It was getting late. One last thing and she’d be out. Starts to hurriedly search for a number she knew was somewhere in the archives. Scans quick. A familiar name from the past. The cursor hesitates. The heart wins over and all reason fades through the letters. A knot in her throat. Eyes shut quickly, a feeble attempt to stop the racing of her pulse. A soft face pries through slit eyes.

Relenting, she plunges into familiar terrain. A luxury she indulged in now knowing time didn’t matter. The relic from the past was in no rush to be dispensed off hurriedly. Stifling shyness with a rapidly beating heart she narrows her gaze onto him.

Brown tee with sleeves rolled up to show his lean forearm. Long bony fingers clasping a blue blackberry. A forefinger that would caress her lips. “Have I told you how kissable your lips are?” Scores of little touches, tips on fire as she’d imagined them.

The jugular vein branding across a smooth neck. May I kiss you there, she’d asked once. A gentle nibble on the adam’s apple. A scent soaring to dizzying heights she was sure of.

Rounded chin, smooth and clean shaven paving into a small contoured nose. No 5 o clock shadow? She smiles as a conversation floats in on the contents of his drawer. That’s why!

Intent hazel eyes smile back through the lens, at her. An excitement brimming with happiness, flirting with acceptance and desire. Care and tenderness jostling for equal spots. Playing peek-a-boo with her own. Eyes that had roved over her wanton self. Creamy. Smooth. Teeth on skin. A sigh filled with passion and longing.

Lips. Full and pink. Quite unlike any she’d seen in a while. The hint of a smile waiting at the slight upturned corners, one he’d denied her despite many pleas. “I smile with my eyes” he’d replied haughtily once.

Her eyes gazed further on, touching. With a rush of emotions avalanching, she sped along his moles, the hollow of the collar bone, the soft hair on his wide chest. The strength of his muscles underneath his arms, the rhythmic drip in his veins. The heat in his palms matching the ripple of his voice.

Like various bodies of water, from the smooth gentle stream through the fierceness of a waterfall, and the finality of a vortex, she let herself go. Drowning in the past, savoring the nostalgia, she smiled and laughed, until she tasted salt. Sitting up straight, she focused again. The mirth had vanished. Eyes that said it all yet hid behind fear. Frustrating screen ahead quite like a myopic without glasses. Lips that spoke tired harsh words. Pride.

Lips curve in contempt, the fingers snarled at her throat, and the eyes looked back at her with disdain. She recoils with the intensity of it. Hatred.

As she shut 1607_003, she murmurs aloud to no one in particular “Hate is still a feeling, no?”