I see him even when I don’t.
In the tilt of a stranger’s head, a laugh caught in passing or that dark mop of hair just ahead of me bobbing in the crowd, I walk everywhere with a transfixed stare and his face blooms in my mind without warning, sharp and perfect, my private hallucination. Sometimes I try to keep it out. I tell myself to focus on the conversation, the shopping list, stick to the reality of whatever task is at hand. But he always slips back in, and when he does, my stomach lurches like I’ve just tripped.
It started small. I told myself that this was just a phase, a passing crush, a harmless flicker of wanting. The kind that comes and goes in everyone’s life. But it did not go. It lodged itself in me and grew, finding its way into every space. So now the smallest thing pulls me into him, and I find I’m living half a life. Only ever semi-conscious, hovering on the edge of awareness, the real world fading in and out like a TV with bad reception. He is nowhere, but at the same time, somehow, he is everywhere.
I find the minutiae of my life dissolve when he is wandering through my thoughts. Work deadlines, the laundry mountain, a pile of unopened letters; things that used to weigh on me with such insistent force have lost their grip. I move through existence as a ghost, my mind always elsewhere, looping through imagined scenes until they are as tangible as the gloves I slip over my fingers. Stepping out of my house, the cold air that hits my cheek brings him back again, I feel his hand stretching out to warm me, soft lips on mine as we pause on the path. His hand is at my hip in the crowded street and that gaze, always holding me so tightly that I am unable to think of anything else, losing my grip on reality. He begins to bleed into every moment. I’ve overcooked my dinner twice this week, left a coffee I’d paid for on the shop counter and missed a call from my boss as I stayed too long in the shower with my eyes closed, imagining him touching me in the dark.
At night I close the door, turn off the light and lie back knowing exactly where I’ll go. I touch myself with him in my mind, seeing myself pace across the hotel room towards him, a flicker of raw desire in his eyes. I envision my performative strut wearing a lace piece that is barely there, the lingerie I really bought and stashed in my bedside drawer, just in case. His mouth finds mine, and he searches hungrily with his tongue, the weight of his body pressing against me, making my skin tingle. He takes me, unbidden and without restraint. Sometimes in my fantasies he comes too fast, a look of shame flittering across his face, leaving me with a deep sense of satisfaction. To be so desirable to him that he just cannot control himself, that is all I have ever wanted.
This time, I can feel his cock straining inside me as my fingers circle my clit without mercy; my thighs part, hips tilt, as I let him take me in ways I have never dared to ask for in reality. In here, he knows everything I want without me having to speak, and he always whispers the same words: “It’s you I need, just you.” The pleasure is sharp and dizzying, tangled with something that tastes almost like grief. I know this man I have kissed and fucked and loved in a hundred different ways is blind to my existence. Not a single one of these moments exists anywhere but in me.
My dreams take it further. We have built years together in the dark; slouched on a sunken sofa with the stale tang of last night’s food hanging in the air, ash scattered across a warped coffee table. His hand is under my shirt, fingers warm and rough against my skin, my palm pressed over the thick heat in his jeans. I have felt his breath catch against my ear as he told me things no one else will ever hear, the flicker of the lamp stuttering over our bodies in a room heavy with sweat. I wake from these dreams with an ache pulsing deep within my groin, my body carrying the aftermath of a time that never happened. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff. The air is sharp in my lungs, the drop impossibly steep and there is nothing solid under my feet. He is always there, a piercing stare silently urging me forward; and I jump, every time, without hesitation, letting the real world blur and slip away.
Even in daylight, I find myself drifting. I stare through the windscreen but see only the hollow of his throat. My hand curls around the gearstick and in my mind it is the hard length of him, the hum of the engine becoming the low, steady vibration of his mouth between my thighs. My skin remembers touches that never happened, muscle and nerve still convinced they were real. A song comes on the radio and I sing, loud and unguarded, turning to the empty passenger seat and smiling at him as I sing.
‘I love this one,’ I tell him, my hand lifting briefly from the wheel to emphasise my excitement.
He chuckles, low, a slow-rolling approval in his tone.
‘Of course you do,’ he says in my head, eyes narrowing with amusement. ‘This song, it’s filthy if you really listen to it.’
I laugh, the sound spilling out without restraint. ‘Everything’s filthy if you think about it long enough.’
‘That’s why I like you,’ he replies, leaning closer, his breath grazing the side of my neck. ‘You think about it.’
The traffic lights glow red and I let the car idle, my thighs tightening as his fingers curl up my leg. I feel a slow deliberate drag of his fingers over my denim jeans.
‘Keep singing,’ he murmurs.
‘I’ll crash,’ I whisper back.
‘Then crash into me.’
My car drifts into the next lane, and the honk from a horn blares behind me. I quickly rectify my mistake, pulling the vehicle back into lane before halting at the traffic lights. My heart is hammering, but this rush of adrenalin is not the result of the sharp blast of noise that just pierced my ears. The light changes to green, but I stay still for a heartbeat too long, the sound of his ragged breath drowning out the impatient beeping from the driver behind. I press the accelerator and the car jerks forward, my grip on the wheel tightening as his hand moves higher, brushing against the seam between my legs. He knows exactly how I like to be touched, even though he’s never touched me at all.
‘You’re damp.’ I nod, lips parting, eyes still fixed on the road while my mind swerves completely off it.
‘Good. Don’t stop singing.’
Here he looks at me the way I have always wanted, and there is never any waiting or doubt. Only the endless drop that I am willing to leap into again, and again, and again. I glance at the passenger seat. It’s empty, of course, but for a fraction of a second I feel warmth next to me where there should be none. I inhale sharply as my chest tightens, scared to blink in case I lose him, or worse, find him really there.
