read:"Longing"

"How close is it?"

He shrugged, but instantly realized she couldn't see it in the dark of the beach.  "Dunno.  All I read is it is the closest it will be for another two years.  It's called 'Mars Close' for a reason."  The wind was strongest along the cliffs, but it was the only place to get a clear shot of the Cove.  Brush framed it on both sides.  He leaned on the rail so he could see her face more clearly.

She is gorgeous.  Perfect.  He smiled, not inwardly.  She kept staring forward.  She's allowing me to.  Hm.  He only wanted to think the best of her.

The tips of her hair whipped around, the rest of the light highlights were tightly pulled back.  She didn't make eye contact, staring up and toward the blank pitch of the sea.  He stared back.  There were a few lights flatly through the haze.  They were a line of tankers heading north toward Pedro.  They were stationary for the night.  Above them, it was the clearly red dot of Mars, a tilted line from the barely blue tint of Saturn.

His mind raced with what to do next.  How to make it all perfect.  This night.  So there would be a next night.  He could tell that she was used to this treatment.  Devon pulled all the stops tonight.  Five Crowns.  A little stuffy, but I am in a formal mood with her.  A literary mood.  Chateau La Grange Clinet Grande Reserve.  To fit the mood, an Old World Bordeux.  Peppered the conversation, as naturally as possible, with Marlowe.

"That perfect bliss."  When describing a recent trip to Tai O, in Hong Kong, and walking above the sleepy, lighted waterways.  "The planes coming in to HKG, as if skipping atop the waters.  The fisherman would occasionally look up at the thundering machines.

"What feeds me destroys me."  When she playfully said that he was too romantic.  He describing the first girl he fell in love with.  It was in third grade and she never knew.  Her name was Jessica Morales and it was spoiled by the stupidity of the other boys.  Devon was never able to recover from that.  He spend the summer completely destroyed, hoping to see her around town.  It never happened.

"...the topless towers of Ileum."  When she described her most recent relationship.  She tried to make it work, but the two simply didn't connect.  He said it in response to how no one has penetrated her heart.  She smiled and he took it to mean hope.

I am too much.  He sunk for an instant and felt the indecision of the night tear into him.  As long as she does not ask, what's next? then I should be fine.  But so far, this did not happen.  He struggled for something else...he roiled over the conversation and thought over a few things that she had mentioned.  She never elaborated on wanting to go to Italy.

"Italy?"

"Huh?"  She finally looked at him.  She was off on her own.  I am merely another admirer.  Her eyes were wet with thought.  He feigned a bit of easy laughter.  Oh, no.

"Where were you?"

She tucked her head down in slight embarrassment and pulled her hair behind her ear.  How I want to brush my lips against it.  "I was thinking of the mysteries.  Out there."  Her eyes nodded into the haze and pitch ahead.  She nodded toward it like a knowing lover, sharing a secret.

"Well he must hold many secrets.  You were positively enthralled."

She smiled as if to laugh but didn't.  She looked at him again.  "I apologize."

"Perish the thought."  He turned his back to the railing and looked instead to the light colored hills.  The traffic was a constant these days.  Time to play chicken.  Who was going to call it first?  "You're place, where you just were.  Out there.  It is not down in any map.  True places never are."  He smiled foxily, letting the wine control.

"Melville."  She laughed out loud.  She laughed for the first time in three dates.  "What was that smile?"

"Well, I'm either trying to pull you back from there, or join you."  Laugh again.

"I may begin to think that you have an unhealthy amount of knowledge for literature.  These days."

"I agree.  Now, let's get you home and out of this wind."  Slow.  The operative word tonight.  There's something she is hiding.  She does not need the wiles and my desires.

In the car, warmed by the leather seats and a mix tape consisting of Lauv, Just a Gent and Phoebe Ryan, she relaxed.  She fell into her Nita dress, a blue vintage number made of silk and embroidery, and pulled her frock like a blanket.  "May I sleep here?"

"I would be offended if you didn't, Miss S--."

"Then I shall.  Wake me when we've reached Neverland."

I love her already.