Short Story: Deep Sleep

She stood on the tips of her toes attempting to see as much as she could of her naked body reflected from his bathroom mirror. She traced the curve of her left breast with the tip of her middle finger from her right hand. She watched as her breast awoke. Is this what he sees, she asked herself. As she raised her left arm towards the ceiling she examined the stream-like curve connecting her underarm and the bottom of her hip, leading into her thighs. Is this what he runs his fingers by, she asked herself proudly. She reached for his cotton t-shirt. Diving into it she made her way out of the bathroom. She looked around his studio apartment and saw that it was still without him. Barefoot, she made her way to his love seat; dark amber leather with satin cushions. She sat herself on the right side, closest to his bed and began to remember her first night in the apartment. She had been led by an intentional drunken haze that hid her nervousness and hesitance. She aimed for a release from the tantric months between desire and diffidence masked behind corporate attire and just as long a fantasy of getting close to him, his ideas, his inspiration, his wit, his hidden warmth, contained behind book readings, lectures, late dinners, wine and lingering eye contact, both waiting for the other to make a first move, removing one of any guilt of the unknown. But on that one night, the sun set on doubt and he was free from compromise and she deaf to uncertainty. They spoke over drinks and sweaty palms when the harmless reach of her mouth towards his cheek prompted the opportunistic tilt of his chin towards her stare. The rest was inevitable. She found herself on that very same corner she now sat in, buried into the edges of those satin cushions, pressed up against the arm rest holding on to the back of his neck. She leaned in to the coffee table in front of her taking hold of the champagne bottle and pouring herself another glass. Taking a small sip she remembered how she believed to have lost her sense of taste years ago after burning her tongue on a piece of coal. Surrounded by a group of bold, bored cousins in the back yard of her uncle’s house in Connecticut, she was dared to lick a hot cluster from the barbecue. She was nine. Since then, she could swallow a pound of salt and it would have gone through her like balls of cotton. But when she met Daniel her senses awoke as if only in a deep sleep. Dinner with him had the feeling of pure gluttony. The white wooden doors of his terrace opened wide finding him on the other side as he pressed his cigarette into the ground with the tip of his foot. He entered, catching her stare and closing the doors behind him. She watched his movements as he began to ask her about her writing—what had she last written? Was she ready to let him read a page? He walked over to his kitchen and placed his cigarettes and matches on the counter. Had she read the books he handpicked for her? He continued. His blue eyes almost transparent, his slim figure calling for expansion—he walked over to his coffee table to grab a misplaced book and tucked it into his bookshelf. He had this strange way of walking with his arms away from his sides, his shoulders and elbow rising, almost floating, as if a hanger was still caught in his shirt. She sighed inside.