Let the Games Begin
So I wasn't actually planning on posting Part Two of The World Could Wait, but hey, three days is too long to wait, and I want to talk about my foot. No don't give me that look.
You know the soccer season is upon you when, in one training session, not only do you get tripped (and fall over covered in dead grass), but you also get trodden on by someone wearing studs. Not the most pleasant experience, I can tell you.
But still. Besides the trodden-on part, it's great fun. Plus, now my foot (told you I'd talk about it) has this purple circle. With a little luck, it'll turn blue or yellow in a few days (Yes I know I'm very mature).
Ok. Here's Part Two. It's really part two and an epilogue, though.
(There is sexual references in this too..)
The Song is All We Are by OneRepublic. You'll understand.
We spent another two afternoons together, watching the same guy potter about his house, before he got into his car and left. On the second occasion, we even followed him for a little while, before Mark got bored. After that, he gave me a card with a date, time and place, saying to bring the photos when I went. He dropped me at the closest train station, and I thought it was all very covert.
Since our small disagreement in the car on he first afternoon, Mark has been surprisingly amiable. It took him hardly any time to realise that I had a few ideas about him, most of which were true. So instead of trying to charm me into doing his bidding (which I’m sure he has previously done a lot of), he treated me with respect, understanding that it would not do to treat me like an idiot who could be ordered around, but rather a friend, a companion, who was actually willing to help him. So when I saw the time and place on the card he’d given me was actually a small but exceptional restaurant at eight in the evening, I wasn’t really surprised.
Not wanting to disappoint (myself or Mark, I wasn’t really sure), I arrived at the restaurant wearing the closest thing I had to a dinner gown, and was just late enough to get him looking happily relieved to see me.
He stood up as I approached his table, and I saw his eyes run up and down, inspecting my appearance. My eyes did the same thing, acknowledging the fact that some men simply belonged in dark blue-black, tailored suits. As he leaned in to kiss my cheek, I saw something flicker in the back of his eyes. Something that was pure, and somewhere between awe and adoration.
After dessert, I gave Mark his photos, and he gave me my money. After everything, it didn’t really feel like I should take it, but he insisted. He was impressed by my shots, funnily enough. Honestly, out of all the different types of photography there is, recon shots are about the least artistic. But he regarded them like masterpieces.
After dinner, he drove me home (in a different car to the one we’d spent the afternoons in). It was raining softly, had been for about half an hour. He opened my door for me slowly, and as I stepped out, I caught a glimpse of him that I guessed few were permitted to see. The rain had caught in his hair, so it glistened. A street light silhouetted him, and his eyes shined with emotion. Watching each other for a few seconds, searching the eyes of person opposite us, everything flickered behind our gaze. Not needing words, Mark took me in his arms, and kissed me slowly, passionately, lovingly. My arms encircled him, and I kissed him back.
As the rain fell, he brought his face up to my hands, breaking away. In that second, he looked at me with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Kissing my forehead, he whispered softly. ‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it?’
It was just less than a month when I found Mark sitting in my apartment before I got home, having broken in. In all honesty, I wasn’t really surprised. True, we hadn’t seen each other since that night in the rain, and his words had sounded like closure, but at the same time, I don’t really think either of us had seen it as a last meeting.
After two bowls of pasta and some really good red wine, Mark got up and found my music speakers. He connected his mp3 to them, and put on a song I’d never heard, but loved all the same. Then he came back and took my hand, lead me to the space in my living room. Slowly, as the song grew stronger, louder, we danced together. Neither of us were particularly talented, but we got the gist of it: he led, I followed, moving as one.
Later, when his lips found mine, when he carried me, laid me down, made love to me, it felt like only seconds had passed since our last contact, not nearly a month. And as we whispered those words of eternity to each other, I knew that, if nothing else, the world could wait for us.
You know the soccer season is upon you when, in one training session, not only do you get tripped (and fall over covered in dead grass), but you also get trodden on by someone wearing studs. Not the most pleasant experience, I can tell you.
But still. Besides the trodden-on part, it's great fun. Plus, now my foot (told you I'd talk about it) has this purple circle. With a little luck, it'll turn blue or yellow in a few days (Yes I know I'm very mature).
Ok. Here's Part Two. It's really part two and an epilogue, though.
(There is sexual references in this too..)
The Song is All We Are by OneRepublic. You'll understand.
We spent another two afternoons together, watching the same guy potter about his house, before he got into his car and left. On the second occasion, we even followed him for a little while, before Mark got bored. After that, he gave me a card with a date, time and place, saying to bring the photos when I went. He dropped me at the closest train station, and I thought it was all very covert.
Since our small disagreement in the car on he first afternoon, Mark has been surprisingly amiable. It took him hardly any time to realise that I had a few ideas about him, most of which were true. So instead of trying to charm me into doing his bidding (which I’m sure he has previously done a lot of), he treated me with respect, understanding that it would not do to treat me like an idiot who could be ordered around, but rather a friend, a companion, who was actually willing to help him. So when I saw the time and place on the card he’d given me was actually a small but exceptional restaurant at eight in the evening, I wasn’t really surprised.
Not wanting to disappoint (myself or Mark, I wasn’t really sure), I arrived at the restaurant wearing the closest thing I had to a dinner gown, and was just late enough to get him looking happily relieved to see me.
He stood up as I approached his table, and I saw his eyes run up and down, inspecting my appearance. My eyes did the same thing, acknowledging the fact that some men simply belonged in dark blue-black, tailored suits. As he leaned in to kiss my cheek, I saw something flicker in the back of his eyes. Something that was pure, and somewhere between awe and adoration.
After dessert, I gave Mark his photos, and he gave me my money. After everything, it didn’t really feel like I should take it, but he insisted. He was impressed by my shots, funnily enough. Honestly, out of all the different types of photography there is, recon shots are about the least artistic. But he regarded them like masterpieces.
After dinner, he drove me home (in a different car to the one we’d spent the afternoons in). It was raining softly, had been for about half an hour. He opened my door for me slowly, and as I stepped out, I caught a glimpse of him that I guessed few were permitted to see. The rain had caught in his hair, so it glistened. A street light silhouetted him, and his eyes shined with emotion. Watching each other for a few seconds, searching the eyes of person opposite us, everything flickered behind our gaze. Not needing words, Mark took me in his arms, and kissed me slowly, passionately, lovingly. My arms encircled him, and I kissed him back.
As the rain fell, he brought his face up to my hands, breaking away. In that second, he looked at me with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Kissing my forehead, he whispered softly. ‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it?’
It was just less than a month when I found Mark sitting in my apartment before I got home, having broken in. In all honesty, I wasn’t really surprised. True, we hadn’t seen each other since that night in the rain, and his words had sounded like closure, but at the same time, I don’t really think either of us had seen it as a last meeting.
After two bowls of pasta and some really good red wine, Mark got up and found my music speakers. He connected his mp3 to them, and put on a song I’d never heard, but loved all the same. Then he came back and took my hand, lead me to the space in my living room. Slowly, as the song grew stronger, louder, we danced together. Neither of us were particularly talented, but we got the gist of it: he led, I followed, moving as one.
Later, when his lips found mine, when he carried me, laid me down, made love to me, it felt like only seconds had passed since our last contact, not nearly a month. And as we whispered those words of eternity to each other, I knew that, if nothing else, the world could wait for us.