The mist lifts off the river like the hand of a lover caressing the face of their beloved. A
slight wind picks up behind you, rustling the leaves just enough to make you glance over
your shoulder to ascertain the desertedness of the footpath you have come by. It is
deserted indeed, if the milky shadows along the path lie not.

Your eyes glint with disappointment though – do they? – over the fact that he is not here,
though neither of you said anything about meeting again, though he never touched you
because you never offered yourself, even though his eyes are steadfast blue flames while
yours shift between fifty shades of grey every other second.

You step towards the water as you allow yourself to feel its silent, insistent tug at the
private parts of your soul. The seductive whispers of water licking the shore tickle your
ears as hidden currents sweep into small vortexes of wet pleasure. Your left toes
succumb to its cool welcome as you lean your weight into the silky soil. The feel of the
water sends a shiver like a brush of a feather across your virgin back. Your lips purse in
reflex, an invitation to a kiss for an invisible lover.

Aching to feel your awakened skin caressed by the moonlight falling like down from the
piercing clear sky above, you take off first your shorts, then the t-shirt, then the panties
and bra. You try not to notice the sudden heaviness of your breasts, the thin streak of
liquid marking the panties you’ve tossed on the ground, the way the midnight breeze
teases your nipples into hard sensitive nubs.

A tiny sliver of your rational mind reminds you it’s a public place, that there’s no sense
in slipping into the water naked even when you’re a touch-starved virgin, that you
should put your normal clothes on and go back into the normal world, sleep and then
wake and try to live a normal life instead of dreaming of him every time you become
conscious of the sensual body you inhabit and yet seem so scared and unsure of.
But then you ask yourself – what is the use of living if one’s life is normal?

So even when more than the leaves in the trees moved in the wind behind you, you do
not turn around anymore. The rocks beneath your feet, smooth and cold and slippery,
guide your body inch by inch into the transparent living darkness that is a large body of
water at night. You do not stop penetrating the fluid depths until your shoulders are
covered and you breathe a shuddering breath of absolute delight, your skin alive with a
million micro-tremors and your mind a blank of trembling pleasure.

You tell yourself it is only water, but reasoning pales before the overwhelming power of
your experience. You let your eyelids droop and trail your fingers along the sandy bank
beneath you, searching for a rock to sit on.

“Let go.” The low whisper right behind your ears does not surprise you; you do not
realize you have been waiting for it until now. You begin to turn you head around, but
firm fingers touch the side of your head and force you to face the water again. You try
not to think of this as his first touch.

“Let go of what?”

“Of the world around you. Of yourself. Of the fear of life and the fear of death. Of the
need to always feel secure, like having a rock beneath you.” There is a smile in his
voice, which demands one from your face in return. You find yourself grinning in the
dark towards the flowing river before you, the river flowing now like molten lava in the
color of frozen love.

Yet something doesn’t sit quite right with you. Offended lines on your forehead appear
like players in a silent orchestra of expression that’d missed their cue a few beats earlier.
One question forms in your mind, exhaled in one brash breath. “How?”

He doesn’t seem to notice the hardness you didn’t mean to use in forming in the word,
and laughs again. “Like this.” He steps closer, comes beside you, stands on a rock
protrusion just out of your reach. His eyes ignite yours as he turns to face you. You could
swear you see his finger tremble just before he lifts off his shirt and slips off his jeans, if
your mind was still capable of processing words. His body is vivid, alive, each inch and
pore perfect and worthy of worship and almost – just almost – beyond desiring. Before
his naked glory you bow your head as if before a god, and feel warmth trickling from
between your legs as if he were about to take you.

The smirk on his face signifies awareness of his impact on your soul and body. Languid
power ripples under his skin as he steps towards you into the shallow water. He comes
so close to you his breath kisses your lips and the tops of your breasts above the water;
your own breathing ceases. Your grey eyes are still lost in his, burned to ash by the
unholy fire. He waits.

“Yes?” A word of consent, desire, submission.

“Follow me.” And he glides backwards into the water.

You push yourself off the rock you’ve been sitting on, gasping as cold water swirls
against your skin through the disrupted warm cocoon around you, and move in response
to the two shining eyes ahead.

You are not falling into a trance, you tell yourself. You are only going a little further out
into the river, then you’d turn back. You would keep your head above water even though
currents grow strong and treacherous the further you go – but beyond all thought of life
you would follow those two eyes.

But remember what the doctor told you – that your mind was sick and that this man
doesn’t exist? You are chasing a phantom, a will-o’-the-wisp, a shadow of all your
sexual fantasies from the crazed longing of lonely nights.

Lost in your own mind, you suddenly realize you can no longer see the shore. You look
to one side then the other, peering into the darkness, realizing too late that the eyes
which guided you here have disappeared and left you to die alone.

A strangled sound wrestles itself from your dry throat, a curse in the shape of helpless
confusion. Your head dips from sudden exhaustion – for how long have you been
treading water? – and tasteless liquid gurgles into your mouth.

Then just before your limbs flail, two firm warm hands touch and hold the insides of
your calves and suddenly everything in the world is perfect and complete and all that
matters is those strong fingers caressing their way to your thighs and to the parts of you
no one but yourself has ever touched and the touch fills you with pleasure and you close
your eyes and still your body to feel the exquisite joy.

The waters swirl above your shoulders, neck, above your head. You don’t realize you
have stopped breathing. Your last conscious memory is of opening your eyes in the
water and seeing above you, just as everything fades to black, two flaming eyes of
august blue.