Tease Me Where We Can't Act On It

Your hand lands on my leg at dinner and just stays there while you keep talking to whoever's sitting across from us like nothing's happening. I lose the sentence I was halfway through saying. You don't even look at me when you do it, and that's somehow worse.

You Know Exactly What You're Doing

The line at the grocery store, you lean in close enough that I catch your perfume and say something low I definitely wasn't supposed to hear in public, then go right back to comparing prices on cereal like your voice didn't just do that to me. A work dinner, you murmuring something against my ear while I'm mid-sentence with a client, then pulling back before anyone notices. The DMV, of all places, your hand brushing mine while we wait in a line that isn't moving fast enough for either of us anymore. None of it needs to be anywhere special. It just needs to be somewhere I have to sit there and take it.

What It Actually Does To Me

My jaw sets. My hands stop being useful for whatever I was holding. There's something under the composed version of me you deal with most days that doesn't get let out often, and this is exactly what pulls at the chain. A wild bear pacing the inside of its den, already awake, already aware of exactly who put it there. I carry that through the rest of the meal, through the drive home, through however long you end up making me wait, thinking through exactly what happens the second we're finally alone.

What Happens When We Get There

I don't rush it, and I don't warn you exactly when it's coming either. Could be an empty alley twenty metres ahead, pulled off the sidewalk before you've even finished the sentence that started this. Could be the second the door shuts behind us, your back against it before you've even set your bag down. Could be twenty minutes later, once you've started to relax and convinced yourself I forgot. I never forget. You started it in a room full of people who had no idea what you were doing to me, so you don't get to decide when I finish it.

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