Distractions

Distracted
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Distractions

Pretty girls distract me.

There’s usually at least one, every morning, on the train.

This morning, she was wearing a black and white silk print dress, cut right above the knee.

While she stood right next to me, quietly reading directly beneath my outstretched arm, I made a valiant effort to avoid ogling her.

I had the best intentions to read myself, but the awkward entanglement we were in made it too difficult to do anything but pretend I wasn’t gawking—at the enchanting gleam of her young, golden complexion; at the dress that I imagined could slowly slip off and fall to the floor, gathering in a pool of furls about her ankles; at the breasts that tested and proved the futility of decades of moral indoctrination, civil obedience training and impulse taming.

Thus, I looked and I admired, and I desired to bridge the gap between taking the risk of saying something, saying anything!, and the drowning pool of a million other “What if?”s I have known.

She stepped out of the train ahead of me, we walked together up the stairs and across the promenade before the fork of fate and fortune split us apart.

And thus, I consoled my swollen heart by latching onto another distraction, who was skirting down the stairway ahead of me.