Love me, Loudly

by Jess Kolbe

  She is utterly captivating. I can make her body out, hips that I can hold on to, caramel skin that has been kissed by the sun, healthy breasts that compliment those curves, lips that hold a beaming smile. I want to see all of her, I want to peel her back, hold her down and taste her. I want to know her.

  The intensity of my thoughts shock me and I demand that I hold my shit together. I’m not in a position to be looking for anything. The reality of my life slaps me square in the face and it all feels wrong, fucking selfish. I berate myself for looking for a distraction. I move away and start back on the tools for the shop fit out, measuring twice, and cutting once…

  From the corner of my eye, I see her moving from the table to directly opposite me. I can’t avoid her. She feels great. I take her all in now, head to toe, her body, presented to me, curves for days. She is giggling innocently with buckets of nerves.

  That smile hits me in the chest like a ball of warmth and comfort, fuck, feels like home, fuck she feels like home.

  Then in one instant, she shifts from nervous giggle to standing bold presenting herself to me. Fuck, the sexiest thing happens, as a woman comes alive in front of me. The moment is hot as hell. I am rock hard and take a gulp of air, completely out of my fucking depth. I instinctively move towards her and we stare at each other, frozen, in this electrified space.

  She breaks the moment and I need to move away. What the fuck was that…? Emotions rise in me, fuck, what is going on?

  I seek out the privacy of the back room in the store. I feel stunned, it’s all too much, fuck. I force my thoughts and emotions away. She felt strong, vulnerable. That nervous laugh, both scared me and excited me. It dawns on me that, I’m captivated by her, and I want to get know her. I robotically get up and search for her. She feels amazing. Why am I hiding? Is this real or am I just avoiding feeling the loss of Dad?

  I’m searching for those hips, while considering how she would find her rhythm on my cock. I walk out of the shop, looking back and forth, a little more frantically than I would like. I feel like a lost puppy and also a bit stupid.

  I know she’s gone.

  Fuck, well done dickhead, loudly reverberates around my mind. I turn back to the tools and promise that if I ever see those hips again, I will get their number.

  My day moves on well. I feel a little different in that a really normal thing happened and it’s strange that normal is uncomfortable. I know that its Dad who is a constant in my thoughts. I realised I had a moment where he wasn’t, instantly anxious at the thought of losing a little bit more of him, with a punch in the guts hitting me square on.

  Dad would want me to be happy, I know that. He was always going on about me finding a good girl. Such an old school gentleman, he was.

  She looked like she could be that.

  A wave of loss hits me again, the sense of loss embedding in my throat. I desperately try to swallow it away, force the thought and emotion away, fucking aggressively demanding I pull my shit together and not lose control. Be a fucking man! I tighten my fists and push away the gaping hole in my life. I feel like I’m betraying him and the family, thinking of a random woman when everything is fucked.

  It is so hard to look at Mum and Ruby. The pain on their faces and horror behind Mum’s eyes from that day. It’s still there every time she looks at me.

  Desperate for my thought pattern to stop, I say aloud, ‘just get on with it’.

  Something I say multiple times a day to block out and get on with what I have to do, keep moving.

  It’s like he never existed. Like this enigma that we all know a story about yet isn’t around. People don’t say his name, or they try to catch themselves before they say it. Truly the worst is when people actually correct themselves and redirect the conversation as if both the comment and Dad never existed. I don’t get angry when it happens. I don’t know what to say either. They’re the lucky ones as it’s not happening to them and I’m grateful they don’t have to go through this.

  Really, I don’t know what to fucking say to anyone about anything at all. I don’t trust myself, even though I’m walking around pretending I do.

  I am the man of the family now. What other options do I have? Empty, just empty. I should be sad or angry or have more feeling. There’s nothing. I’m numb to the world and his loss, the thoughts painfully digging into the hole in my heart. My mind swims in looping negativity. I’m scared I am stuck here with no way out. The colour in the world has gone, just like Mum’s face - hasn’t found her rosy cheeks. Ruby sobs and sobs, she’s taken leave from work and the two of them walk around the house like zombies. I think they’re helping each other but it’s hard to tell. Mum’s really the only one who talks about him. Well she still walks around the house talking to him, still sets the dinner table and just sits staring at his chair. Ruby said yesterday she stopped making his dinner. Looking at their faces is fucking horrible, the shame I feel from what I did. I can’t even look at myself, let alone them. Why would this woman even want a fucking bar of me?

  HER | Three

  Today, I’m feeling confident. I’ve got my nice heels on, dressed business smart, with a slight flare as my personality must shine through so I feel comfortable and not like a fish out of water. It will help to give me the courage I need for this meeting today. A potential big design contract for me if all goes well. My time to pitch. I’ve gone over it in my head and feel at ease with what I’m going to present and then it will be up to the gods.

  At first, I am shaking and allowing my nervous energy to be there. This is big for me, so I accept my nerves, embracing my hands shaking in sweat, taking a moment to remind myself I am enough, my best today is all I need. I settle into my feelings and things begin going swimmingly. The table is engaging with me and a nice flow is occurring. My initial concerns dissipate about requesting to meet at a coffee shop. They are as relaxed and responsive as I am, so we have a lovely exchange of information bouncing back and forth different design ideas and excitement builds for our project, hopefully.

  My temperature suddenly changes, I’m excited in a very different way. I feel him in my body first, the sensation of something quite different. I feel exposed and aroused. I don’t see anyone except a wave of energy lustfully pulling at me and my own desire scratching to get out, to be freed and play with the person coming towards me. The energy is full of heat. The table has its own flow about the project applications thankfully. I’m being pulled in another direction, overwhelmed, I need to look, I’m distracted.

  Reality hits me like a slap. Please, Evie, pull your shit together, I’m screaming internally at myself. This contract is too important and could set me up for the rest of the year! My skin is covered completely in goosebumps, a hot flush is climbing out of my womanly self, turning the heat up. I could lose it any second. I’m trying to focus, find composure, be attentive, avert my eyes. I can’t resist glancing over and seeing his strong tanned legs, navy work shorts, a smooth swagger and reacting to my eyes on him, he slows, to feel my desire. I must stop my eyes from moving any further up his body, inadvertently lingering at his crotch, being too bold. Who am I? This is not me, openly checking him out. The intensity of the moment overpowers me, and I demand composure from myself and pull away.

  I force myself back to the discussion, listening intently, right, branding, scope of campaign. I can feel him behind me now. I know he’s watching his eyes feel like his tongue tasting me. I’m hot, flushed and throwing my hair around like a fucking peacock. Two vastly different people are battling inside me, one trying to be serious and not fuck this up and the other skipping off in lustful naughtiness. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up to attention. I tune into myself and I think I’m panting, fuck, am I panting? This feels different, maybe? The pressure to turn is unbelievable, to look, to feel him, the sensation of him is agony. Tuning in to reality brings me acutely aware of my senses, the smells, my situational awareness, the dryness of my mouth, tingling of my thighs, pheromones going crazy and one of
the gentlemen at the table smiling at me in a way I don’t want him too. Sensory overload. What is happening to me?

  My pitch somehow appears to be going well without me, luckily designers are always accepted as eccentric. I’m staring at them all, attempting to demand focus from myself. Perhaps a little too intently, so, I take a deep breath, quietly acknowledging the overwhelming feelings in my body, seeking some internal composure. My phone rings, startling me almost out of my seat. I ignore it, I am on edge. There is so much going on, I want to turn and see him, my head is spinning, the hot flush now spreading throughout my body…

  Thoughts are racing. What am I saying next? I’ve not even seen him! Control yourself, Evie! He feels like the warmth of the sun on my bare skin, to tattoo left calf muscle, strong legs. My brain is taking mental notes of him, of what I’m seeing, trying to imprint the most significant. Then mid-crazy thoughts, I’m thrown completely. His energy is gone, snap, the feeling is gone. I can’t feel him, I turn and look in the direction of his energy and nothing?

  Internally my fears are screaming, piercing my vulnerable heart. You’re a fucking nut job. I take a sharp breath to steady my stinking heart, to refocus on my work, concentrate, don’t blow it please, stay with it, Evie. Trying to make the encouragement louder than the looming sadness and smiling assassin internally smirking at me, saying ‘SEE.’ There is just enough left within me to swallow hard, force my monsters down, ignore the battle raging in the background and return to the meeting, trying to resemble a businesswoman. Thankfully, we are finishing up. My phone rings again and I answer, relieved to move away from everyone.

  The caller is angry, and their aggression surprises me. I feel pulled in every direction by my emotions, sensory overload. I might combust. I try to problem solve and pacify them, while feeling raw and useless. Focus Evie.

  I look up to see a man standing directly opposite me. He feels all encompassing. In one hand he is holding on to a large concrete grinder that clearly requires both hands. He stares, holding my gaze. I’m hit at once with the fullness of his energy. He is overwhelming. I want to collapse into these sensations, wrapping myself in him. The thought turns me into a little giggling girl, I can’t stop smiling at him and a calm descends over me. Strangely I stand brazenly, towards him. A strength pours out of me and the woman inside me steps forward, claiming her space, meeting his sexual energy, showing that his manliness is met, equally. I want to step forward into the possibility of this moment. He reacts, moving towards me, responding to the sexual energy calling him.

  I felt empowered and drunk by our connected experience and the world fell away. In one look, I was lost and found, in being caught in this very intimate space. I was looked upon as a woman by the strength of a man, of mutual attraction, of lust, longing to be explored, beyond our own abilities to comprehend what may be, of a love that could be written in the stars.

  My dreamy self takes my romanticism to the next level. Is this what ‘love at first sight’ could feel like? Perhaps. I don’t allow myself to consider that thought, dismissing it quickly.

  Fuck, I’m in trouble.

  Time disappears until I hear “hello, hello” and I’m snapped out of my fantasy. “I thought I lost you” the caller says. Instantly, I’m looking directly at this beautiful man in front of me, responding to the caller with “you have”.

  I turn away from him, breaking our connection. Why did I look away? He is real, he still watches me. The feel of him is intoxicating. I feel him exploring me with his eyes, caressing my skin, envisioning his hands on me, all from an electrifying moment of shared desire. I’m dazed. I feel like I’m overflowing with joy! My smile is unable to be contained, and yet, cold waves of fear shudder through my sweaty body. It’s been seconds and feels like hours, is it him? Really him? Could love like this exist? For me?

  As quickly as I felt him, it’s gone again, blank. I walk, going through the motions, as autopilot has just taken over. All I can hear is the dial tone at the end of a call. Brain is yo-yo-ing. Millions of sensations jolt through my body, pumping fierce thoughts all jumbled within me. The room is spinning, nauseous, with vomiting close.

  I shake myself, come on. Breathe in. I head back to the table, as people are leaving. I find it hard to pitch my ideas as a graphic designer and I hope that I haven’t screwed this up as well, I feel numb. My business connection, Wanda ushers me away from the table and walks me to my car, stomach sinking even more with every step. Wanda looks at me puzzled.

  “Are you okay?”

  Obviously, I am not holding myself together as well as I thought. I reassure her saying there is a lot riding on this deal for me. It means not having to chase individual clients all the time. Wanda immediately encourages me, and I accept her feedback, despite nerves pumping in my veins, hopeful that I haven’t screwed it up entirely.

  I’ve lost complete feeling for what the business outcome is. I just search for him, not finding him in any direction. Devastated I avert my eyes, I stop looking, I hide within myself, embarrassed now, fear wins, I’m owned by my fear, how can I do this, I stop and look back, he’s not there, I can’t see him, so I allow fear to tear me apart on the inside, Mrs Jekyll and Mrs Hyde at once.

  How am I equally excited and nervous about what just happened? What did I just miss? I’m broken out of my head by Wanda, saying that the team have chosen me, I got the contract!

  I’m not even excited. My heart screams ‘why didn’t he speak to me?’ Why did we freeze in that moment? I didn’t want it to end. My thoughts do the dance between self-doubt and blame. My thoughts lie! Or was this the possibility of love burnt into my soul. Is this what it feels like?

  ‘I can have it’, comes from a tiny voice inside me. He burnt into my soul. Maybe love can exist for someone as broken as me.

  I have felt something similar, to a lesser degree, once before in my life. I will never forget that either, even though this was hugely different. You see, I didn’t run and hide from him. I stood in my power as a woman, a deeper layer of me came forward and I want to experience her myself, I felt worthy. I did not hide or feel less than. We stood together, sharing that space of emotion, within the purest nature of man and woman, human to human, stripped bare, raw and ripe, held completely in that space together. The chemistry of possibilities. The chemistry of my romantic mind running wild in the fields of a happy land that doesn’t exist. We are mirrors to each other, calling forth each other to rise to our potential love. Maybe it was too much for both of us, or maybe it was just the chemistry initiating a primal response in my sex and it would fizzle quickly. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

  If you have had to fight in this life, there are definitely a few hacks I have picked up along the way. Reading my situations and re-learning how to trust myself, trust that my feelings and thinking, was correct. Not borrowing others opinions, and how the world tells me I should be, I should be over it by now, I should not make other people uncomfortable, I should find a husband, I should take care of herself better, I should do this job, I should accept… Shoulds after more should! Most of these expectations were coming from me, not actually what others expect and think of me. It is not only what happened to me, it is what I had to become to survive. What I have come to learn to trust is my ability to sync with people, call it situational awareness or a good study of people’s mannerisms, to understand how much I’m feeling and the knowledge that we mirror feelings. When you connect with someone it becomes reciprocal, we feel together, to a variety of degrees of course, same tone, different amplification. I was lost in the music of his eyes, lost in creating our own emotional tone, my desires driving the sense of what might be.

  He’s been with me ever since like he has curled up in my skin, keeping me simmering and I invited him in, wholly. I feel like he claimed me, like I am now his. I loved it, not owned in the sense of controlled, in the sense of freeing the woman within me by meeting my match. Freed by what came alive within me. Having all of me celebrated and desired, my strength as a woman in al
l my power, wanted, my wild woman met her warrior man and we stood toe to toe and it was electrifying. My skin feels alive, feels sensual with internal buzz fuelling the fire within. He burnt into me and I on him, which is why he’s here, he’s everywhere, each day I’m closer to him, each day I feel him, feel me. I hear his voice, soft and deep, nurturing me protecting me, I feel him lying stretched out next to me. His energy is all over me and I’m savouring every movement. He feels strong and tender, he feels like all I’ve ever known, he feels like home, my home. You know when you meet someone and click, you get a vibe and it’s like you’ve been friends or lovers for years or even before, times a thousand. Your energies, presence, whatever you wish to call it, dance together and this leaves a residual effect. We did this. He and I did this to each other. As if after that moment we’ve been getting to know each other before words are even spoken. Every part of me drank him in and I was thirsty, unaware of my dehydration. Our energy swirled around me, touching parts of me that I never knew, the door has been opened, the cage cracked. I’m tempted and encouraged, caught by him and my fantasies that are being created. I’m telling myself that perhaps this helped me to open myself and my heart, learning to receive love and to give, love. Feeling what that desired part of me feels like, the awoken women who stood toe to toe.

  I’m a straight up kind of person where if I am not into something, then, I’m out. Like everyone, life teaches me pleasure, sadness, joy, despair, loss, success, trauma. We open and close our hearts as we move through this life in love and fear. Fuck me if fear is ever going to own me again. Fear can and will show up and it will not own me or my choices. Life has taught me to work with my fears, be open to them, to evolve alongside my traumas to build and choose a better life for me. A life where I choose my own happiness and choosing things that scare me, that expose my vulnerabilities that teach me equally to love my light as much as my darkness. This is how I’ve learnt to get to the good stuff, the joy. I am a successful, emotionally intelligent woman, I think. I see strength in vulnerability and value these qualities significantly, hence why I try to show up in my authentic self as best as I can.