The Burn

That thread

After the pause came the other pause and it was the way they have of following each other the next one already in its place as if the sequence was arranged according to some design or other, and set not just by the first but them all, a networked silence. It was that way when she entered the room. The noise having ceased right enough but even allowing for that if it hadnt it would have — which is usually always the case. She had the looks to attract, a figure exactly so, her sensuousness in all the moves so that her being there in this objectified way, the sense of a thousand eyes. Enter softly enter softly: it was like a song he was singing, and her smile brief, yet bravado as well, that style some women have especially, the face, the self-consciousness; and all of them being there and confronting her while her just there taking it, standing there, one arm down, her fingers bent, brushing the hem of her skirt. She was not worried by virtue of him, the darkness of the room, any of it. Like a sure knowledge of her own disinterest, his non-existence as a sexual being, in relation to her, and he grinned, reaching for the whisky and pouring himself one, adding a half again of water, the whisky not being a good one. She was still standing there, as if dubiously. She was seeking out faces she recognised and his was one that she did recognise, lo, but would barely acknowledge, she would never acknowledge. Had he been the only face to recognise; the only one. Even that. He smiled then the sudden shift out from his side jacket pocket with the lighter and snap, the flare in the gloom, the thin exhalation of blue smoke; he sipped at the whisky and water, for his face would definitely have had to be recognised now, from the activity, no matter how softly, softly and quietly, no matter how he had contrived it. Now his elation was so fucking strong, so fucking vivid man, and striking, and so entirely fucking wonderful he wanted to scream he had to scream he really did have to he had to scream he would have to he wouldnt be able to fucking stop himself he was shaking he was shaking the cuff of his sleeve, the cuff of his sleeve, trailing on the surface of the table, his hand shaking, shaking, now twitching and his breath coming deep, and she would have sensed it, sensed it all, and she would be smiling so slightly around the corners of her mouth, the down there, her thick lower lip how round it was, how round it was and mystifying, to describe it as provocative was an actual error, an error, a mistake. But the hesitancy in her movement. That thread having been long flung out now, though still exploratory, but ensnaring, it was ensnaring, causing her to hold there, so unmistakeably hesitant now rubbing her shoulder just so self-aware yet in that kind of fashion a woman has of rubbing her shoulder at the slightest sensory indication of the thread, feeling it cling, that quiver and he shivered, raising the whisky to his mouth and sipping it, keeping his elbow hard in to the side of his body, keeping it firmly there because that sickness in the pit of his belly and the blood coursing through his cheeks, and burning, burning, everyone seeing and knowing, he was so transparent, so transparent, she just shook her head. What was she going to do? She just had shaken her head that most brief way, and she turned on her heel and she left, left him there. He couldnt move. He would cry out. But his face was controlled, so controlled, although the colour now drained from his cheeks, or else the opposite, was it the opposite? and his hand now shaking, the cigarette lighter on the coffee table.