Voyeur

Bound in pink straps she rested on her bed lazily for me, welcoming my most sinister thoughts. The smooth, glistening bands wound around her body tightly, revealing just enough for the imagination. Her relaxed, yet restless eyes held the regular dose of mystic honesty that could not be justified with words. She was just her stunning, terrible self.

Her portraits were a formidable adversary, and she was not shy to post them on her blog. I had grown to loath them like a forbidden morsel, chewing and swallowing her beauty like a starving prisoner. Her hair fell against her cheek and beside her lush lips. I could taste them, the savory union of innocence and sin. If her words were the dagger plunged into my chest, these images were the twist. There she was, in my dorm, only steps away. Oh, look at the time...posted only a moment ago. Refresh...and another one. This was not fair.

I wanted to walk down there. I wanted to walk through the door and lash her to the bed in her awful straps. Maybe I would fasten her arms and feet to the corner bed posts. Maybe I would casually render her naked body bound and helpless, spread wide open before me. If that wasn't exactly what she wanted, perhaps I could trust myself to do it, just to keep her from posting. I could not trust myself. The wicked thoughts could not be suppressed. She had me, and she knew it. I refreshed the page and was angered to find myself helpless, seduced into posting a few short lines. Outside myself I pressed the keys. I knew that reciprocating was only fanning the awful flames.

Still, she didn't know I had actually found her.

I pressed with care, as if the possibility the poem was identified as a response to her photos would be an end the known civilized world. At that moment silence was far more tragic.