By KMnO4
Outside the Box
Rating- PG
Summary- Solioquy of a man who watches from afar and touches only when he has his latex gloves on.
I have spent years within the sound of her voice. Yet when she speaks I still hold my breath a little. I don't want the sound of my lungs filling and empty with oxygen to take away from the melody of her words. She has my rapt attention and yet I never dare look directly at her for fear of what I might see reflected in her eyes. So she thinks I do not care what she has to say and now she speaks less. I listen harder.
When we inhabit the same room I understand the theory of attraction. I am drawn to her by an invisible pull. It is like nature decided I would be the cold and distant North to her bright and engaging South. We circle each other in some ancient mating ritual or maybe it is just the clumsy dance of the planets. Our universe is small and she is my only source of light.
I have tried to touch her but she is too far away. The world she inhabits is young and full of hope. Mine is not so idealistic. I have seen too many things. Though none have compared to the haunting image of her pale face and glassy eyes. It is my only nightmare now and it shares time in my subconscious with unbidden dreams of her sultry body.
I opened my mouth to her and nothing came out. There was no right thing for me to say so I was silent. At first she stayed close. She was patient and waited but silence gets to everyone in the end. Now it seems too late to learn to talk. To tell the world she is mine. To claim her like some beautiful possession.
But she is not one of my specimens. I cannot keep her in a glass case. To gaze at and admire. I cannot preserve her. Change is inevitable. Her feelings will wane. Her heart will grow cold. The things which once drew her to me will become the same things which turn her away. My age. My knowledge. My Position. She will grow bored.
There were so many barriers between us. But she took them down one by one with her beaming smile, lingering touch and suggestive comments. Suddenly I turned around and found she wasn't so far away after all. She was on the other side of a two way mirror. She was sitting next to me as I took her hand.
Then I'm driving her home. She doesn't speak to me and barely looks up. I am afraid to ask the questions she knows I must be thinking. I am always afraid around her. If I speak now she will know that I am concerned. When I become angry at the way she's treating herself she will say she learnt it from me.
I have taught her many things. She was always so eager to learn. At first I was flattered and then touched and then affected by her attentions. But now it seems she cannot wait to be free of me. I have become a burden for her to bear. I see her love for me weigh her down like a ball and chain.
I can no longer blame it on the human condition. It doesn't pacify my guilt to tell myself I cannot help the man I am. I have wished a thousand times for her to leave but my heart has always tricked me into making her stay. Thinking it will only be a little longer and then I will let her go. Then she will be free.
But I had never stopped to think before about the effect my feelings for her have had on me. My eyes have been too focused on her face to allow time for introspection. Now that she is miles away. Now that I have finally allowed myself to believe she will come back to me. I can see.
That my love has me just as bound. Wrapped up in jealousy of any man who came too close to her. Blinded by a denial so strong it led me to the domain of another woman. Deaf to her promises of hope and faith and future. I am like a man still fumbling with a key which is a perfect fit. Letting himself fail even if winning is possible.
Because life becomes a less intimidating death…
Outside the box.