Ky op ta

-He awakens with a thought of her, the impression of their night together, still fresh and perpetuating itself in his mind. In his half conscious state, he can feel the muscles tugging at his face and the resulting smile. It helps him open his eyes a little wider and clears his grogginess. The smile. He thinks back to the moments. The dance between them, even before they agree to dance between them. The soft caresses. Something about the sensual and the playful, something about the smiles and the sensing of each other. And ‘it’s energy he swears.’ She smiles, almost a giggle. The sweet look of a school girl as she sips her coffee from a straw. Maybe it has something to do with the straw, alcohol and coffee both effect you sooner if you sip from a straw.
Even then, there was already a smile on his face. He’d try to put it away, but it kept resurfacing to those muscles in his face, the ones against which he could do nothing. It’s her energy, he thought, as he found himself inextricably drawn to watch the soft and sweet expressions of her eyes and her smile, dancing, across the table from him. He sipped his coffee through the silly grin that would appear on his face, every time he tried to undo his smile. Like before, their hands in each other’s proximity, in each other’s warmth. I don’t want to let go. There are thoughts, her thoughts, he can feel them, but she doesn’t say a word. “It’s the expression,” she’s said, “on my face. It makes you think I’m thinking.” Then she’s smiled at him and returned to pensive expression, never admitting that there is a stream of considerations behind it. And why does it matter anyway, we’re together in this moment.
Sitting up in his bed, on his face, they’re the same muscles that would not ease up on him and that even now draw from him a smile. He continues thinking about the night. About the rain cascading against the window, tapping its way across the veranda and the smoke swirling between them. Ordinarily, he might watch the smoke spirals spin, with the rain’s jazz beats in the background, and think Fibonacci, but not now, not while he’s with her. There’s really only one thing on his mind. He smiles as he looks at her. It’s trance like, the energy between them. She looks at him, for a moment she tried to hold her stare into nothing, but she looks at him. “What?” she asks, with a smile breaking behind the words. He shakes his head and in almost a whisper, “nothing,” his gaze still into her. And he feels so much, he feels so much. There’s so much there. He looks at her and attempts to see beyond what he sees. And the smile resurfaces. Her smile drawing him closer.
He would not leave, he could not leave and she did not want him to leave. They walked in the rain, the umbrella deflecting the rain falling and bouncing off in the sleeked streets of night. His arm around her, her arm around him. A smile still, dancing across their lips. The footsteps, her footsteps. “I like the sound of women’s shoes,” he says. She tries to muffle the tapping, walking on the ball of her feet. And she smiles at him mischievously, that school girl grin. “Ky op ta,” he says, realizing it just came out and realizing she’s mentioned something about it before. He smiles, a forgiving, apologetic smile, for her and for him. She likes ky op ta.
The rain continues to dance across the sidewalk, falling intermittently against the clear glass door to her apartment, when the wind blows, as they stand inside. He holds her close and she allows herself to be lost in the moment. After many attempts at a ‘goodnight’ he walks her to her door. They stand there. We’ll be here ‘til the sun rises. His smile widens. The soft kiss becomes a series of kisses. “Last one,” she says. It’s a minute before it ends. They look at each other and smile. She opens the door slowly all the lights are off. She looks inside and then back at him. Then, with a certain quickness and more precise than he could ever be, she kisses him, her soft lips, before she steals herself away. ‘I dig that.’ He smiles.
His grogginess cleared, only the impression of that last kiss remains. He licks his lips and he can feel its remnants. Those muscles tug against him, and he smiles.