INSIDE THEIR MINDS

Found

Phil
I hear the sweet sounds of the vacuum now hovering above us. I make the assumption that we are between floors. I mentally push away the ache radiating from my hands as we continue to bang on the elevators metal doors with as much force as I could.

Then the vacuuming sound stops and everything is silent. She stops hitting the wall and gives me a questioningly glance. I answer with several more hits to the door. She joins me, her hands clenched into red fists . We listen to the sounds around us coming up empty we decide to try something else. She eyes me carefully, then clasps her hands around her ears. I nod in understanding. Then we scream.

"Help!"
"Help us!"
I hear a deep voice, too deep to be hers.

"What!?" I shout.

They reply but I can't make out real words, but that doesn't stop me from smiling. We didn't need to hear what they were saying. They know of our presence and that's all that matters.

"Help us!" Kate screams next to me.

"...... 911" They say I breatha sigh of relief. By the look on Kate's face she hadn't heard them.

"I heard him clearly say 911." I say with a smile.

She doesn't answer with words but instead she walks over to me and pulls me against her so tightly I find it hard to get a breath. Her matted hair rests under my chin, her chest rising and falling as she takes several deep breaths. She squeezes me tighter, burrowing her face into my chest.

"Jeez, if after all this you kill me now..." I say jokingly into her ear.

She laughs as she holds herself against me, muffling the sound of her joy.

"We are going to be okay." She says.

I continue to rub her back, my nonverbal answer to her statement.

We take a seat on the elevators floor together and she reaches for my hand. I grab it happily. My happiness starts to fade fast realizing this would soon be over. Her and I would soon separate.

"Kate, tonight was  terrifyingly incredible. You don't realize how truly exhilarated I feel right now, but..."

"Phil, I know what you're going to say. You are no less married now then you were when you got in this elevator, nothing has changed." She said with kind, understanding eyes and a tone that instantly made my heart ache.

"I'm sorry, but I know now I can't stay with her anymore. She isn't a source of happiness, you are. I have to make my life the best it can be and having you a part of it I know will do just that."

She stays silent but pulses her hand in mine, then she slowly takes it away.

She stands to her feet and slowly creeps away from me. She sits down on the opposite side of the elevator, as far from me in this small space as she could get.

"I have to change, can you?" Her harsh words are followed by a motion with her hands. She whirls her finger midair telling me to look away, is if I hadn't just 20 minutes before been "with" her.

I do as she instructs and avert my eyes. I hear her moving slightly as she changes.

"Alright, you can look now." She says to me softly as the lights flicker.

It's as if finding out we are safe changed her. Now she acted so shy and modest.

I look over her once again. Her hair looks frazzled and uncombed adding to the sense of her confusing actions. Her clothes still hung on her perfectly, her wrinkled shirt a perfect fit over her curving body. Her pants, fitted to perfection, reel me in, daring me to pull them off once again. What stops me is her clenching body language. She has curled herself into a tight ball wrinkling the clothes even further looking worried, almost frightened.

She catches me looking at her,  instantly looking away. I try my best to look elsewhere.

Kate

How could I have done what I did?  How can I live with myself knowing I was with a married man, in an elevator no less? I feel so horryingly ashamed,  I want nothing more than to get out of here.

I need time to think everything over. Right now my mind feels hazy and painfully at odds.

Part of me wants nothing more than to repeat all of last nights activites, excluding the whole broken elevator part, but the other part of me, the rational part, knows I can't continue that sort of a relationship.