He had seen her in sunshine...had seen her in the rain.
He hadn't quite seen her in a darkened space, a quiet intimate place quite yet...he drank and imagined those times but for now they stayed in the part of the mind where fantasies blended into the allure of possibilities...and fueled the rush of blood and heart strings.
He had, however had a drink in a darkened space, a quiet cove in an empty bar. The road was back in place, travel was now an occurrence.
So he sipped...the caramel against his tongue and the slow warmth in the throat.
He imagined a kiss...the barest of glances and the compression of pliable lips. And the slow deliberate pull away and the opening of the eyes only to see that color. Again.
The shade of fallen leaves, long bereft from a limb...anchored in a freezing ground that eerily echoed its own shades of brown. The fertile earth.
She stared back at him unblinking in his mind...not to disrupt a gaze. A fixed image, like guiding a sailor across a blackened sea she remained a constant.
Desire rose in him like sap, a built-up chemical reaction to being near her...nearness being relative...on the same planet, in the same world...god forbid that darkened space he imagined.
Bourbon felt like the closest companion he could share with...these indelicate thoughts. The proportions didn't work though...as the bourbon grew smaller in his glass his regard for her only grew.
Outside the bar, on the random streets and intersections, people looked ahead, stared in front of them. He wanted an object, a face...a facade...eyes. He wanted interruption and delay. An obstacle. She could be there, pausing his world, carving out time...space. With just a glance. And he would gladly stay. Pull up a chair as it was.
He imagined those eyes in a shower, unveiled. Tentative, maybe looking down. Or maybe not...staring up. The cascade of waters warming, the pale skin, the slide of hands on skin...but the eyes so locked and compelling...height differences, hair wet and dripping...just a stare that made you want to kiss with your eyes open.
He sipped more and found the glass empty...like a thought of her entering his brain and exiting.
He raised his empty glass to the bartender in the international sign of one more.
One more...he relished the thought of multiple times of her stare...conjuring up her face uplifted towards his. Felt like the distance of inches was the most beautiful distance in the world. The perfect gap...a mathematical equation that resulted in exactness.
So he drank more...the bourbon colors blending in his brain, causing the closest thing to what he could imagine.
Sipped...savoring.
Imagining how he would devour her if she let him.
