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Emotions choked me, assuring me that it wasn’t yet time to speak. The pricking of my eyes forced a chuckle out. It was a habit of mine, one that collected my feelings and helped me gather myself when they were too big to voice or too much to handle. I cleared my throat again, unsure of what was going on inside my chest. The achiness forced me to rub it, twice right and twice left, before dropping my hand completely.
Subtle makeup covered her features, enhancing each and every one of them, making her even more beautiful than I’d imagined. I forced myself to look away. She was breathtaking and had surely summoned every ounce of air from not only my lungs but my bloodstream as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d faint from the lack of oxygen or if I should place my lips on hers and inhale until my body was refilled with a decent supply of oxygen.
Soundlessly, we both gazed, neither in a hurry to say much. Silence was enough for once. I had no words. I’d waited patiently for this moment for far too many years to count and I wanted to savor it. I needed to savor it. For the rest of my life, I wanted to remember the enormous feelings it produced and the gratification it pumped me with.
After what felt like twenty-hundred hours, she finally said to me, “Hi.”
Her voice along with its sensual, sultry delivery left me tongue-tied. With a shake of my head, I let out another chuckle.
Get ya shit together, Milo, I warned. Losing it wasn’t part of the plan and neither was it becoming. I almost hated her for stripping me so soon, leaving me bare, in the nude on her parents’ front porch.
“Hi.” I cleared my throat, stepping back so she was able to join me outside.
I mustered as much strength as I possibly could to restrain my hands. Desperately, I wanted to pull her in, kiss her lips, and tell her how sorry I was for the hurt I caused her until I no longer had a voice to speak and she believed me.
But I didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t deserve that privilege as much as I wanted to believe differently. At that moment, I accepted my position and waited for initiated contact. As if the universe was working in my favor, she inched forward, nervously placing one arm over my shoulder, sure not to rest her head on my chest in the process.
And then, there was a pat.
A second one.
A third one.
The church hug. I tittered, sucking the skin of my teeth. The ability to control my impulses failed as I expanded, opening wide enough to accept all of her. In my arms, I wrapped Nature, clinging to her skin as if it was my soul’s supply of nourishment and the central center for all good things in my life. In a way, both could be true.
She smelled of peaches, flowers, and baby powder. The combination was oddly satisfying, leaving me with no choice but to bury my nose in her neck. She trembled underneath my grasp, confirming her hesitancy and stomping all over my chest in the same breath. I pulled back, giving her the space her nervous system protested for.
“It’s… uh… It’s been a long time.” She sighed with a smile that was so quick and so small that I almost missed it.
“Too long,” I confirmed. “Your people here?”
Refusing to leave without at least saying hello to her parents, I inquired about their location.
“Well, of course, my mother is inside. She just went down for the night. My father…”
Those big, pretty eyes saddened at once as she looked up at me, rolled them, and then focused on me again. Her father was always a sore subject. After all this time, I noticed nothing had changed. His behavior throughout her childhood was a driving force in her decision to end things with me and it seemed it had continued.
Nodding, I completed her sentence. “Is out. It’s good. I’ll catch him another time.”
Every few weeks, when he made his way through the halls of Benedict Berkeley, where I was Chief of Medicine in the Neuropsychiatrist department, we shared a few words. Though small, it was a driving force in the third largest hospital in the world. We were making strides to improve the brain’s function and its relationship with the nervous system.
Even at his age, he was still on the go, unable to sit down for even a few hours. He was a leader. A helper, by nature. However, the person he neglected to help was the person who needed it most, needed him most.
“Shall we?” she insisted, brushing off the temporary moment of disappointment.
“After you.”
Nodding toward the short set of stairs, I urged her to move forward because I’d be right behind her. She slid past me, forcing me to plant my feet where they were. Unmoving, I acknowledged the small weight gain that age accompanied. Slowed metabolism and increased consumption of wine or other alcoholic beverages could all be factored into the pounds that expanded those already wide hips and ass. Neither were ridiculously large, but they were heavy on that thin frame of hers. She was gifted with subtle, yet notable curves that demanded the attention of any man in her presence.
The ratio hardly made any sense, but previous run-ins, family dinners, and store runs with her mother proved what was genetically possible. They were built like that. Her and almost every woman in their family. Thin, lean frames with asses that made you do a double take or immobilized you momentarily.
“Are you coming, Milo, or will you stay on the porch all night long and force me to eat dinner alone?”
She waited on the passenger side of the car, staring back up at me still on the porch as I waited for my body to regain consciousness. With daring eyes, I glared in her direction, heading straight toward her. My legs didn’t stop moving until I was right in front of Nature. For a second, my heart stopped too.
Hadn’t she been almost a full foot shorter than me at 5’7, we would’ve been chest to chest, face to face, nose to nose. That was how magnetic her presence was for me. I had no intention of invading whatever personal space she’d claimed before I came into her life but some way, somehow, it never existed for me,to me.
“Milo.” Breathlessly, she all but pleaded, reaching forward.
