Voyeur's Confession

I remember the first time I watched you change.

It was the first truly hot day of the year; I remember because it was so uncomfortably warm on my balcony. My clothes were sweating. My brow was sweating. My drink was sweating. Everything in my world was perspiring, and I couldn't hope to escape it. My air conditioner was busted, and as I watched the birds fly, I wished with all my heart to be one of them, riding the breezes.

My wandering eye caught a stirring by your window. I used to avert my eyes from your building – you never kept the drapes closed and I didn't want to be a spy. Peeping seemed like such a violation, I had to look away. It was an intense sensation, and I realize why now that I've seen you. The desire was intense, so the denial had to match it. Otherwise, I might never stop.

On that hot, steaming day, you stood before your window, your back to me. Long, dark hair fell down your shoulders, barely wrapped in a black sports bra. It sloped and dipped and glistened in the heat down to wide hips and gray shorts, long legs that had every contour I could dream of. I was entranced. It wasn't fair.

I couldn't stop.

The bra was peeled away and my breath caught. The heat turned from stifling to scalding, running over my arms and through my eyes like sparks. A single tattoo like a black seam was revealed and held me. I couldn't blink. You stretched your arms and the seam widened...darkened, cracked and split open like the skin of a fruit. Unfurling like the petals of a flower, lengths of white silken light rolled out of that crack, painted with a little blood.

Part of me wanted to taste it; part of me felt sick. All of me felt alive.

The soft bone spilled out into the wide span of wings and snapped wide. They shone like crystal, bathing the window in a momentary light that hid you from me. I fell to a knee – my eyes were weeping red. I wiped the blood with my shirt and hoped no one noticed. I was hard and gasping and so very eager for more. When the light faded, you were looking at me, bare-breasted and smirking.

You blew me a kiss and drew the blinds.

I thought I was going to die from the heat.

I saw more of you the next day. The last sight my eyes will remember.