Monday 25 January 2010

The Flame.

“You should have picked up the first time” and there it was. That voice. His voice, instantly recognisable, smooth and completely compelling. She hadn't expected it to be him, and for a brief second, she was caught unaware, paralysed a million memories of before shooting to the forefront.

And then she remembered herself, and their game. A wry smile made its way to the corner of her mouth as she asked him politely and professionally to call back later......she wasn't alone. This conversation would require all of her attention and she couldn't afford to be overheard

It had started earlier that week. After perusing her inbox for the daily dose of spam vs. junk she paused over one particular London based sale email. Her mind went to him, in his little London bubble, and without thinking she was hitting the forward button, she drafted the usual 'saw this and thought of you' excuse and duly hit the send button having passed through her thoughts and thinking no more of him.

Not long later she had a reply, from him. She half expected a response, he was too professional not to acknowledge the receipt, her eyes skimmed the reply and then stopped short. The last sentence almost stood straight off the screen.


“In hindsight I am seriously wondering whether I was in love with you in my own odd way."

She snapped herself back, convinced her imagination had concocted such an unexpected outburst.

Her last efforts to engage him in a rendezvous had resulted in a spectacular shortfall and although disappointed she accepted it. She read it again. There is something quite startling about the aesthetics of black text on white. To read something in black and white, the starkness of facts moulded into words using the harshness of black and embedded, pressed into sheets of virgin white.

It was there it happened, all those memories flooding her mind like photographs spinning to such a pace that it caused a tiny ignition inside. And she knew it.

Immediately she was forming her response, politely skirting the issue yet desperate to mention it.

Common sense was starting to prevail, and by the time she pressed send, she realised he was still a memory, a nice reminder today of what could have been back then.

Yet the fire was not diminishing.

She emailed him back from work, beginning to remember more as their contact grew more frequent, like re-connecting, re-familiarising herself with him all over again.

And then he rang her, and the sound of his voice connected more parts to the puzzle.

This morning she awoke with him on her mind, she could almost reach out and touch him, she could feel him touching her. She could feel his desire almost tangibly on her skin. Later that morning, she questioned herself, slightly disappointed that she could be so easily pulled back, yet at the same time ecstatic that she was being pulled back. Was it backwards? Or were they just headed for those places they had been too afraid to admit before?

That night he called her, they talked again, he admitted things, she did the same. Both of them had their own insecurities and frustrations from the other. The future is unwritten. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, she felt his hand on her thigh.

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