nixsight

Our hands are right there next to each other on the table.

I imagine placing my fingers on hers.

Very soon, we kiss. A little later, we are in bed.

She flinches slightly and moves her hand to her lap, looking away. Before long, she blusters and leaves, and I don’t hear from her for days. And of course then it’s all different.

She cries a little when she orgasms, and I don’t know how to take it. It becomes “a thing” between us. I never really learn how to take it.

She pretends not to notice my fingers touching hers, and, mercifully, finds a neutral excuse to get something from her purse, extricates her hand . She keeps talking about whatever she was talking about, and never addresses my advance.

It saves my pride, and I don’t take it further, glad to salvage the friendship. We stay friends forever.

It doesn’t work… I try to accept the rejection, but later, alone in bed, it festers, and later still, I find I can’t look her in the eye as easily as before. We never quite recover.

Fingers on hers, then her wrist, then her cheek. We kiss tenderly, and a week later we make love. There are candles in her bedroom. Lots of candles, and massage oil.

Fingers on her cheek, then she kisses me hard, and we’re half naked before the taxi gets us home.

She squeals when she climaxes.

She screams when she climaxes.

She laughs over and over and chants “thankyou”, “thankyou” when she climaxes.

She barely seems to register us having sex. She says that she had a nice time, but we only try it once more, and then never, ever speak of it again. We remain careful friends.

Five months later, we’ve moved into a flat together. We’re in love by then.

We move into the flat together, because it seems to make sense. Six years later, neither of us remembers how we got there. Life isn’t bad. So we carry on a bit longer.

I am so in love with her that when her body is finally taken away, I no longer even recognise our children and grandchildren through the grief. I stumble on for a few more months, worrying them all but not noticing, and then one day I just give up, and as I expire I hope that I’ll see her soon.

I’ve become ambivalent about the sex. I’m not good at hiding it, and although we try to make things better, pretty soon we split up. She destroys as many of my belongings as she can before I can move them, and we never speak again without the aid of solicitors.

We go on and on forever, perfectly at ease with each other until the point at which we just eventually wink out. Our love is so uplifting that even our great-grandchildren like to hear us tell stories about how we met. Even when it’s bad, it’s still good.

The divorce is an amicable one.

We never fall in love, but stick together for a really long time because the sex is so good.

The first kiss isn’t so good, and she gets embarassed. We never try again, but she remains a great friend, and when I eventually find someone and get married, they get on so well that we spend loads of time together as a little clique. It’s only a little awkward for me.

The first kiss isn’t so good, so we giggle, and try again, and again, and that sets a pace for one of the longest, nicest, cutest relationships either of us ever has. It’s all good.

She and “the bump” (which I am secretly already calling by the name we’ve always favoured, even though she believes it’s bad luck to do so) are the last thing on my mind. Minutes later, the firemen use the “jaws of life” to salvage my body from the wreckage of the car, but by then I’m already somewhere else.

We never fall in love, but it’s fun anyway.

We have a great night, but it’s awkward for a while after that. We stay friends, though, for a long time.

We don’t stay friends. She ends up hating me. And she should, because after the things I’ve done by that point, I hate myself.

There’s a nuclear attack/sudden massive climate change/alien attack/comet… I race across town to see her while the radioactive zombies/wall of fire, water or ice/alien death rays/mobs of angry humans ironically turning on each in the face of a mutual enemy hamper me, hoping that I will save her and our kids from a certain death/reconcile our differences before she marries that other guy/tell her one last time that I love her before annihilation.

We grow apart.

We hold each other’s hands and gaze for several seconds, and then the waiter turns up and the moment has passed. We get another chance.

We don’t get another chance.

She smiles as she feels my fingers on hers, but they linger there for a slightest instant too longer, or something else happens, and she thinks better of it all.

Her fingers are on mine.

Uh, wait a minute.

That’s actually happening.

I look at our hands, and then up at her face. She is looking intently straight at me, concern and amusement mixed in her eyes in equal measures.

She gives my hand a squeeze, and says:
“Are you okay? You’ve been staring into space for ages…”

I say, “I was just thinking of all the different things that can happen to two people,” and instantly feel uncertain of the words coming out of my mouth. “I mean, how can you know whether things will go really right, or really wrong?”

“We find out the same way everyone else does.” She loosens her grip, and I swear she sparkles, as she smiles and says “We wait… and see.”