the heel press

“What are you thinking about?”

   I looked up, surprised, “What?”

   “What,” she turned to look at me, cigarette hanging from her thin but soft lips,” are you thinking about?”

   “Nothing,” I looked past her, feeling almost threatened by her curiosity, “why do you ask?”

   “You always do the same thing,” she took a short, sweet drag, her eyes slowly closing, “every time, after we’re done, you always just lie there and stare off to nowhere.”

   “Oh,” suddenly I felt naked, even though I had been naked for the last hour or so. I pulled the blanket over my waist.

   “Well,” she turned back around, “you just go ahead and think and let me know when you’re done.”

   I looked at her for a moment before I rested my head down on the pillow. Her bare back curved with the way she was sitting on the edge of my bed, her legs crossed and her weight leaning on one hand. I counted her vertebrae down to where it disappeared where she was arching her back. I smiled; she was always so feminine. Her toes were probably pointed as well. Her hair was dark with light streaks put in it; it came to just above her shoulders. Smoke was hanging in the air around her head.  I followed the line of her neck coming out from under her hair across her right shoulder where I continued down along her rib cage and over her hip to where it disappeared into the comforter. Her skin was soft and fair.

When I put my head down on the pillow, I wondered what it was about her that kept me around. Every time we were together I fantasized about leaving her. I imagined telling her that I needed to be free and that I couldn’t see her anymore. Every time I saw another girl that I found even half way attractive, I wished that I had left her the night before. My heart just wasn’t with her anymore, but somehow she managed to keep me around. She wasn’t even my type. Where I usually liked blondes, she was a brunette. Where I usually like taller girls with long legs, she was shorter. That’s not to say I wasn’t attracted to her. She was a lovely girl with a nice, petite figure and small but round breasts. She good in bed. She was flexible and adventurous and good, but sex really wasn’t that important to me. It had been seven months and it wasn’t the sex that was keeping me here.

   “By the way,” she looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes looking through me, her mouth forming each word perfectly, “you really need to shave. That mustache just won’t do.”

   That was it. Her face. When she looked at me, my heart broke. Those eyes, that always looked ready to cry; they made me feel like I was the only man she ever needed. Her lips were so perfect and symmetrical, pale pink and expressive; watching her talk was like watching ballet. Her cheekbones curved into her face, gently rolling in past the contour that led to her small, pointed chin. If it hadn’t been for her face, I would have left five months ago. I sighed loudly and propped myself up so I could look at her. She really was a wonderful girl. She was good to me; she was smart; she was a girl I should have been happy with. But why was it, in spite of everything she was and everything I enjoyed in her, that I longed to leave her? By all means, she should have been perfect for me. She was perfect for me. There’s a good chance she still is perfect for me. But at seven months, I wasn’t sure of this relationship. Why? Why couldn’t I allow myself to be happy with her? Then it hit me like a hammer in the face.

   I was afraid of her.

   I was afraid that she could make me commit. I was afraid that I loved her. I was afraid that I would put my life on hold for her. Things were going so smoothly that there was no chance that we could not work. And I resented that. I wanted to be single, but somewhere deep inside me I knew she was the girl that could make me settle down. She was my match, my perfect match, and I almost hated her for it. I sat up.

   “Ok,” I said to her.

   “Ok what?” she turned around and kneeled in front of me, leaning forward on her hands, “Done thinking?”

   “Yes,” I said, avoiding her eyes. She stared at me for an agonizing moment.

   “What’s wrong?” she sat up, leaning away from me, her chest pushed out and her shoulders and arms pushed together and forward.

   “I have to do this,” I whispered.

   “Why,” she asked, already understanding what I was doing. Her eyes looked like marbles at the bottom of a pool.

   “Because,” I stammered, my chest felt like it was going to collapse, “this is too perfect.”

   “What?” her eyes squinted to a sliver of white, blue and black squeezed between long,, black eyelashes; a tear dropped quickly down her face and into her lap. She didn’t understand and I could feel her heart ripping.

   “I…I have things I need and want to do,” I tried to explain, “If I stay here, so comfortable and so content with you, I’ll never do them.”

   She just looked at me. Through wet, hurt, tear-filled, squinted eyes she just looked at me. Her nostrils flared slightly and her lips quivered with words she didn’t have and would never get to say anyways. Wrinkles stretched across her forehead like folds in cloth as her mind worked to fix this. Her head dropped to her chest and her hair fell over her face. I got up and began to dress.

   “But…” she said as I buttoned my pants.

   “I’m sorry,” I pulled my shirt on.

   Like a flower opening she began to cry. Slow at first, building until finally she collapsed onto her side with her face in her hands and her sides shaking with her sobs. I walked out of her apartment, out of the building and into the cold air.