First kiss

'Great necklace', the guy says and stares at my tits. "What does it say?"

"It's my nickname", I say coldly.

"How do you pronounce that?", he gets closer.

The Boy sweeps in with our drinks, assesses the situation and drapes his arm around me protectively. I smile, I say my nickname to the guy, who scowls at The Boy and skulks off.

"I can't leave you for five minutes! You get a lot of attention", he laughs.

"I do. But then so do you", I say and I mean it. He gets looked at quite a bit because he is beautiful, no two ways about it. His hair is freshly washed, swept to one side, he's wearing his jeans inside his boots with a red and black lumberjack shirt. He looks like a cowboy gypsy. The girls, fresh faced and gorgeous, in their early twenties in cut off denim shorts, torn tights, long messy hair and heavy eye make up eye him up, and then move to assess me. I am in my full woman regalia. Skin-tight striped jersey dress, swept back platinum blonde hair, minimal make up with red lips and dark brows. I stand out from the rock chick crowd. I know they resent me and admire me at the same time. I don't care and they know that too.

As he holds me, his hand leisurely slides down and is now planted in my most erogenous zone. The small of my back. His palms barely skirt the curve of my buttocks and yet I arch in a Pavlov's dog reaction.

'Are you okay?', he checks suddenly, noticing my tenseness.

'Yes, I am. And I like when you do that. Do that a bit more. I want your hand there. It gives me pleasure', only when I say it I realise I literally narrated my thoughts out loud.

"You do?", he stares at me with his wolfish grey eyes. Can't read his expression because I am too startled by what I just said.

Fuck it. I hear my voice again, it's just my thoughts, pouring out with no consideration for propriety, playing the game, being cool or whatever the fuck I usually do when I make a play for someone.

"I love the way you hold me. I love feeling your hands on me and I love your body against mine. And I really want you. Even now, right now, I can imagine how you would feel between my legs",

There, I've fucking said it. I am sober, present and clear. And yet, I've said it.

For a split moment I think I overdid it and feel like a fucking shy teenager, grateful for the dimmed lights as my face is burning.

He simply turns me towards him, slowly takes me in his arms and holds me very tight. I hide my face in his chest, my mind racing.

Fuck fuck fuck! I feel like I am sixteen again.

Then his hand travels to my neck, I let my head fall into it comfortably, his lips lightly brush mine and we kiss. His tongue flicks over my lips, skirting my teeth. We stand there, glued to each other, for a moment I feel like a happy statue, immobile and fixed in a place where it feels right. Our tongues play lightly, with no rush, I tease his with mine gently, withdrawing it in little feline licks, brushing the edge of his mouth on the way out. He pulls me closer, his right hand in the small of my back, his left snaking up and around my neck, sliding into my hair. My hands wander to the favourite part of him. His back has a deep muscular ridge running down it, right to his buttocks. As I melt into him, I feel it. His cock. It's hard, pressed against my belly. It delights me so much that I gasp, right into his mouth and feel the unmistakable pang of desire between my legs, so intense it's almost painful. I know that with it comes the slithery wetness and I squeeze my thighs together, swaying my hips towards him again just to feel the hardness of his cock again. Then, I open my eyes. His lips still on mine, his eyes open too and he smiles. I know because his eyes are smiling and I sense his lips curving on mine.

'Wow', he says.

'I know', I say.

Tenderness

The Boy has beautiful eyes. That's a fact. Deep, wolfish grey, with flickers of green, like mine, framed by long eyelashes. He has a beautiful face too. Small nose, round lips showing small even teeth and gorgeous cheekbones. There is an ambiguous tinge of femininity in his look and there is something androgynously enticing about it, because he is playful, charming and wily. Just like me.

But today his face isn't right. It's ashen and shrunken, his eyelashes fall in soft fringes on his cheeks.

The hubub of A&E around us, nurses shouting out names, tannoy announcements and the drunken man stubbornly arguing with a vending machine only vaguely register in my mind. My focus is fully on him.

He's sitting down, I am crouched between his knees, holding my hands over his, smoothing them down,  trying to ease them into mine, straightening his fingers gently one by one on the fabric of his jeans.

'Can you hold your hands down darling? It will calm your breath', I ask, injecting as much calm as I possibly can into my voice.

He catches a sharp breath. The pain is back.

'Breathe into it darling. Just breathe into it. It will pass...'

He stretches his hands on his knees, but he hunches forward trying to stop the pain. I know that he hunching will exacerbate it so I get up, stand right between his knees and let him rest his head on my stomach to keep him straight.

I take his head into my hands and I stroke his soft hair gently, methodically running my fingers through the silky strands, trying to absorb his pain into me because every time he twitches and moves, it's like a tiny shard of glass sticking deeper into my heart.

He lifts his head and looks at me. His eyes are hazy, the translucent grey irises glowing with vulnerability.

'Shhhhhh', I say and let his head fall into me again.

I want to take him home. I want him in my bed, pain-free, resting at last. I imagine him there, sleeping peacefully in the light of my bedside lamp.

Tenderness. Doesn't come to me easily. Yet with him, I am awake, aware and full of love.