. You slept with your head on my chest. To hear the life course through me, you mumbled into my shoulder when I inquired one night. It was more your life than my own, I thought; the steady beat of your heart against my ribs resonated through every sinew and vein, easily overpowering the weak rhythm of my own. (Though on occasion, i couldn’t help but find it beating in time with yours.) In moments like these I wanted nothing more than to halt time, stay the coming morning and the reality it brought with it forever.

They were always hard to face, but the school day would always pass, offices hours would tick to a close, and evenings brought you back to me. It would be you and me in our hole in the wall. Drinks would flow, you’d share your bright smile with customers I couldn’t help but deem unworthy. (Not that I ever began to find myself worthy of the warm gazes and hidden smiles you bestowed upon only me.) And still the clock would tick on, and it was just a matter of time until you were in my arms again, creating a tangle of limbs and lips desperate for one another as though we had spent a lifetime apart. (Though the twenty five years I spent without you was already more than enough.)

Life would not always allow our desire for each other. Exams would come, business trips would rear their ugly head. Cram sessions and late nights at the office would leave us parted. It left us both tossing and turning, beds too large, too cold for just one body anymore.

Mornings without your warmth beside me were my undoing. Without you I was left alone with my thoughts. (A dangerous situation.) Each toss and turn under the cold white sheets brought back the destructive haze that fogged my thoughts and clouded my perception. The more I thought with each passing day, the more I realized I could not possess you forever (not that I deserved to) and the longer I was by your side the more certain I became it would just be harder to let you go. I knew I couldn’t just watch you walk away. (The bruises your footprints would leave on my heart would surely never fade.)