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[dsudis.livejournal.com]

Resisting the urge to keep this and stare at it until next weekend and then forget to post it...



I can't look away.

That's nothing new, really. Ever since Ray appeared in my life like a changeling, a magical figure slipped into my disappeared partner's place, I've been watching him. Our two-week-old romantic relationship certainly hasn't muted my fascination.

This is different, though, different from watching him work or eat or drive or make love. None of those leave me with this bitter tang in my mouth, as though I've been kissing gunmetal or swallowing tears. I am watching Ray dance.

With Stella.

She's not actually here, in Ray's living room at three in the morning, and I try to persuade myself that that matters. I'm the one who's really here, leaning in the bedroom doorway, and those are my boxers he pulled on when he slipped out of bed. Out here, dancing, it's only the memory of her in his arms, and I want to feel some victory in that. I try to see only him, only the beauty in the long fluid lines of his body, but I can't see him without seeing the easy way he moves, relying on a skilled and familiar partner, the way his arms are bent to hold someone slender and small and not me, and I cannot look away.

I try. I close my eyes. The last few nights, this has been the end; I have kept my eyes closed and slipped back to bed, waiting for him to return to me, and he does. I have lain awake, listening to the step and slide of his bare feet, spinning theories about sleepwalking that don't ease my jealousy, my fear. I don't want him to dream about her, either.

Tonight my eyes come open again, though I know better. He has his back to me, his head turned so that I see his face in profile, the shadow-smudge of eyelashes against his cheeks, the tiny smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. If Stella were really here, I wouldn't see her from this vantage, and somehow that makes me realize that I'm letting her win. She's not even really here, she doesn't even want him, and I'm letting her win.

I cross the space between us, close it until it disappears and I am pressed against his back, skin to skin, only my boxers between us as I match his motion. He continues dancing, and I fold my arms around him, cutting in without so much as a polite word to his partner, pressing one hand to his heart as if I could keep it for myself with the strength of my grip. At this point I'm willing to try.

"Ray," I whisper in his ear, "come back to bed."

He drops Stella, his arms lifting to twine backward around my neck, his whole body rubbing catlike against mine as the dance changes to something with fewer steps and a lot more sex. He turns his head, eyes opening slowly to meet mine as his smile creases their corners. Belatedly, I understand. He was watching me. Each night I let him go, each night I turned away, and he was watching me. Tonight, I have earned this dreamy but wide awake smile in his eyes.

"You know," he whispers back, "that's all you ever had to say."