//oo4: another reason not to respond

[helenabc]

I sat for three hours watching the side view of a charcoal artist sketching the nude form of one of my good friends. She was dreadfully sleepy, hadn't eaten in hours and was terribly cold, given the weather, even under studio lights - but she looked newly created on earth, whole and perfect and beautiful. The artist couldn't stop scraping her image onto page after page and I think that if he hadn't run out of money to pay her, he wouldn't have let her go. I wouldn't have let her go. I've seen my friends naked more times than I could count, and been beheld in that role myself. I have no shame about it, we're friends. We run around naked in dressing rooms and at the spa when I remember I'm a girl and do something about the skin I can't see, and it never hit me before in quite this way. Seeing this artistic reverence of this beautiful, radiant woman, just standing there glowing timelessly, I just couldn't even bring myself to suggest we go for a kebab. I felt like I should find out how to cook manna and feed it to her. We ended up going for cod and chips, though.

I miss.

I can't even finish that sentence.

I want to know you.