Lovely

16. Youth is eager, not shy, always ready

"Hey snail!" A deep voice chirped. I looked up from my book, Callista had lended me her favourite one, and over the back of the couch to see Kahlo strolling in from the kitchen. He was munching on an apple. Chuckling, he walked over to the couch I was on, lifted my legs and plopped down, resting my stretched out legs on his lap. "I love how you basically answered to that."

I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I had but unable to deny it. My reading resumed. More crunches filled the air. Then I felt Kahlo's eyes on me. I could feel them, hot and searing yet cool and soothing, on my face and my neck and my chest and my hands. So I looked up to try and catch them. "What is it?" I asked after moments of silent eye contact.

"Nothing." But he had a sly smile on his face.

My eyes returned back to the pages of the book. I felt a hand rest on my knee but didn't take much notice of it. After reading a few pages I felt the hand slide higher up my leg. My eyes halted, and looked over at the hand. It was still in a friendly area, but was borderline flirty. A few more pages went by, and I was so deep into the world this book created that I almost missed Kahlo's hand moving up further still. His fingers slipped under the hem of my shorts and caressed a small area of covered skin. With hooded eyes I looked over at Kahlo. My body was reacting to his touch. My insides burned, I was out of breath.

"Pay attention to me."

Now, when Kahlo said this it didn't sound whiny, as you would expect. His voice was low, raspy. He kept eye contact, fiercely, challengingly. He noticed my chest rising and falling at a fast pace, and the way I was struggling to keep my eyes open. He wanted to communicate that there was more to his words. His fingers wrapped around the curves of my thigh and squeezed, producing a gasp out of me. The house to ourselves, Kahlo's hand on my thigh, my stomach full of raspberries. What a day.

His lips were suddenly on my neck. I leaned into him, held him, melted against him. He wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking. We let our bodies move as they pleased. Kahlo stopped kissing my neck, left a peck on my lips, and returned to his original position. Left flustered, I couldn't do anything but smile. Our hair was left sticking out in different places but neither of us did anything to smooth it down. Perhaps this decision in itself was the invitation to do more damage to each other. Kahlo got to his feet calmly, casually, and held his hand out for me. I closed the book and left it on the couch. He draped an arm over my shoulders. I followed his steps. We arrived upstairs.

"What room?"

The only words he needed to say.

"Yours."

Yours. That could mean anything. My heart is yours, my soul is yours, I am yours. Or simply your eyes, your shoes, your bed. It meant nothing, but still managed to mean everything. It depended on how hard you searched. Around Kahlo, I always searched to the best of my ability. I was almost scared of missing something. A smile, a gasp, a tap of his finger. All were precious in some way.

He turned to me and picked me up. His hands were under my thighs, my arms around his shoulders. He blew into my neck, causing me to squirm and laugh. Along the way, multiple times, he'd pretend to drop me, or spin around. Each time he got a scream out of me. How foreign, but natural, it felt for him to lay me down on his bed. He wasn't awkward, so he knew. I knew what I was doing. I didn't have to ask. His kisses was his answer. The fluidity of his moves, the pace in which he moved from point A to point B. Like a young couple who had just purchased their own house, our actions were, not those of newly acquainted teens. We were overflowing with love, that was what made it so easy to get to such a point. Youth is eager, not shy, always ready. That is what we were. It was obvious in how fast we were grasping each other, no clothes separating us. Nothing was rushed, everything flowed and molded together.

The salt of his skin, the scent of his hair, the taste of him. It was all mine. For a small amount of time, it was all mine. Sounds that harmonised like birdsong erupted from our mouths, grasping and touching that looked like hands of a musician playing an instrument, bodies that were intertwined like the design of a fishing net. These series of moments put every other moment to shame. Nothing could touch this, nothing could touch us. We were on a different plane of existence altogether. Reality was far away.

Lying in his sun soaked sheets, this time with no fabric to keep the dips and bumps of our bare bodies a secret, my head resting on his arm, my hand tracing lines onto his chest, him humming. This could be all my life amounted to, and I would be satisfied. This could be the highlight of my entire existence, and I wouldn't change anything.

We didn't move. We didn't rush to clean up. We stayed, glued to each other, finding comfort in being so raw in front of each other. Unwashed, the sweat and unkemptness of post-sex, unbothered. Kahlo and I, we had been each other's. There was nothing left to hide. We enjoyed the calm after the chaos. The cloud we lay on did eventually land. But the warm feeling never left my chest. A love, an appreciation, a need that I didn't know my heart was capable of was what I felt for Kahlo. So deeply that I could spend everyday like that and never get tired