Midnight Pretenders

CW: Allusions to sex

Abel, because of you, my favourite time of Saturdays is now midnight. Just a thought of that glorious moment where the clock’s hands stretch to the heavens we’ll both get lost in and the stars twinkling like crystals on ebony silk, and I float through the loop of the work calendar.

As if it were written on an agenda, it all unfolds to the most precise of milliseconds. At six o’clock on Fridays, I would race to my room, swipe a perfect winged liner on my lids, and apply scarlet on my lips. An hour later, you would rapt a drum shuffle onto the door, the very same rhythm thumping in my chest. I’d leap into your arms just instances later and then, you offer me butter yellow roses that I place in that tall vase with the delicate swans. We’d immediately proceed to the dining room and talk of nothing and everything, famished mouths devouring the poached salmon I’d spend weeks perfecting and each other’s kisses. After dessert, you’d beam, your aquamarine gaze a pool I keep willingly sinking in. That’s my signal to entwine my fingers in yours and let you lead me to bed.

Then, it would strike twelve and the only thing meeting would be our pleading eyes. You’d lay me down on crimson satin sheets that glide on my skin and send shivers up my spine. With a wry grin, you’d step into the bathroom to shower whilst my imagination paints pictures of the next hours together into a glorious masterpiece worthy of the Louvre. I’d reach out my index finger to the air and trace the ripples of your biceps, whimper at the memory of your breath hitching higher and higher as you and I ascend the mountain of ecstasy. By the time you return to the room, I’d be shuddering in anticipation, my mind playing a near future I grab like your flaxen curls whenever I lie next to you.

What comes next is the very definition of bliss for me. My name escapes you like a desperate gasp, your deep rumble of a voice and need transforming each A in Tamara into dulcet cries. That would be my signal to remove the two-tone gold band, the one identical to yours, from my left ring finger. You’d pull me so close to you, my insides couldn’t help dancing to the cadence of your heart. The moonlight would glow ivory on your glistening, waterdrop-covered body, but all I’d see is your radiant smile. And then…

‘Shall we pretend, Tamara?’

Four words. Four words are all it would take for me to lose my whole copywriter’s vocabulary, save for a simple ‘yes’. Four words, and I’m rich, russet clay, ready for you to mould me into whatever you want for the night.

We could pretend to travel back to that fateful balmy April I met you in that stuffy boardroom. As Wildfire London’s newly hired wordsmith, I’d expected to have to prove myself to one of the agency’s most loyal clients. I had no idea that just a single look into your blue pools would consume all the coolth of the air-conditioned office and ignite every nerve in my body. I had no chance of coming out of that deliberation the same because your regard never strayed from mine, every moment seized to address no one but me. When the last minutes were logged, I had a dinner with you booked for the Friday after. Abel, can we pretend to live in that space of time?

We could pretend to escape back to our half-hour passion cocoon of two weeks ago. Just thirty borrowed minutes elapsed, and yet it was more than enough for me to frolic into the endless meadows of forever with you. Even across a crowded hotel conference room, spotting the crooked smirk and the tsunami brewing in your eyes was as easy as breathing. All my cognitive abilities were swept up into the gale force of you sneaking up next to me and wrapping your muscular arm on my waist. We dashed to your suite, and immediately let the storms of desire carry us away. As you devoured every inch of my skin and I moaned, all of the Earth fell away; only you and I remained. When half an hour later, we crept back to our symposium, no one suspected that an entirely new atmosphere stretched between us, created by our glee. Abel, can we pretend to live in that space of time?

We could pretend to dive into the turquoise waters of our holiday in a month. I still remember the tiny nugget of mischief at the edge of your grin as you handed me the envelope containing my airline ticket. I couldn’t help rewarding you with a kiss. After all, haven’t I been yearning for even three days of just us? Never mind that it was officially a photoshoot for an advert; seven days of dancing on the sands with you was every wish of mine distilled. I could clearly see it, Darling. I would watch the setting sun turn the skies into a fiery rose as my own vision turns pink, my head on your chiselled chest. Holding you tight, I would giggle and splash in waves so azure --- although, not as pelagic as the twin pools I’d stare at. We’d be submerged in an ocean of pristine sheets on a four-poster bed and, more importantly, our souls plummeting deeper and deeper into euphoric unity. Abel, can we pretend to live in that space of time?

And yes, we could pretend to shuttle ourselves into the golden city of the future where our dreams reside. In hushed tones whispered in jewel-encrusted hours of togetherness, we constructed it brick by word brick. Just a while and your dashing face would grace the cover of Forbes UK; the two of us would celebrate it with flutes of Veuve Cliquot in a Parisian bistrot. Just a while and an infinity of seconds would dissolve in the babbling of a baby with your blue regard sleeping soundly in your arms. Just a while and decades will disintegrate into bubbles as our hands, gnarled like ancient tree trunks, reach for each other on the patio of the light-filled house we’d build. Abel, can we pretend to live in that space of time?

Abel, in our land of make-believe, I float above a million galaxies. The only thing that could bring me back home is the gravity of your weight upon me as you plunge into the profundity of want, of me. As the air is perfumed with honey and our sweat, every single nanosecond is charred in the unquenchable blaze of our oneness, purified like the rarest gold.

But then, both of us eventually have to face those blinking red endpoints of finiteness.

In the same manner I cherish Saturday midnights, I dread it when the clock strikes seven. That’s when Tess calls. Tess, whose steel grey stare can’t bother to view anything but the now of numbers and figures. Tess, whose old clan coffers bought her an entire lifetime with her name appended to yours in exchange for reviving your family’s withering company. Tess, whose own two-toned band you tearfully slipped in a lily-white church, not clandestinely in a hotel room, your lips roving my neck.

As you step out into the morning sun on my balcony with your phone and the stars are drowned out by cerulean, the sparkle also sinks in your eyes and my heart is dragged into the treacherous depths. I know I already have sole proprietorship of your love. Is it too much, though, to long to also monopolise your time?