He climbs on-board and sits down next to me, as he always does if the seat vacant, as I invariably hope he will.

I wish him there every morning as we spy one another on the 7:25 through the big picture windows of the crowded weekday bus. I wish him there beside me, wanting to feel the warmth radiating from his masculine and clearly disciplined body, wanting to inhale the mix of his skin and the cologne on his freshly shaved face, wanting to break all social barriers and wind my fingers around his nape, drawing him close to these lips, to the scarlet kiss yearning to brand that soft spot on his neck.

I wish him there just as I wish him in my bed, just as I wish him to arrive at my door and without a single word to seize and possess me, to make me his, to tear these clothes from my body, his hands tracing the line from my neck to my breasts to the flare of my hips, his hands running up the length of my calves to these creamy, supple thighs, his hands taking hold, splaying me wide on the hard, polished floor, holding me open to his gaze, to the gaze burning to see my bright gleaming flesh, to see the glisten dripping from these honeyed lips, to the mouth hungry to feast, to the cock needing the embrace of my sweet hot clutching cunt.

I wish him there, I wish him here. And as I do you appear before me, you come back to me, erasing him, becoming him, your voice and face and body replacing, sating my sensual longings, my primal greed unlike any other man, unlike any other, stranger or known, your dark eyes meeting mine, your beard leaving the lover’s trace on my skin fair, on my passion vulnerable, your kiss, your kiss, your kiss, the kiss of your lips, the hot kiss of your skin, the kiss of perfection from your thick hard uncut flesh, your kiss, your kiss, your kiss, the kiss of our bodies as we fuck and grind and ride and plunge headlong into this familiar and unique bliss.

If you only knew what I’d give right now to have you hold me, to have you want to hold me, to hold me tight, to hold me close, to hold me like you’ll never let me go, to hold me until day becomes our velvet night, to hold me until the first rays of the morning light, to hold me until our heat turns into fire, our fire into ash, this ash into earth and flesh and blood and sweat and come, to hold me until our breath and kiss and delirious passion become one.

I can’t be measured. I can’t be measured with you. Not with you.

I try, I do try, but I fail miserably, each and every time. In the face of you, my carnality, my sensuality rises up, forcing its way through my skin, tearing at my flesh, dizzying my mind, shredding the seams of my impatience, my rationality, my experience of time. In the face of you and your body and your passions and your words, I am aflame.

In the end, it is this flame, this fire, my fury, my fervour that has burnt us right up for the very last time. And in its wake there is nothing but the need to guard and shield and hide this flesh, this heart, this vulnerability away, to paper over the fissure of desire you cruelly and tenderly tore open wide, to find my way through the tears and this pain to the love and the lust and the home of man I hunger and crave.

I see you everywhere.

I see you in the city crowd, around each bustling corner, in the sea of men dressed in their finery, moving swiftly, sauntering languidly, meeting in cafes, waiting at lights, recognising your eyes, your mouth, your gait, your frame, the heady mix of your cologne and your freshly showered skin.

I see you in flashes and grabs in these strangers before me, I hear your voice somehow through theirs, your voice deep and accented, your voice hoarse with desire, your voice erotically soft, your voice drifting through the wintry breeze, taunting me, calling me, summoning my body, impelling me to follow it, to follow you through the suited throng to a quiet little place, a quiet modest room, a room with a bed and a window and an unassuming view, a room to christen with the libations of our frenzied coupling, a room to fill with the sounds of our sensual union, a room for just us two.

I see you. I see you everywhere in the crowd, on the street, in this bright, shiny city of mine.

In the hours and days and weeks that slide imperceptibly away, in the grip of his fire, in the face of his presence, in the space of his absence, in the past tense of his desire, she realises with an almost painful clarity that this is no longer a game. She realises that he is unlike any other, that he is the man of flesh and blood and word and passion, the man ideal, the man flawed that she has always longed to meet. He is the man, he is that man, the one who inspires thoughts profound and profane, who speaks to her erotic and carnal longings, who pierces a place deep inside her she can barely acknowledge, let alone articulate.

She knows this now; knows it her bones, in her cunt and her heart and her soul.

She knows this just as she knows she will soon be forgotten, replaced, leaving the barest whisper of a trace. She knows this just as she knows she will never be that woman for him, he will never want her as she wants him, he will never want in the inquisitive, complex and complete ways that overtake her as the sun shines bright, that taunt her in the darkness, in her dreaming even as she prays to forget, that sweep over her petite form as she splays her legs wide, as she grinds her hips, her palm into her throbbing sex, as she nudges the flimsy cotton aside and spreads her bright lips to circle the nub of her purest pleasure, as she pushes in one digit, then two, then three, as she fingers, as she fucks with animal abandon, with feminine sensuality, her moans, her raged breath bringing him back to life once again, her moans, her murmurs placing him right before her eyes, by her side, her moans, her murmurs, her call to him flooding her ears with his voice, her mouth with his kiss, her senses with his skin and weight and burning need, her moans, her murmurs, her call, her cry binding, enslaving, plunging her headlong into the abyss shadowed and blinding.

As the sheen on her bare, shivering body glistens in the low, winter light, she knows this; she knows all of this. And how she wishes instead for ignorance’s bliss.

I need a lover.

I need you as my lover. You and only you.

I need your body strong, your body warm, your gaze and scent and kiss, your thick, hard lingering heat. I need your words, your silence, your song. I need your touch light, I need your touch dark, I need your touch complete.

Right now, I am certain you sense this, feel this, know this … fear this … to be true. I am certain this obsession, this addiction, this myopia is finally beginning to dawn.

And yet, the day on which it breaks is cold and grey and blustery, is without little hope, is without any sense, is without the rational thought that tempers the body written through with a desire so deep it tears the flesh, the soul, this woman to shreds.

In those rapid beats of the clock…

Did you see?
Did you sense?
Did your flesh and blood perceive?
Did your stirring, insatiable cock by some means know just how this body yearns for your lingering touch, your urgent caress, just how this woman longs to drown in the depths of your sensual kiss?

In those swift strokes of the hand…

Did you feel?
Did you believe?
Did your skin prickle in its understanding?
Did your breath rasp and accelerate, your muscular chest heave once you realised it was you
I reach out for in the night, once you grasped my maddening need to melt and merge with your hard addictive heat?

In those sharp bangs of the drum…

Did you hear?
Did you discern?
Did your sexual soul take hold?
Did your ears swim in the moans of pleasure escaping these soft full lips, your body shudder, your uncut meat drip as I fingered and fucked this cunt to the light in the name of your passion, our flame?

In those fleeting pulses of time…

Did you taste?
Did you discover?
Did your mouth ask, speak its truth?
Did your lips and tongue offer their words, their hunger, their enveloping benediction as they craved me near, as they devoured me from afar, as they compelled you to recognise the sweet and cruel mistress of this irresistible, overwhelming desire?

All of a sudden, the new season is here. As the dusk settles behind the threatening rain clouds, it smells and feels and sounds like autumn at last.

And right at this very moment, the only thing I yearn for is your kiss, our mingled breath, your muted moan, our bodies in a sensual tangle, skin on skin, warmth on softness, man and woman, the music of our love making merging with the soundtrack of the world shutting itself in.

It makes little sense this passion for you; this hunger that marks my days and my nights, this craving that racks flesh yielding and soft, this torrent of carnality, sultry sensuality, this yearning that shakes me through to the core.

It makes little sense.

And yet, it makes little sense without you; this desiring body at home with your touch, this woman of longing at peace in your kiss, this being familiar, this figure estranged reflected in the glass back at me. It makes little sense. She makes little sense.

I make little sense without you near.

She wishes he could be as forgettable to her as she is to him. She wishes for the ability to wipe him from her thoughts, her dreams, her body memory, from her erotic longings as easily and cleanly as his own process of erasure. She wishes and hopes and attempts to forget. But time and again her body betrays her, for there he is just as she opens herself to the pleasures of the flesh, just as the light blinds her eyes and the orgasm screams through and out of her.

There he is.

There he is before her, behind her, pressed softly, firmly into her. There is his voice, his scent, the taste of his kiss on her lips. There is his desire; the desire that speaks to her, somehow knows her, the desire whose subtleties and complexities, whose primal urgencies and lingering sensualities uncannily feel just like home.