I guess what I'm trying to say is I need the deep end.
Keep imagining meeting, wished away entire lifetimes.
Unfair we're not somewhere misbehaving for days.
Great escape, lost track of time and space.
She's a silver lining climbing on my desire.

All I wanna hear her say is, "Are you mine?"

She told me right from the beginning not to fall in love with her. It was said as a joke, whispered in my ear so I could hear her over the crowd of people surrounding us. When she pulled away from me she flashed that smile and I knew her warning was useless. I think we both did. We pretended that we didn't. Humans are good at that, pretending. Like I'm pretending it's not too hot and loud in here. And she's pretending to be interested in the sad fucks who are flirting with her from the other side of the bar. And how we're all pretending this just isn't some temporary distraction from our miserable lives.

Why else would we be in a bar at 2am on a Wednesday?

That's the old cliche, isn't it? Falling in love with your bartender? It probably happens to her all the time. People get drunk and confident, or drunk and desperate, and the person pouring their drinks becomes their confidante, their soulmate, their lifeline. And she's stunningly gorgeous and effortlessly sexy so I'm sure she's not short on admirers. Yes, I'm sure this happens to her all the time. She's got wildfire in her eyes and I'm not the first person to get burned by it. What's that idiom? 'Moths to a flame?' I wish that was the case and I was just a stupid moth circling a flame, unaware of its fatal danger. But honestly, I could've just had my drink and walked out. I am choosing to be here. I'm not a moth mindlessly spiraling toward a flame. I'm a fucking bullet train aimed right for a cliff with no tracks. I could pull the brakes at any moment, but I won't.

She's got a pair of oakwood eyes that kindle the fire in my belly. Her hair is black beneath the dim lights of the trendy bar, with choppy bangs that sometimes impede her vision until she brushes them away. This is the one time I'm thankful for the misogynistic uniform the women are wearing because I can see the feminine muscles of her arms, small peeks of the bone structure of her back, and just a slim little banner of pale skin between the bottom hem of her tank top and the belt of her pants. My palms sweat in anticipation of what it might feel like to touch her creamy white skin. The want is in my eyes, for sure, as I think of the sweet, salty tang of what her skin tastes like beneath those black clothes.

I watched her for a while, like I watch everything. I watched her move, how she navigated behind the bar, how she tilts her head back just slightly when she laughs. She knocks back shots with customers, unaffected by the alcohol. I don't know how, she's so small. Her eyes are like two burning pieces of coal when she finally catches my eye at the end of the bar. She gravitates toward me. That's how she moves, with purpose and with feeling, like she has calculated every step she's ever taken. Her body radiates warmth and raw sexuality. There's power in her hands, a hidden strength belied by her tiny frame that I felt when she ran her thumb over the tips of my fingers. She's like an uncorked bottle of champagne. No, that's not right, that's for celebrations. She's a hand grenade with the pin drawn, ready to explode. She's not celebration, she's destruction and she knows it.

I lost track of time the second I walked in here and saw her. But I waited. I'm good at that, the waiting. I used to hunt with my dad in the woods and that was almost always waiting. Perched in a tree or hidden in the brush, waiting for some unsuspecting prey to wander into my sights. Ironic now that his lesson in waiting is working in the opposite way; she's hunting me, there's no doubt about it. She claimed me with a hand on my arm and a whisper in my ear almost as soon as she served me my drink.

A promise.

"I get out at three."

There are no clocks in here. Nobody wants to know how long they've been drowning their sorrows, bad for business. I don't need a clock, however, I just need her. I'll count the seconds in her gasps, the minutes in how many times her eyes roll back, the hours in her little hips rising off the bed to meet me. I'll track night into day by how the moon and early morning sun look against her bare skin. Who needs the ticking of a watch when I can press my ear against her chest and hear the world go by heartbeat by heartbeat?

Finally, I guess around three, she sidles up behind me. Her lips brush directly against my ear as she speaks.

"Wanna get out of here?"

"Yes."

And no. The moment we step outside those doors this flirtation becomes real. A countdown begins to the time we will have to part. After the sweating, the swearing, the sex, we'll go our separate ways and knowing me, I won't step foot in this bar again. I guess I've always been a fatalist. She doesn't seem to care. I think she's more like me than it seems. Maybe that's why I was drawn to her so quickly - she's familiar, but still dangerously strange.

We talk, mindlessly really, as we walk the few blocks back to her apartment. Her name is Johanna. My name is Katniss. She works at the bar at night and goes to school during the day. I work in my dad's sport shop and I write when I have time. I'm good with words when I don't have to speak them. She giggles at me when I tell her that I don't write on a computer, that I prefer to take a pen to paper. She asks if I'm a luddite or a hipster. I laugh and say probably both. I like the smell of the fresh ink, the crispness of a fresh piece of looseleaf paper, the permanence of the words once they've hit the paper. If I don't like it, I have to scribble it out and for the remainder of the paper, look at my mistake. I like a little bit of mess.

Maybe that's why I'm doing this. I know this will be messy and I want it.

Her apartment is rather large. I must make a face of disbelief as we walk in because she grins. It's a shared space. A few other girls and guys live here, too. There are empty pizza boxes on their kitchen counter, a mound of beer and soda bottles in a plastic bag on the floor, and about twenty red Solo cups stacked on top of each other in the sink.

We party, she explains. Not a lot, but pretty hard. She says something about work hard, play hard. I ask her which she prefers, the working or the playing. With a twinkle in her eye she replies, "Work can be play, and play can be work. It's all about perspective, brainless."

The alcohol she gave me has done nothing for my nerves. This is far from my first time, but it's the first time I've ever done this with someone I wasn't in love with. Or with someone I convinced myself I was in love with, at the very least. I can't feel that swelling arousal without there being some kind of real affection behind it.

Until tonight.

Her eyes flick up to mine as we enter her bedroom. She's got those tiny bulb Christmas lights slung from her ceiling in a criss-cross pattern, splattering a dim yellow light across the room. A ceiling fan swings around lazily but provides no relief from the heat of the tail end of spring coming in from her window. There's a dresser in the corner, a beaten up chair next to a large, opened window, a few film posters on the wall, but otherwise the room is pretty neat. No litter anywhere, no clothes strewn across the hardwood floors. There's a trophy on a sparse desk for some event that I can't decipher from here.

She pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and tosses it on the desk, pressing a few buttons on a tiny stereo until a languid, crawling guitar fills the room. Once I meet her gaze she smiles, almost shyly, in stark contrast to how predatorily she's walking toward me. I don't know what to say, but I know that words are not going to work in this moment. I can use my lips, my mouth, my tongue to convey how I feel, but not in speech. I close the distance between us and pull her into me by her hips. We don't kiss. For a few moments I just stare down into her eyes. My right hand moves up her arm slowly, over the rounded tip of her shoulder, to cradle the side of her neck.

It's a game of chicken between our lips as they nearly connect, but instead breath passes along my mouth from hers. The corner of her mouth upturns as we continue to dare each other to give in first. But I gave in hours ago, so I have no problem losing this little battle. Our lips press together in furious passion and I feel her hands on me for the first time, lighting a trail of heat from where they slink along my back. In our efforts to gain the upper hand on each other we go tumbling backward to the door, slamming it closed. One of her hands leaves mine and I hear the metal click of the lock.

She grins into our kiss and pushes us forward, lifting up my shirt to run her fingers along the exposed skin of my stomach. Her lips leave my mouth in favor of my neck and the soft skin behind my ear. We break only so she can dispose of my shirt and follows suit with her own, leaving them in a tiny pile on the floor. We're gonna mess up her neat room. I get the distinct feeling she's not going to mind.

The back of my knees hit her bed and I instinctively sit down. This temporary reprieve from her body and her mouth allows us both time to rid ourselves of excess clothing. Shoes, socks, pants, all go scattered across the room in a frenzy to feel contact again. For a moment she just stands between my legs, my cheek pressed against the pale skin of her stomach. She feels almost familiar as I wrap my arms around her waist and keep her close to me. Her fingers lazily trace my scalp through my hair, like we've been doing this forever and we have all the time in the world. As if we're not two strangers who met at a bar, but rather two old lovers reconnecting after a period of estrangement. I was an empty house, vacant and aching, and now, with her in my arms, she lives inside me and fills my rooms with life and warmth. If only for tonight.

"Have you done this before?" Her husky voice shatters my thoughts and I gaze up into her wide eyes to find them genuine, with just a few flecks of affection.

She expects me to be capable of words? "Yes."

"With a girl?" Her eyebrow cocks up, and though it sounds accusatory, I find her eyes earnest.

"Yes." Not with anybody like you, though. God, never with anyone like you.

Finally those crimson lips spread wide like a slit throat and she pushes me back against her mattress. "Good." Her lithe little body covers mine, her mouth returning to claim each inch of my skin. That's what it is, claiming, because each kiss feels like a hot brand searing into my flesh. Nothing in her body is inert. She is all kinetic energy and crackling wildfire. Her fingers nimbly unhook my bra and send it soaring over the bed. This new skin she's uncovered for herself she drinks in with her eyes. I watch her consume me and think, no one has ever possessed me like this.

Possession is a good word for it. She's inside me, though not physically yet, but inside me all the same. Every touch of her skin against mine, every sweep of her tongue against my skin makes my body react as if against my will, under her spell. Her lips kiss against my ribs and she might as well be kissing my lungs because I can barely breathe. Delicate fingers trace up the sensitive skin of my stomach to my breasts, and I hear the vibration of her groan rattle my ribcage as she rolls the peaks of my nipples between her forefinger and thumb.

The material of her bra chafes my stomach, and I want to remove this obstruction between us. My hands are gripping the sheets like they're the only tether to this plane of existence I have, but I relinquish my grip to unhook her bra and toss it aside. Her skin connects with mine again and I emit a load moan of pleasure. I'm beyond caring if her roommates hear us or not. The music is slightly louder than I am anyway, but who cares? I want this wild girl to know how crazy she's making me. Being slowly driven to madness by her savage lips and her skin is the most magnificent way to go insane. This is the sweetest savagery I can imagine.

Our bodies shuffle around until we're laying the correct way on the bed, my head against her pillow, both of us beneath her blanket. The scent of her pillow is like a hint of Christmas in my lungs, cinnamon and pine. I turn my head only slightly to inhale it once more, my eyes fluttering closed for a moment. The heat in the room is oppressive and beneath the blanket it's even worse. But none of that matters because her fingers have begun circling my entrance, and her eyes are so plainly hungry for me that this bed could be on fire and I wouldn't feel it. She wants to devour me. I'm going to let her. Her weight is braced on her knees, her free hand around the back of my neck, and her fingers slowly glide inside me with no hesitation. A hiss escapes from between my lips and she smothers it with her mouth, sliding her tongue around with mine. Her pace is slow but I can feel the tensity in her muscles, the want to go faster. Pretty swollen lips leave my mouth to nip and kiss their way down my jugular, across my breasts, down my stomach until her chin is about level with her relentless hand. Wide set brown eyes take their fill of me again and rather than intimidated or embarrassed beneath her gaze, I feel immense and singular. I feel like the only thing she's ever looked at in her life, as if she were born right here in this room.

"For fuck's sake," she pants in a low whisper just over my belly button, "you're fucking beautiful." I don't have a moment to reply or think upon that because once she says it, she lowers her mouth and envelops my clit. Her forehead presses into my pelvis as she bends her fingers inside me and uses her tongue to stimulate my already throbbing nub of blinding pleasure.

I'm not sure where I go in that moment, but I feel reality slowly slipping away from me. I can't screw my eyes shut and think of someone else like I sometimes do with other partners. Instead I prop myself up on my elbows so I can watch her, just like I did when she was behind the bar. The visual stimulation of seeing her between my legs makes the small burning coal inside my belly spread and the flames lick higher and higher until my entire body is on fire. I use my feet to kick the blanket further down her back so I can see her wonderful muscles moving with every thrust inside my body.

Possession. She's lost in the process of pleasuring me and I take advantage of her rapt attention to grab her hair roughly and bring her back up to my face without any resistance. I kiss my own arousal straight off her tongue, drinking in us both. Her hand doesn't let up but she's lost her focus and I wrap my arms around her and force her on to her back. Those maple eyes are unending pools of desire and surprise and I waste no time in reaching between her pale thighs to yank her underwear down her legs. I alleviate some of the ache she has in slow circles with my hand, dousing my fingers in the wetness I find in her center. I nudge her legs apart just a little bit wider and straddle them, pulling her torso up to meet mine.

Face to face, I give her a slow and tender kiss. Ever the fatalist, I wonder how many kisses like this she's had. A kiss that is not just one of placation or desire, but of a need that feels completely outside the physical world. I need her like fire needs oxygen, like the thorn of a rose needs something tender to destroy. I'm telling her in this kiss all the things I could never say aloud: how blood-deep my desire for her is and how I hope some of that desire is reciprocated. I want to think she's never had a kiss like this before.

She understands what I want and she slides her hands down my back and grips my backside tightly. I grind downward and swallow her gasp into my mouth, burning that sound into my memory. My arms wrap around her shoulders and, with her arms around my waist, we lock in as one unit, pushing each other toward the cliff edge of desire. My lips find themselves next to her ear. The words coming out of my mouth are nonsensical but her name is among them, chanting it, praying it like it's my last shot at salvation during the rapture. My one hand grips firmly just below her shoulder blade, my other hand sneaks up the back of her neck to tangle in her hair and hold her head next to my ear.

We breathe these nonsensical words to each other back and forth as I rub my center against hers in a slow burning friction that is meant to make us explode. My desire is rapidly overwhelming me and I think it's overwhelming her, too. My name and her swearing and cursing have given way to pants and grunts that push my arousal higher and higher. I dig my nails into her sweat-covered back and the other into her scalp and continue the friction between us until I can't take it anymore.

A high-pitched gasp bubbles up from my throat as I twitch and tremble against her, holding her body flush against mine until our skin meets at every junction and I feel like I can swallow her whole inside me. Maybe I can keep her that way, if I don't let go.

Her hands slide up my back and then underneath my arms, up over my breasts, and then to my cheeks so she can cradle my face. Her eyes search mine with intent, but what intent, I do not know. She nods to her left and I slowly disengage myself from her body and lay down beside her. My arms reach up to hold her again and she cocks her head to the side. For a small, panicked moment I think she's going to reject my embrace. But by the sly grin on her features, I realize to my great surprise that I am wonderfully wrong. Instead she climbs over me and adjusts the pillow so I'm resting comfortably.

I'm treated to the view of her wet, pink lips and tiny brown curls poised right over my waiting mouth. My hands snake up her abdomen and I palm her nipples as I reach up to lick a long stripe from her entrance to her clit and back again. My tongue makes that trip over and over at a deliberate pace that is surely driving her mad. But she doesn't take me by the hair to guide me, she just lets me devour her as I want to. And I do. I drink every last drop and map every single hill and valley of her pussy until she's near tears and her lips have stopped saying my name and instead are pleading for me.

Her entire body is pleading for me. Her hands take mine and rest them on her hips, squeezing them every time my tongue finds her clit. Her little hips are shaking, her knees almost unable to support her weight anymore. I can make her come in just a few seconds, but for a couple more moments I draw out this begging from her. I clench my fingers around hers and wrap her clit in my lips and shake my head vigorously.

This undoes her and she presses my head into the pillow with the force of her hips as she comes. The pain in my fingers from her clenching them is ignored in favor of the throbbing I can feel on my tongue as her body convulses in orgasm. Humans are good at compartmentalizing pain, aren't we? It comes in handy in this circumstance, if anything. She shuffles down my body and captures my lips in a kiss, smearing her mouth with her own arousal. It's intensely erotic and I find myself swimming in her sea of blankets, positively drowning in her warmth.

She rolls off of me and pants heavily on the mattress at my side. My eyes watch the circling ceiling fan until the desire to know how much time I've spent with this girl springs me to action. I lean on my left side to try and fumble in my discarded jeans for my phone. She has no clocks in here. It wouldn't be accurate anyway; spending a minute with her feels both too short and like the longest moment of your life.

Her tiny body presses against my back and I let out a short gasp. Teeth grip the flesh of my shoulder and her hand rubs small circles on my lower back. "Where do you think you're going?" she husks directly into my ear, her hand leaving my back to move my hair from my face. "I am far from done with you."

"Oh?" I'm impressed with myself that anything other than 'Johanna' is capable of leaving my lips.

"Are you kidding?" Her voice takes on its natural higher timbre and her fingers dance a waltz down my arm, across my hip, and then snakes between my legs. There is no choice but for me to spread them for her, allowing her access to every inch of me. "I could marry you for making me come so hard."

Her admission makes me blush but that emotion is short-lived as her fingers somehow find their way back inside me. As erotic as it is to feel her taking me from behind, I need to look at her, to watch her. I need to see the want in her eyes, the determination to make me come. With as much agility as I can, I turn over then grab her hand and thrust her index and middle finger inside me, keeping her there for a long moment. I clench and relax my muscles around her and those wide pools of mahogany dilate with unbridled desire.

Again, she knows what I want. Slowly she removes her fingers, only halfway, then slowly penetrates me as far as her fingers can go and holds them there. For those moments she stares deeply into my eyes until one of us shuts her eyes in pleasure. Her lips find mine blindly and we slowly stoke our passion in long, lazy kisses that are only broken by my sharp intakes of breath when she's inside me. I keep my hand atop hers in the illusion that I'm controlling the pace. She allows me this illusion of power but we both know she's been controlling me from the moment I saw her. It's only now that her hand is inside me, that she is puppeteering me physically like she's been doing figuratively all night.

I swing my knee over her body and straddle her waist, keeping her hand firmly inside me as I do so. It feels almost wrong when she withdraws, like a piece of me has gone missing somewhere. I lift my hips and lean forward on my palms, just above her shoulders. My hair tickles her skin as it drapes around me and I lean backward onto her hand, fucking myself just as slowly as she was fucking me. But I need more. I need harder. I need faster. I want the speed and strength of which she is capable. I want to feel every single sinew of her muscles pushing me toward ecstasy. My hips bounce on her hand as fast as I can make them, which in my overstimulated condition is not that fast.

We push and groan together, and now that her music has stopped, I can hear the clicking noise of her fingers penetrating my wet center. It's like the cinematic ticking of a bomb counting down to detonation. I don't know why, but I feel the need to tell her. "I'm close," I pant.

She growls and nods her head. "I know," she breathes, "I can feel you." Can you? Can you feel how fucking desperate I am for you? Her hand speeds up to help my thrusting and between the two of us, we push me to orgasm. I don't tumble toward this orgasm like you'd hear in romance novels. I smash into my climax like a rogue wave against a bluff, passionately and violently. She keeps her hand stilled inside me, only moving the pads of her fingers to caress my inner walls. In this fleeting moment, these few heartbeats of time, I am inexplicably whole. When she starts to remove her hand I whip my own backward and keep her inside me. "Stay," I command, but in a plaintive whisper. It's less of a command than a plea.

Her eyes take on a sudden intensity and she wraps her free hand into my hair and pulls me down for a kiss. Her fingers begin moving gently in and out of me; there's no desire to bring me to another mind-numbing orgasm, just the soft exploration of my folds and walls. It feels sort of reverent. For the first time since we locked eyes through the smoke-filled haze of the bar, I can see a bit of hesitance in her eyes. I kiss the crown of her head in my consent for her to ask whatever is buzzing around in her brain.

"I want..." What do you want? She must know I'm at her command, and not just because she's inside me and controlling every point of my body with her fingers. Her eyes are enlarged, darting around like she's almost confused at her thoughts. The look of madness. "I ...need to feel you come in my mouth." For a split second, I'm unsure of whether or not I can come again. Not just tonight, but for days. Every muscle of my body is spent and I don't think my body can produce more sweat. But my walls contract around her fingers and I roll us over so I'm on my back.

My eyebrow raises in challenge and from somewhere, probably sexually transmitted from her, I manage confidence. "So make me." Her cute mouth quirks upward in a grin and she kisses me roughly and deeply, bruising my lips in what feels like a thank you, as if she's been wanting to taste me for years.

I can't help the slight disappointment as she pulls out of me entirely and shuffles her weight down so she's hovering over my pussy, but only for a moment of hesitation before her lips and tongue take me and I flatten against the mattress. I want to feel her closer. When she was fucking me, her lips were close to mine and I could look into her eyes. And though her tongue is like a poker, stoking the flames inside me, I think I need something else.

She breaks from her movements to look up at me, hair disheveled and lips glistening with my cum. It's all I can do not to grab her by the hair and force her down on me again. What right does she have, being such a beautiful mess? I'm almost angry at her for it. With a scrutinizing look she gets up from the bed and stands next to it. Before I have time to question what the hell is happening, she swings my legs around and pulls me just to the edge of the bed. She drops to her knees and my heart drops in my chest. "Sit up," she commands, pushing my knees apart and settling between them.

I do as she says, like I have a choice. Her lips find my center once again and she slowly laps at my arousal, circling my clit, but appearing to be at my mercy. This wild creature is on her knees, on her hands and knees, for me. Just the mere picture of this happening is nearly enough to send me crashing. My hand threads through her unruly black locks and grips her tightly, and she groans in satisfaction as I begin dictating her technique. This is what she wanted? To lose control to me? For me to claim her like she claimed me at the beginning of the night?

Who am I to disagree? I urge her on with my words, instructing her where and when to use that skillful tongue on me. My body is aching and I want to lay back on the bed, but I will not miss the visual satisfaction of this moment. Her head bobbing between my thighs, and, now that I'm watching more closely, her one hand is reaching between her own legs to satisfy her ache. I can't help but wish I was touching her, but watching her get herself off on getting me off is a level of sexual eroticism I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. I want us to come together, but I am far too close to climax for that.

I press my palm against her head and hold her directly on my pussy as I convulse in orgasm against her. Her tongue slips inside me, flicking at my walls as I try to recover. Letting my body go boneless, I slink to the ground in front of her, placing my hand over where hers is, vigorously rubbing herself. Her hand moves out of the way and I pick up the pace for her, rubbing as hard and fast as my fatigued arm will allow me. Her body drops against mine and her chest heaves in quickened breaths as she starts getting close to her peak. I'm at a furious pace now, my hand a complete blur against her sex.

With a loud cry she twitches and her body stutters in orgasm. All I can hear her say is "holy shit" through her panting breaths, over and over again. I grin as she pulls back to look me in the eye, and she grins back at me. "Thirsty?" She doesn't wait for an answer before she uses my shoulders to get to her feet, rather unsteadily, and pads out of the room and into her shared living space with her roommates. I can't see if the sun has crested over the horizon, but there's no light in that room, so I suppose it's only been a few hours. She's right, I am thirsty. But if all I had to drink was the sweat on her skin, I'd live off that indefinitely.

I climb back into her bed and beneath her blankets, and she waltzes back into the room with a bottle of water. She basically crashes in next to me, over the bedspread, and goes to hand me the water. She swats my hands away and nods for me to tilt my head back. I do, and she pours the liquid into my mouth. Like a petal in spring, I eagerly take the liquid she offers, and giggle as she lets some dribble out of my mouth and licks it up with her tongue. I can smell my arousal on her and, despite all the reasons why my body should be exhausted, I feel my libido pick up.

The hunger in my gaze is palpable and when she looks back at me after taking a long drink of the water, she lets out a laugh. It's high-pitched but rather pleasant, like the chirping of morning birds. Her head shakes and she cradles the side of my head affectionately. "You are insatiable, aren't you?"

"Not before tonight," I answer honestly, before I have a chance to stop myself. Her eyebrow cocks and I scramble to recover. "But you were the one who said you were far from done."

She purses her lips in amusement. "That's right I did. Think you can handle it?"

I mirror her cocky grin. "Like I couldn't take you."

Her hand whips down toward mine and she presses me against her sex. My fingers have no choice, they are bidden by forces greater than I, and they sink inside her. She lets out a tiny gasp and leans toward my ear. "You already have taken me, brainless. But I'll let you do it again."

My bleary eyes open to the slow swing of her ceiling fan, still lazily making its useless circles. Her blanket is wrapped around me tightly, cocooning me in the sea of sweat, warmth, and cotton. I don't need a moment to know where I am, I don't think I slept for more than an hour or two since collapsing in pure exhaustion in Johanna's arms. Her memory is fresh in my mind.

Every part of my body is beginning to ache, now that adrenaline and arousal has worn off. My thigh muscles burn from the clenching that precedes orgasm, my center is throbbing from her penetration, my backside is tender from her aggressive slapping. The most satisfying ache one can feel, of a night well-spent in someone's embrace. But that someone is nowhere to be found.

My eyes scan the room but I see no sign of her. Not a note, not even her clothes. My clothes are folded neatly on her desk chair, my phone now placed on the night stand next to her bed. So that's it, I think. She's spent me and now I'm free to go. Two ships passing in the night, that's what they say, right? I should be relieved, I suppose, that she's allowed me to go. I was so lost in her that if she hadn't, I don't think I ever would've emerged.

But I can't help and feel the intense, churning, hollow ache of loneliness. I was foolish to think that some one night stand with a bartender I barely know could evolve into something more. She's fire, I remind myself, and you can build nothing with fire. You can only destroy with it. Has she destroyed me? I don't know, because I can still feel her. I can still feel the phantom sensation of her fingers inside me, of her lips on my skin. I can feel the dig of her fingertips into my hips as she thrust the tiny little strap-on she had introduced sometime in the early morning as she took me from behind. I can still smell her sweat, her shampoo, and the slight taste of alcohol, everywhere in this bed and on my skin. I can taste her essence on my lips as I give them a cursory sweep with my tongue.

When I walk out that door, will I be destroyed? No. Because fire doesn't actually destroy anything. It merely changes it. What was once whole is now in parts. Buildings are dust after a great fire, but they are still something, aren't they? Am I dust? I don't know, but the hard lump in my chest makes me hope that I'm not.

Groggily I reach over and pick up my phone. My screen illuminates to my touch. And across the top, from a number I don't recognize, is a message.

Let's do it again some time.

She told me not to fall in love with her. But we both knew that warning was useless.

Author's Note: Thank you to Johannas-Motivational-Insults for the beta, and encouraging me to finish this one shot I had sort of done just as a fun exercise.

Song credit is "R U Mine?" by Arctic Monkeys.