The Apple of My Eye

Can't Fight This Feeling

Star and I were spending every minute of every day together now. Well, not exactly, but I'd like to think that that's what was happening. We spent together every minute when I didn't have to be at work, at which time she was at work, too, remember, but we worked in different departments, and, quite frankly, thank God for that. That kept us in perspective. Plus, at work, although we'd definitely keep in touch, we were being relentlessly scrutinized and constantly interrupted, even if we mostly talked on Skype, so there wasn't much room for more elaborate communication. Aside from that, let us not forget I had my daughter, Victoria, to spend time with, and I most certainly did, every day and every night at the end of every day. And the weekends were entirely devoted to her, too. (Up until now, no female but my daughter and her mother had ever set foot in my apartment, and, for the sake of everybody's safety and sanity, I intended to keep things that way.)

So you know what? Let me take that first sentence back and state that Star and I were spending very little time together, actually. But the fact that I was madly in love with her was nonnegotiable. I had come to terms with that realization and didn't fight it anymore. Yes, I was in love again. And very much so. I wanted to be able to spend more and more time in her company, and the little time I was getting didn't seem to be nearly enough. Outside of some degree of kissing and hugging, we barely even touched because we were spending most of our time together out in the street or in public places. We hadn't had a moment of privacy, absolute privacy, and I was crazy to be able to spend a night with Star, just the two of us, no disturbances, no set time for us to start doing this or to stop doing that. Just us saying yes to each other and giving in to whatever desire we felt like giving in to.

So one Friday night, as we were sitting in the car after one of our outings, I blurted out, "I'm going on a business trip next Friday, and you know what would be great? If you could come with me so we'd stay together the whole weekend. Can you imagine that?"

I knew it was a long shot. To imagine Star would ever agree to do something like that was very illogical. It's not that she didn't want to spend time with me in a more sequestered setting. I was sure she wanted to. But we had been going out for no more than a couple of weeks really, and this was exactly the kind of proposition you would expect from the dirty version of me, the version she'd heard so much about: the version of me that would go out of his way to get into her pants and then ditch her the very next second. At that point, she no longer saw me as that kind of guy, that is, up until now I had given her every reason to believe otherwise, but come on. To make her that kind of invitation and actually expect her to say yes? That was me getting greedy and I knew it.

I even threw in this suave, yet very heartfelt vow: "We don't even have to do anything. I will only do to you what you want me to do to you. I just want us to be able to spend more time together. I love spending time with you, Star. Talking to you. Kissing you. I want to be able to not have to worry about what time it is, you know? I want to not be looking at my watch every five minutes to find out whether we can stay together a little longer."

Star didn't say anything. She just smiled her disarming smile as she pondered my little offer. The way she bit her lower lip as she considered the whole scenario would have you thinking she was the kind of girl who planned her every gesture according to a body-language type of guide so she'd look sexy and mischievous and desirable all the time. But that wasn't it. She really made all these faces out of total spontaneity, oblivious to the fact that she was driving me so mad with desire I wanted to jump at her and take a bite off those pouty lips.

After what didn't seem like an eternity—it really didn't—she looked at me with her big brown eyes, her smile lighting up her whole face—and mine too, probably—and nodded yes like a little girl.

"You mean you'll come with?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't you want me to come with?" she asked as if I had just been teasing all along.