Powerless To Stop It

I have a confession to make. Not an easy one but one that I need to face, share and maybe try and explain. It started six years ago on a trip to Europe, a fun little flirtation at first, the heart pounding stuff of novels by the time I boarded my flight to return home. I was sure I could just leave it there. Let the memories of those warm nights, salty lips, shared plates of firm, succulent shrimp, feet stomping on a dance floor, my sweat…. thick and swollen with the sweet smell of Brandy, dripping from the tiny hairs at the base of my neck, wriggling between the blades of my shoulders. The dark rooms with those crisp, stiff hotel sheets, the evidence of the night before brought back to me as the steam and stinging darts of hot water bounced off my skin, pulling that scent…that indulgence from my flesh. My breath escaping my chest, my palms pressed against the slippery tiles, neck bent, head plunged beneath the shower head, not sure if I were trying to escape that intoxicating aroma or if I were trying to find the deep end, and jump. 

I thought I could just touch all of that with brief visits alone at night, flipping through my unprinted photo album and content to hide the pink that was crawling up my neck and the smirk that would give me away of it weren’t tucked under my outstretched fingers. Those candlelight-like flickers splashed against my screen, burning just enough to remind me what it felt like to be that…taken. Brief encounters from a distance where it was safe, where I was safe from crumbling beneath the weight of my unquenchable want and complete inability to stop myself. As I buckled myself into my seat for the ten hour flight home I imagined that each hour was a year, putting not only miles but time between us. 

The years ticked along and with each flip of the calendar those flickers, the hunting, came less frequently and while my passion never went away I was able to compartmentalize and compress it, almost as if it were another life….another person. It wasn’t until last year that I started hearing whispers. Not from some cavernous place in my mind that was trying to remind me but from others. I’d shift uncomfortably in my shoes, feel the heat once again creeping up my neck and my throat would tighten. My memories splashing down upon me…my mouth watering, aching to open up and take it all in again but knowing that should I allow myself even the tiniest bit of rope, I would be helpless to stop the woman inside me, the one who’s feet did that stomping and never forgot the painfully sexy taste of those salty lips. She, she would emerge and her tight throated urging would ooze over me like warm honey until did as she pleaded…”Just one more time”

In a moment of buzzy weakness I let that raspy voice dig into my flesh and push me right back into the “something” that started, and I tried desperately to leave behind six years ago. Here I am once again, a slave to the desire that has its teeth buried in my skin, without a plane and thousands of miles to keep us apart and no amount of hot water is going to wash the scent away this time. It’s time to own what I’ve done and to confess…I’m not willing to stop.

It was in the tiny town of Cadiz that my sultry lover first spoke to me and now that doughy and powerful voice is back in my life and, I’m afraid, I’m so deeply in love that I can’t even begin to imagine being apart.....