I wake, and roll over, and feel weird. Sweaty. I look at the clock at the side of my bed and it’s 5am. What time did I fall asleep?
I pull my legs up and I think I’m wearing jeans. And I’ve sweated right through them. All my clothes. I messaged my sister!
I groan and roll over again, trying to get back to sleep but I’m really uncomfortable and I’m so out of sorts, so on edge, I know sleep won’t be coming.
I do a few laps around the apartment, not knowing what I’m looking for, feeling my clothes weigh me down then realise I should probably just shower.
It’s a long shower, cleaning up my legs, pits, my crotch again, the few stray hairs that sprouted up on my chest. I’m going out later — I tell myself I am definitely going out —so I won’t do my makeup straight away but I will be shaving twice. Then I let the water pour over me. I wash my hair, and again it’s time for more water to cover me.
As I stand beneath the shower head I think I could really do with a bath. Just soaking. Would it be weird to ask Steve if I could bathe at his place?
It would, definitely, I tell myself. It’s probably filthy anyway. Although thinking back to my time in his apartment he does do the basics of cleaning. Which reminds me I should probably do some cleaning myself. And I should really have done it before I showered. And now my day is set out before me.
I dry off, get dressed. The looser, darker jeans today and I don’t know why but I want a sparkly top. This one is purple and has a gold leaf pattern printed on it. It goes down to mid forearm where it’s cuffed in little ties. I feel normal in it. Relatively normal. I’m kind of getting sick of these breast forms, though. I want my own. I want my own boobs so bad. I try to think of what it’d be like, what kind of breasts I want. But I don’t know. I suppose that’s for the fates to decide.
I check the fridge and it’s extremely bare. I have more instant noodles, I always have instant noodles, but I’m not having those for breakfast. Instead I do the last two slices of bacon from when G cooked, and the last of my bread. It’ll have to do.
Then it’s sitting down to work.
I’m a few hours into getting the draft of the final report done when I realise Greg hasn’t called. I check my phone to see if I missed him but there’s nothing missed. There is a message from my sister. “Did you change your name? As your older sibling I should have some say with a new name. I decided on Tony, you know.”
“Toni, with an i. You can help me pick a middle name, maybe.”
I push my sister’s text from my mind. Why would I pick a different name? And she’s messaged me more times now than ever before with three messages in twenty-four hours.
I really have to get this draft done, though. And I do. A rough outline, or a little bit more than a rough outline. All the words are there, whether they’re in the right order, without mistakes and making sense is a different matter. If someone looked at the document from ten feet away, on the screen, it’d look like any other normal report, but up close?
For lunch I do make some noodles. Then I shave again and do my makeup. I stuff the samples of the BB cream into my purse, I’m going to have to actually buy some of this, and then I sit back down to read the report. Just give it a once over. A simple read through to make sure it’s in proper English. Instead I find I’m catching mistake after mistake.
I go through it yet another time. There’s nothing obvious I can see apart from tightening language. But it’s only really what I can see. I know this document is fresh to me so I won’t be able to make it out with the clarity I should. And I don’t really have the time to gain that clarity; the distance I need to gain it.
I pull up the office number on my phone and dial Greg’s number. He picks up, “Hi, Tony.”
“Greg, is it possible for me to get someone to read through my report before I finalise it?”
“You’ve got a draft done?”
“I have, but it’s all fresh to me. I’m not sure if I can see the mistakes that are still in there.”
Greg gives a Hrrmm down the phone and then says, “OK, let me check the office.” He pauses. “Do you know Mallory?”
“Short girl? Blonde?”
“Dumpy! Yeah, that’s her. Do you have her email address?” he asks, while I’m thinking he really shouldn’t call anyone dumpy.
I check through my address book and find what looks like her email address. I call it out to Greg.
“Yeah, that’s her. Send it through to her. She’ll have until, let’s say 11am Monday morning to get back to you. Is that good for you?”
“Yeah, that’s great Greg. And will you thank her for me?”
“Wait until you see her work, first. Don’t you think?”
I wait a few minutes, run a spellcheck a final time then send the document through to Mallory, hitting all the points I agreed with Greg in my explanation to her. There’s nothing else to do. Someone else has my report now and I just need to wait and see what they make of it.
I think I really should get some shopping done, for the sandals at least, for my pedicure, and maybe some more ramen for the kitchen. Before I leave the apartment I message Jess and Sally asking if we’re going out tonight, then I get to walking.
I go back to the supermarket that’s done me well the whole time and dig around everywhere, even into their out-of-season, leftovers bins, but there’s no sandals that I can find. Nothing like I imagined anyway.
I go around the store another two times but there’s not even a sniff of something suitable. I suppose Fall isn’t really a put your toes on display season. At least not unless it’s a fancy party.
I’m not sure what to do when I leave the store so I begin to walk towards Light Avenue. There’s a few places I check along the way, mainly small thrift stores and one or two tiny places that don’t look that fancy but when I get in I see their prices and make a very quick exit.
The final place I check is a little overstock place. I think they buy up what other stores can’t shift, at least at the local level. There’s everything in there but no damn sandals. There is a couple of very nice, very luxurious bathrobes, a little on the pricey side so I can’t really justify it. Who’s going to see me in a bathrobe? My red and black man one is fine.
I finally make it to Light Avenue and plonk myself up on one of the stools at the front of the bar. A bartender serves me my now usual low-alcohol beer and I take out my phone. There’s a few messages waiting for me in the group chat.
“Sorry, Toni. I need to study tonight. Especially if we’re going out tomorrow,” Jess says. Then a few moments later another message from her. “And Sally has big plans. Ask her about them.”
Sally has messaged, “Big plans? Who told you that? Anyway, I don’t want to defile innocent Toni’s mind with we’ll be getting up to.”
“See, biiiig plans,” Jess has already responded.
They seem all gossipy from work so I just leave them to it and drink my beer. Then I remember the sandals situation. “I couldn’t find any sandals. Do you think the nail shop would mind if I cancelled?”
“You’re not cancelling!” Sally says.
“What about something else?” I ask.
“Like what?” Jess says.
“Fingernails?” I message. “I could at least show them off. And I don’t need to be in work until Tuesday.”
“That could work. Get your eyebrows done too and I don’t think they’ll mind a change of plans.”
“I can’t get my eyebrows done. Everyone will see that.”
“That’s the point, dummy. They’re on your face! Anyway, no-one really notices eyebrows unless they’re horrific. Just get them tidied up and a little shape on them and you’ll notice but others will just get a general impression. They won’t know what it is.”
“Are you making this up?” I ask Jess.
“Would Jess lie about fashion?” Sally asks. And I don’t say anything back. Normally she wouldn’t but I feel kind of at sea for some reason.
A few minutes go by and my phone goes off again. “OK. Appointment changed. You’re getting your fingernails and eyebrows done. No backing out now.”
“Fine!” I message back.
“The correct response is Thanks for changing my booking last minute, Jess.”
“Thank you, Jess.”
“You’re very welcome, start thinking about colours.”
I go back to my drink wondering what I’ll do today, or for the rest of my evening. This time last week I was finishing up at work and getting ready to go to Steve’s. And then everything changed. I changed. I can’t imagine myself there tonight, just a regular Lads Night In. It was cancelled, but I don’t know, being out with people is more fun. Most of the time, anyway, I think as I look around the bar with no-one I know here.
I take out my phone again and message Alan. “Steve said you and Sam broke up? Were you dating?”
A couple of minutes go by and I get a message back. “God no! We had a fun night, and morning after. A hot lunch and an energetic afternoon, I told you that. Then we went our ways. That’s all it was. We were never dating. Try it sometime. You might enjoy it.”
I put my phone down and look around the bar again. There are some cute guys here but how do you even talk to them? I couldn’t just walk up to them and say So yeah, I was a boy until a week ago but now I’m a woman and I’ve been thinking of going to town on men, any man, pretty much every moment I have to myself. Will you do things to me?
They’d think I was insane, at the least, and probably knock my teeth out.
“Checking out boys, are we?” someone says. I look behind the bar and Steph is standing there, but not in uniform. She’s wearing a simple, faded, slightly frayed denim mini skirt, sporty 80s trainers, and a kind of retro team top. “You’re looking at me strangely.”
I shake my head out. “I’m just... Your legs! My god, I’d kill for them.” Steph’s legs are perfect, and lightly tanned, and with not a single blemish.
“Thank you!” Steph says. “What about the rest of me?”
“I’ll be honest, one of the first times I saw you I thought you were the most attractive woman I’d seen in my life.”
“Now I have to have a drink with you,” Steph says. And she begins to mix herself up a cocktail. “Want one?”
“If you’re joining me, sure. Why not?”
“Anyone you like around here?”
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“Really? You ask me that? I know a few of these guys, their names at least. I could introduce you to someone.”
“More honesty?” I ask.
“Always!”
“Literally every one of them. Every single one. Any of them. I wouldn’t care which one. Since last weekend it’s been non-stop. The thoughts...” I say, my eyes wide thinking of what I’ve been doing to myself in apartment, and in the shower. And my increasing desires for someone else to be doing it to me.
Steph strains the cocktail through something into two smaller than normal glasses.
“Pick one of the guys you like at random. Drag him into one of the accessible bathrooms. Get sloppy with him.”
“I couldn’t do that!”
“Everyone else is doing it.”
“What if someone actually needs to use the toilet? I can’t!”
“We have five accessible toilets not counting half the actual stalls in the main toilets are accessible anyway. Do you really think we don’t know what’s going on in them. Do you really think we need five of them, five fully private ones? After the Pride Parade we practically have to hose them down. There’s danger pay involved!”
“That’s disgusting!” I say.
“It’s natural. You’re young, you’re horny, sometimes you’re in love. Or so you think.”
“You’re not that much older than me!”
“How old do you think I am?” Steph asks, looking kind of serious now.
“Really?” I ask. She nods. “Thirty-five, thirty-six-ish?”
She twists her mouth up a little. “Close, I’m thirty-seven. People seem to think I’m older though. I guess it’s just being behind the bar, being the manager. The word’s gotten around I’m early to mid-forties and just extremely young looking for my age, which I don’t argue with. It makes it easier to get troublemakers in a headlock and throw them out the door.”
“Yeah, the other time I saw you that night I thought you looked formidable.”
Steph does a pose like a bodybuilder, flexing her muscles. “I think I remember that, the bartender? Tell me...”
“I’m not going to get him in trouble, am I?” I say, thinking of the bartender who gave me the creeps as he was asking for ID.
“Nope. You do not have such powers in your weak and feeble body.”
“OK...” I say. “He kind of creeped me out.”
“Asking for ID?”
“No... He looked me up and down. And smiled as he was doing it. I don’t know. I didn’t feel comfortable.” I stop and consider the look Steph is giving me, not sure I’m able to decipher it. “He is in trouble isn’t he?”
“Who says he works here any more?”
“Because of that!?”
“Not just you,” Steph says, and looks me in the eyes. “Really, Toni. It was a few people. Even staff members. He was always well behaved with supervisors, senior security, managers. But people I believe said some things to me.”
“Just because—”
“Because of a lot of reasons. He made people uncomfortable.
“If he was uncomfortable and just not used to this type of bar we’d have given him time, time to get to know people. To get to know what it’s like here. If he was useless at bar work we’d teach him. We don’t just dismiss people.”
“OK...” I say, unsure.
“Anyway, you were talking about how hot and formidable I am. More of that please!”
I gather myself together. “I can’t really say much more. You’re not my type.”
“You mean I’m too hot for you?” Steph says.
“Too female.”
“You certain on that?”
“I think so. I’ve never been with a guy but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking... Imagining... These past few days.”
“What else have you been doing?” Steph asks, as she laughs.
“Don’t laugh! And I don’t know... I felt weird last night. Talking to G he said I was basically saying I’m feeling vulnerable.”
“Big-G?”
“Yeah. I was feeling kinda shitty and I didn’t know who to call so I called him. He made me feel a bit better.”
Steph takes a sip of her cocktail through a straw. “That’s cute.”
“What’s cute?” I ask, wondering how simply calling Big-G could be cute.
“You’re lonely. You want a man in your life. To hold you. To listen to you. To comfort you.”
“Yeah...” I say, then I think for a moment. “I mean Yeah!! What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, it’s what we all want. But they’re not going to land in your lap. It takes two to—”
“Tango. Yes, I know. I’ve just never tango’ed, with anyone. Not really.”
Steph presses her fingers to her lips and leans in towards me. “I’ll let you in on a secret...”
“Yeah?” I say, curious.
“The tango is a lot of fun. There’s a reason so many people do it. And then there’s a load of other dances to learn. And you’re young, and sexy, and have no excuse not to be inventing new dances no matter how silly they look. Ask someone for a—”
“Do you dance?” a man asks. I snap around to look at this guy interrupting. And the first thing I see he is fucking hot! The only thing I see is how hot he is, I think to myself. Fuck me!
This incredibly hot guy who’s just asked me if I dance, for some reason — does he know what me and Steph were talking about? — is about my age, maybe. He’s wearing a normal, brown t-shirt and kind of nondescript pants. He’s sitting a couple of chairs up from me, really relaxed but kind of innocent looking. And he’s really fucking hot.
He’s built, not overly so, not stupidly, but he’s athletic. He’s just plain hot and well... Mostly I want to know was he listening in on us? Did he hear Steph telling me to... But why would he... What is he... Why is he so hot? And talking to me? Why is he so hot?
“Do you want to dance with Toni?” Steph asks.
“Is there dancing here? Later tonight?” he asks.
“Toni, based on our conversation, would you dance with our new friend? Be honest!”
I feel an absolute fire begin to rise up my face as I look at his arms in his t-shirt. I can see the form of his pecs on his chest through the shirt material.
“Why are you blushing?” he asks me, and I can’t imagine blushing harder than this but I think I already am. “Did I—”
“Come on, move up on the bar. You should talk to Toni before you spend the night dancing.”
“Jesus, Steph. I’m not—”
“Introduce yourself,” she says to the hot guy. “And you should, Toni. I would if I was you. Just one night of dancing, moving your body. Loosening up.”
“Do you mind?” the kind of hot, no — there’s no point in lying to myself about this — the really, totally, completely fucking hot guy who’s somehow interested in me asks, pointing towards the seat beside me.
“Please do,” I say, and I shuffle my seat a little to make the space more accommodating, still stunned.
He grabs his jacket and his drink from the counter then sits himself up next to me.
“I’m Tim, by the way,” he says.
Steph shakes her head. “Sorry, Toni. Not gonna work out. Tim and Toni. Toni and Tim? Sounds weird.”
“What’s she talking about?” Tim asks.
“She’s playing matchmaker,” I say, scowling at Steph. “Imagining us dating.”
“I mean, I was too,” Tim says. And I blush again. Now the thing that’s been in my chest — the pattern — has, I don’t know... It’s all of me now. I’m a series of patterns. I am just a pattern. I am, I don’t know. I’m alive.
“Where would you take her on a first date?” Steph asks. “And you’d better get this right.”
“Ooh, I don’t know,” Tim says, brow furrowed.
“Not a good start,” Steph says.
“It depends on what she wants to do.”
“It’s getting worse.”
“What do you want to do, Toni?” he asks me.
“Well, I need to pick up some makeup. And there’s a bathrobey dressing gowny thing that looked really soft that I’ve been thinking about since I saw it.”
“OK, let’s go get them,” Tim says.
“Oh, wow. Settled couple territory already,” Steph says. “What happened to dancing?”
“Shut up, Steph!” I say. I turn to look at Tim. “It’s really boring. Literally just going in and out of stores. You don’t want to do that.”
“I just want to spend some more time with you,” he says. “Maybe get to know you. See if there’s anything there.” But we’re in a bar, what does he mean Anything there?
“Anything where?” I ask him.
“Between us,” he says, with a hint of doubt in his voice. “Are you two playing with me?” He gestures back and forth between me and Steph.
“I think she’s playing with us,” I say, flicking my hand at Steph. “Like dolls.”
“Oh! It’s Us now. I’d better leave you be, then.”
And she does. And me and Tim talk. He asks about me, and my family, my friends. I learn he’s a graphic designer, starting out his own studio. Really it’s just him on his own. He seemed kind of like a jock when I first saw him, which wasn’t far wrong. He was into sports as a teen, even got a scholarship to a small university but he’d spent all his life drawing and when nothing came of swimming he decided to do what he had a passion for.
We’re just talking normally when he says, “Right, come on. Let’s get the bits you need.”
“What?”
“Your drink is gone. You said you need to get some bits and pieces. Let’s get them.”
“If I leave I’m not coming back here,” I say.
“That’s fine,” he says.
“I’m not going anywhere with you, either. I’m getting what I need and going home.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“You’re not coming into my apartment!”
“I never expected to,” he says.
“What do you expect?” I ask, not knowing how to read this guy. Not knowing how to read any guy but especially this guy. He’s really fucking hot!
“If you have fun? A kiss on the cheek...”
“And?”
“And we meet again,” he says.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” he says, standing. “Let me get your coat.”
“Give me a second,” I say.
I go to Steph who’s in her paperwork spot. I stand in front of her by the counter next to the red rope but she’s obviously waiting for me.
She immediately tells me they have his ID on file, he’s set off no warnings with security, and we exchanges numbers so I can text her everything went OK. Then she just says, “Have fun,” without even looking up at me.
As I walk back he takes my coat from the back of my chair and holds it up for me. I don’t know quite how I feel as I slip it on, with him helping, but it feels good. I feel smaller than him. Like he should be holding me. And when he moves his hands away I feel him accidentally trail a finger across the back of my neck. It’s like I could explode on the spot.
In the same pharmacy I was in before I pick up my BB cream, and some nail polish remover, with Tim just being quiet, and respectful, then I, or we, I guess, make our way to the overstock store. I take the purple bathrobe down from the rack and hold it out to Tim, “See how soft it is?”
He rubs and it and says, “Yeah, you need that.”
“Why?” I ask, not knowing why exactly I need it.
“Because you’re soft, and adorable, and delicate,” he says.
“You’re going to make me throw up,” I say.
“You are those things!”
“Shut up!”
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he says.
“What am I doing to you?”
“If I told you you’d slap me.”
“Oh, wow. I thought you were smooth until that,” I say. But I kind of want to slap him. He’s too hot right now. He’s offensively hot. And cute. More hot though. Fuck!
“There’s a place I make posters for around here, you might like it. After you get the bathrobe,” he says.
“Should I get it? Really?”
“Yes, of course.”
I scrunch my face up as though I’m thinking but I’ve already made my mind up. “OK, you’ve convinced me. And what’s this place you want to show me?”
He explains as I pay that it’s a little second hand store, run by someone really good that’s finally found a decent lease. They’ve been running the business out of markets for a few years, travelling to build up their stock. Constant travelling.
As I walk into the store, just at the beginning of a loading alleyway off a main street, a woman looks at me and smiles. Then smiles wider seeing Tim. “Hi, Tim,” she says, in a kind of flirty tone.
“Hey! How are things?” Tim says. “You happy with those posters?”
“Yeah, they’re perfect. Is it you or your friend shopping?”
“She’ll leave with half the store, I hope,” he says. “So let’s get going.”
He takes me by the elbow and drags me deeper into a store with random old stuff all over the place, or at least in between the various racks, and shelves.
There’s everything in here, from quite expensive looking jeans, to extremely glamorous gowns, to regular everyday dresses. There’s lots of retro dresses too. Sweaters, hoodies, cardigans, tops, pants. On some mannequins there’s tiaras and extremely fancy, silk nightdresses, and pearl necklaces. Fake, I hope.
“Where do I start?” I ask.
“Just go wild!” Tim says.
I think if I ever have gone wild. There was Friday night, of course but I’ve never done it — I’ve never gone wild — as, well, a full person. Gone wild as me being me, so I kind of do go wild.
I’m pulling out item after item, and sweaters, and cardigans, and shorts — even though it’s the wrong season for them — and so many dresses; Tim holding as much as he can manage and maybe a little more.
“Having fun?” he asks.
“I am, I think,” I say.
“Why only Think?”
“I don’t know how all this will look on me.”
“Try them on!”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. I’ll hold them, you try them on...” he says as he pushes me towards the back where there’s some curtained off areas. “...and if you want to be told you look smoking hot in any of them come out and put on a show. You’ll love it!”
Then he’s pulling some curtains closed on me with a small pile of clothes in his hands, and a big pile in front of me on a chair in the changing room.
I strip down to my underwear highly aware I have extra parts that shouldn’t really be in these clothes, but it’s just me and Tim here, and the woman who was flirting with Tim, which is kind of annoying. But who wouldn’t flirt with him? Anyway, no-one can see me in here.
I start with the shorts. They’re grey, not booty shorts or anything, appropriate length, I suppose. Kind of professional. I could imagine them with dark pantihose, heels, and a white blouse on a girl at work, a nice necklace, too. Which is good enough for me. I have no plans to come out at work but these are about five bucks so I can’t go wrong.
I go through the rest of the items, a few sweaters, another pair of jeans, a few cardigans, I have no cardigans, some dresses, some midi-skirts, some shorter skirts. I’m starting to dread my bill with what I have picked out.
I ask Tim to hand me through the rest of the clothes, which he does. Thankfully it’s a smaller pile than what I have in here.
I try on a light denim dress, with obvious stitching on it, for show, as a style. There’s a belt attached around the waist that I think gives me a little shape. I pull the curtains back without thinking and Tim turns around. “Oh my god!” he says.
“What?” I ask. “Bad?”
“Those legs. Wowzers! The things I would do...”
“Shut up!” I say, but it feels kind of good. He’s not quite leering at me but he’s definitely thinking of me and that makes me feel not bad. “OK. Do I look like I have a shape in this?” I make a kind of curving pattern with my hands but equally I’m wiggling around trying to look a bit sexy.
“Yes, definitely. Into the buy stack,” he says.
“OK...” I say, a little suspiciously, then go back in and close the curtains again.
I don’t know why, other than I’ve seen them on other women, but I picked up a pair of leather style leggings when I was browsing. Shiny. Wet-look I guess is the term. I put them on and I feel incredibly sexy in them, and I think they’ll go with my last item. Which is like the dress Jess showed me last weekend.
It’s white wool, a little less fluffy than hers but still fluffy, coming beyond my wrists but with a shorter hem. I put it on and give myself a look in the mirror. I guess I look good. I feel great in it.
I pull back the curtains. “How about this?” I ask.
“Yeah, I can’t do this...” Tim says.
“Can’t do what!?” I ask, panicking. It’s ending. It feels like someone’s dropped a cannonball in my stomach. He’s joking. Insulting me. A story for his weird jock friends. He was too fucking hot and my eyes ate him up! He’s so incredibly fucking hot and I was—
“If you keep coming out of there looking like a model from the 70s the police will arrest me for what I end up doing to you. Right here.”
My mind kind of stops when he says that, and I just stare at him, but he’s looking me up and down, smiling. “You can’t say that! Tim! You can’t!”
“I’m sorry, we’re going to have to leave. I can’t take this any more.” And I think of what we could do, right here on the floor. I don’t even care if the woman at the front of the store watches. I don’t care if she records it!
“OK...” I say. I suppose we can keep our hands to ourselves. And he just smiles at me, rather confidently. I go back in and get changed into my regular clothes. “Let’s go.”
“That’ll happen...” he says.
I wonder what he means, with my eyes darting around the store as we leave, and he’s right.
“Yeah, OK. I spotted the shoes. Let me just take a quick check. This’ll be easy. I won’t be long,” I say. And there’s really only two pairs I like the look of in my size. One is a pair of black heels, a boot, ankle length, kind of suede but not real suede, zip at the side. I fit one of my feet in and it fits. I look at Tim and he’s kind of circling around, away in his own world.
Next are the pair I really want. Some black leather Doc Marten Mary Janes with a platform and heel. They look in great condition and trying them on they fit perfectly. “Can you help me carry all this?”
“I said I’d walk you home, didn’t I?”
“Thank you,” I say. And I’m standing at the till with the woman checking prices into a manual cash register. There’s no front display on it so I can’t see how much all this is coming to. I’m going to hate myself.
“The total is $750 but we can do $680,” she says, looking at my slyly. “If you’ll come back and buy more.”
“Yes. I’ll definitely be back. This place is amazing!”
“Tell your friends,” she says.
“Absolutely no way. Some of my friends are the same size as me.” She laughs at that but I’m not sure I’m joking when I say it. Jess would loot this store.
“OK, I’ll put some of Tim’s work in the bag — flyers — be sure to give them to your friends. Our location is on it. We don’t do anything online.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say as I pay with my credit card as she loads up some large, plain paper bags.
As we leave I’m weighed down with shopping, and Tim with some more. “Did you have fun?” he asks.
“I did,” I say.
“Then you owe me a kiss. That was the deal. And after that you can decide if we meet up again.”
Then he walks me home, with just casual chat, and me wanting to just stop and look at him. Observe him. And me too. I want to see the two of us together.
If yesterday I felt like total shit now I feel perfectly at ease. Even a little toasty, somehow. Glowing. More! My pattern feels endless.
“OK, this is me,” I say as we reach my apartment block.
“Can you carry all this up?” he asks.
“I can. And I suppose I owe you something,” I say, hopeful.
“You do,” he says, with a big smile on his face as he proffers me his cheek.
I lean my head in to give him his kiss, arms laden down with bags, and I do give him his kiss. And he smells nice. And my pattern is absolutely swirling all through me, over my skin, twisting like I’ve come alive with meaning. I am swirling. I am with the world.
I pull a little away from him but he’s turned around quickly, looking at me. He gives me a soft kiss on my lips. Just a normal, regular kiss but so much more. “Are we going to meet up again?” he asks.
“You planned that!”
“What?”
“That kiss! With your lips!” I want to lick his lips.
“From the moment I saw you,” he says.
“OK. I will see you again. I’ll be in Light Avenue tomorrow afternoon. My friends will probably be there too. You can meet them and me.”
“I can’t wait,” he says, and this time he’s the one giving me a kiss on the cheek, one arm around me. Then he turns around and goes his way.
And I don’t know how long I spend standing on the spot. Wanting more. I want more. I want more of this!
If you'd like to support me by donating to the charities I support, or if you'd like to be extremely generous and splash out on something for me, you can read about the charities I like, and my wishlist, on my About page.
If you'd like to offer feedback or kind words — or just give a big Thumbs Up! — you can contact me on Bluesky at Swolle