I have copied a story I found recently. My wife wrote it, this and other short hidden notes along the same lines. It’s about a real person whom we’ve met in the course of our professions. I found it while my wife was away, interestingly at an event where this person would be. Because she was incredibly busy I did not raise the subject out of courtesy and waited until she arrived home some two weeks later. It also gave me the time I needed to attempt to rationalize my thoughts. This what she wrote, “After ???? I’m thinking about the feelings I carried with me the rest of the evening—and as I walked to my hotel in the dark, over the bridge, putting needed distance between us because you are inexplicably physically familiar to me and I don’t know how to turn the volume on that down completely. Your eyes catching mine as you walked up to me, as I stepped away from Pete to embrace you, the light in them, the happiness, we are friends already, and would be even easier with each other if we could spend more days like that one I keep recalling to people, to myself, playing the turn of your sentences and thoughts back in my mind. Yes, I stepped into your arc naturally in that room full of our colleagues dressed as penguins—but you in that baby blue tie and me in my frosted burgundy velvet shoes. I teased you with my line about the error—and if that helps you read my story closely then I love that even though it’s scary and you might find other things wrong with it. Yet I am transparent to you already—I trust you to treat that delicately. Why? I couldn’t say; it’s just a natural thing. I touch your arm and you touch my hand as we step into each other, a little dance we’ll repeat again in a few weeks. I was a tiny part of your morning too, when you read my quick email and answered me, then liked my article post. Then I know you went on with your day, but it makes my heart beat a little faster to think you thought of me a little bit, and answered my kindness to you with your own to me.”
She’s an author but has never written fiction. She was horrified that I had discovered the notes and was extremely embarrassed. She said it was nothing, that she wanted to write something and this was just a fantasy. I love her and so want to believe her but I am so confused, mainly because it is so intimate, so personal. It’s about one man whom she describes absolutely, it’s him without a doubt.
I accept we all have fantasies but this is perhaps beyond fantasy?
I would love to hear a woman’s perspective on this. I need to understand.
She’s an author but has never written fiction. She was horrified that I had discovered the notes and was extremely embarrassed. She said it was nothing, that she wanted to write something and this was just a fantasy. I love her and so want to believe her but I am so confused, mainly because it is so intimate, so personal. It’s about one man whom she describes absolutely, it’s him without a doubt.
I accept we all have fantasies but this is perhaps beyond fantasy?
I would love to hear a woman’s perspective on this. I need to understand.
