On the stairwell, she lights up her smoke and talks about her dreams while we descend two steps at a time. Discreetly feeling my cock, I take photos of what’s around us while attempting to follow her train of thought but it’s near impossible. The way she jumps around. The way she flits between elation and despair. And there was me thinking I was messed up. By the time we reach the station, there are ten minutes to wait, and I try and pass the time by kissing her neck but she keeps pushing me away while emphasising certain aspects of her dream that mirror the conflicts she suffers from in reality. If I’m lucky, she’ll lose interest by the time we get home, and having got it out of her system she’ll finally succumb to my lecherous advances. Those legs. Those hips. Those locks of her hair that smell like Battenberg cake, or fairgrounds on some balmy night in July down by the coast. When she jumps from the platform into the waiting train, she hums and fidgets and pokes me in the ribs while I’m trying to remember what it was like being a kid. There are flashes of brilliance and glimpses of my old dog Monty and of building dens in the woods near where I used to live on endless Sunday afternoons, and then comes her kiss and the gazing eye of the universe in the back of my mind, and just like that, I’m paralysed. Speeding through the night, towns and cities dissolve then reappear as if they never left. Lives of those we will never know twinkle out of the corners of our eyes but as she bites my upper lip and presses my hand against her breast, the need to contemplate my being fades just the same as her dreams. Momentarily pushing her away, I tell her that it’s weird how we seek answers only to flee from their touch. She’s not interested, though. All she wants is my attention, and all I can do is push myself upon her as the land sways beneath our feet. This bubble of us. This mess we’re in. May it consume until all that’s left are the outlines of our trembling bodies.

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.co.uk

A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon.com