But no, this wasn't some movie. The woman before him would most likely shout before he even had time to get out of his armchair. It was no good. A plan, but a bad plan. Not gonna get him very far at all.
And the woman was still talking. Another bad sign, meant he should've been listening, when he wasn't. And later, it would be question time and he would once more come off as unprepared. He was the King of Unprepared. It was an ingrate position, but it was the only one he seemed to be any good at. Well, not good. You know what I meant.
Ten more seconds gone by. Another couples sentences missed. Boy, she talked fast.
It wasn't even about her; he didn't actually want her up against the bookcase. Hell, he didn't know this girl from Adam. Or Eve. Was that what they said? He wouldn't want to sound... insensitive. Suppose it didn't matter. Point was, he didn't actually want to fuck her, which begged the question - why then was he incapable of paying attention to the words so rapidly flying out of her mouth?
It wasn't that she wasn't interesting, either. She'd seemed like a clever lady on the two occasions he'd chatted with her in the break room. So most likely, what she was saying made sense, at least to some extent. Yet ever since she'd walked in, he couldn't tear his eyes off her blouse. Not the tits. He had to keep telling himself it wasn't the tits. Breasts.
Boobies. Knockers. Jugs. And about a half dozen other cutesy nicknames floated across his mind before he could stop himself. He recalled the boys he'd grown up with, the words they'd used. And funny, because back then, all he could see when he looked at the woman was... well, you know. You've been there, haven't you?
Cleavage.
Except now, it didn't even cross his mind, it was just something about the fabric of her shirt that took him a long time back. To a woman e no longer knew he could remember. His mother.
The soft smell of outsiderness that would fill his nostrils each time his mother returned from her life in the world outside. Which slowly became less and less. She'd come home less and it didn't take him long to reach the conclusion that he was to blame. With his incessant natter, his fussiness. His mother always told him he was fussy and by the time he figured he should stop it, it was too late. One day, his mother went out and never came back.
Hey, it happens.
But somehow, that wasn't it. He'd thought about his mother a lot in the past ten years and he'd come to a sort of terms with it, you know? Wasn't perfect, but then, what family is? His family was a tad smaller, just him and his dad and it was alright. It was good. His dad was kinda fussy, too, so he never really blamed the boy. Not when he knew he was equally to blame for his lover's departure.
Your thoughts slip and you lose interest and that was exactly what had happened to him. His thoughts had drifted - from this woman's breasts, to his mother, to that one parking lot in college, to whether or not he'd watered the house plant. It really wasn't that difficult. It was just a bloody house plant. How would he ever get a woman if he couldn't even look after a bleeding house plant?
And then, on to the library. It had been a casual observation, at first, nothing more. He hadn't even been feeling horny. And he still wasn't. But the more he contemplated it, the more of her speech he missed and pretty soon, he became convinced that the only possible solution would be indeed to push her up against the library and...
Well, he would have to kiss her, at least. Make it just dashing enough so she'd forget he hadn't heard a fucking word. Shit, he wasn't really the dashing kind. Oh well, here goes.
He stood up. Ouch, goddam coffee table. Who designed these offices? He threw her an embarrassed smile, stepped around the table and sorta led her to the bookcase. But hesitated.
I mean, wouldn't do to knock half the books off, would it? Some of these weren't even his and a few were really quite old.
'Uhm,' he said, decidedly not-dashing, to the woman who'd by now stopped talking altogether and was regarding him with a bemused grin. 'Would you...would you have coffee with me? Sometime, I mean. Not now. I'm not trying to be inappropriate or something, it's just...'
And he'd never done this before, but something told him he should now.
'I was just picturing pushing you up against this bookcase now and I thought that would be quite rude, you know, without a cup of coffee first.'
The woman with his mother's shirt smiled. 'You're a funny one, aren't you?'
Precisely thirteen months to the day, he would propose to her, in flip-flops and a bun, in his kitchen at two AM. She'd even find it inside her heart to occasionally water his house plant.
Funny old world, innit?
