Observation - a Meandering Thoughts free fiction by Stevie Woods
Thought I'd try something different on my Blog for a change. I decided to post the occasional free fiction, short dips into my writing that haven't appeared in any of my published work. Some of them might be writing exercises, just a way to get the juice flowing when things weren't going so well with whatever current WIP I was working on, some were ideas that I thought might develop into stories but never quite worked, some just ideas I wanted to jot down. I decided to call these Meandering Thoughts and this first one, called Observation, was written a few years ago when I was first experimenting with writing in First Person, and I'd just been prescribed my first pair of spectacles:)
OBSERVATION
I have to wear glasses otherwise I can’t see properly, that’s the general consensus. Can’t argue with that, no glasses and everything is just a blur.
Still, it never ceases to amaze me how people with supposed perfect vision just don’t see. Not even things right under their noses; talk about not seeing the wood for the trees. Then again, that’s become somewhat easier for me to understand since I recently realized I was just as guilty of that as the rest of the human race.
I sit here now across the table from him, the cause of my epiphany. I’ve known the man for three years and yet it was only recently that I really saw him, saw the way he saw me. Then I realized that I was, for a time, thankfully a very short time, afraid. Not of him, never of him; of me. Could I accept what he was offering me?
It only took one touch, one particular brush of his fingers to know. I not only wanted what he was offering, I needed it, and I needed him. Also, I realized that he not only wanted me but he needed me and that filled my heart with joy. I’d missed that, being desired and, more importantly, being needed.
That was when I really began to look, to watch the man I’d come to love. You see, I wondered what else I’d been missing. It took me a while to understand why that one touch had communicated so much to me when Steve had always been tactile, always little touches, my arm, my shoulder, a ruffle of my hair, a hand to the small of my back. I never could let anyone else get that close to me, something else I’d never bothered to question, it just was.
So why this time, why this touch? I worked it out, simple really, because I understood what the touch meant to him; I saw. Not just with my eyes, but with my heart. It meant something to Steve so it meant something to me. The warmth that ran through me was invigorating.
My next thought was how much I’d missed during the last three years. How long had he felt like that? Steve admitted to me that he’d been falling in love - God to hear that word from his lips - for quite a while. It crept up on him until even he wasn’t sure when it really began; but there was no way he could say anything. Not until I was free, until my divorce was final, and even then Steve admitted to some fear himself; fear of rejection, fear of losing my friendship. Steve said he just couldn’t face that, so he waited.
So long, it had been so long. I’d been blind for so long. So much for wearing glasses! So now I look, I watch, I see.
Like now; when we’re taking part in a meeting as we have done most weekdays for the past three years; the same, but oh so different. He’d always leaned back in his chair with eyes half-closed, appearing bored and never seeming to take account of the presentations. I had long since recognized that wasn’t really the case because he always knew exactly what was involved down to the smallest detail. Now I understood what he was really doing when he was pretending not to pay attention.
He was observing me.
Whenever I turned my back to point out something on the large screen, he was watching my ass. I think I’m glad I never knew that back then, I’d have been as embarrassed as hell. Now I like that he can’t keep his eyes, or his hands, off it.
I also discovered when I’m talking and he slides down in his seat slouching and playing with his pen or doodling, what he is actually doing is watching my face. He told me he loves to watch my lips, but also if I get really passionate about something my eyes light up. I got kind of embarrassed about that. I could never have imagined just how romantic Steve really is.
Like during our visits to the gym. It was Steve who convinced me that as someone who spent most of my day stuck behind a desk I needed to exercise regularly. I always imagined that he kept an eye on me in that protective way of his while I learned to use the gym equipment, but he still watched me closely even after I was well versed in its use. He didn’t only watch over me, he studied me. He watched as I lay flat out, or when I stretched up or as I bent over. He watched the way my body moved, the definition of the muscles in my back or thighs. The gluteal muscles as they moved under my shorts.
I remember that evening, lying in his arms on his sofa as he confessed his feelings to me. I remember how aroused I became by his description of his own arousal. The more I learned of him, the more I began to know myself.
I’d had sex with others, male and female. Thought I’d been in love before and it had been wonderful, but I had to admit to myself that I never achieved the heights of passion with anyone else that I did with Steve. I also knew I was falling more in love with him day by day and I was so grateful we’d have a lifetime to spend together. I was already so close to Steve, more known by him than I’d ever felt before. I knew that Steve was truly the other half of my soul.
There’s another reason I watch Steve. He told me how much he loved me, and please believe me when I say that I don’t doubt that, but as I came to the realization of his love for me by observation, I felt that perhaps I could judge its depth the same way. Perhaps that was naïve of me, I can’t argue that possibility but still, I observe.
I observe the way he nervously twirls the pen when he knows I’m watching him. He can’t hide from me anymore the way he used to. I know he keeps his hands moving like that because his hands would rather be busy elsewhere. Touching me. He daren’t look at me either, that’s why his eyes are darting everywhere. If he looked at me he couldn’t look anywhere but at my mouth, unless perhaps it was at my eyes. He really has a thing for my eyes. I can’t help but smile. Good thing I’m sitting at the moment or I might blush at what I’m pretty sure he’s thinking and how it’s making me feel. We made an agreement to keep this out of the office, to behave perfectly normally while at work. We do, at least physically we do, but mentally that’s a whole other ball game as Steve might say; for both of us.
Just as I observe him now, he still observes me. Can’t help it, either of us. Not sure we want to anyway.
As I sit here now watching him, my mind drifts back to last night when we were making love and I was buried deep inside him as he squirmed beneath me. Just as he reached climax our eyes met and I saw my joy reflecting back at me from his eyes. How much more did I need to see?
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