Page 82 of Returned Mail

I don’t know what it is, but it is not that.

It’s been five days since I saw her, well, her picture, and I’m trying to feel normal about it, but I’m failing miserably.

I can’t stop thinking about her, about what to send her back. I need to be busy. I need things to do, so that’s what I do. I work. I move. I check gear, go where I’m told, listen when I need to, and sleep when my body finally gives me no other choice.

But her picture goes into my notebook, tucked behind the back cover. Not because I’m hiding it— who the fuck am I kidding? I am absolutely hiding it.

I tell myself it’s safer there. It’s protected, and out of sight. Then I take it out every night anyway. Which is exactly the kind of lie a man tells himself when he knows he’s already lost control of something.

The first night, I look at it and think about the window. The second, I think about her laugh. The third, I notice the way her hair falls over one shoulder and spend the next ten minutes irritated at myself for noticing. By the fourth, I stop pretending I'm only looking at the photograph.

I'm looking at her, and there's a difference.

Her mouth.

That's what gets me first. The kind of mouth that makes a man think things he shouldn't. I stare at it longer than I mean to. Then I think about what it would feel like against mine, against my neck.

Lower.

My cock twitches before I can stop the thought.

“Fuck.”

The fact that I am thirty-six years old and getting hard looking at a picture like a teenager is embarrassing. I should put it away. There’s a line there, one I should probably respect. She is thousands of miles away.

My hand moves to my belt before I realize what I'm doing. “Absolutely not. Don’t go there.” I mutter to myself, but my body doesn't care about my restraint.

I'm already half-hard, and the thought of her in that apartment, in my bed, wearing God knows what, is enough to make my jaw lock. I think about her reading my letter.

I would like to see you.

I wonder if she blushed. I wonder if she touched herself, thinking about me, the way I’m about to touch myself, thinking about her. That thought breaks something. I shove the photo back into my notebook and stand up too fast.

My cock is pressing hard against my pants, aching, demanding attention I'm not going to give it.

The fifth night, I take the photo out again.

This time I don't pretend it's innocent. I'm alone behind the supply container. The desert is dark and quiet around me. No one to see. No one to know. Just me, the photograph, and the fact that I haven't been this hard in months.

I look at her mouth again. Then lower, at the curve of her neck. The line of her collarbone visible at the edge of her shirt. I can see the shape of her breasts beneath the fabric. It’s not much, but enough to make me wonder what she looks like underneath. Whether she's soft there. Whether she'd gasp if I put my mouth on her.

My hand moves to my belt again, and this time I don't stop it. I undo the buckle slowly, then the button, then the zipper. My cock is already pressing against my boxers, hard and aching and desperate for friction.

I wrap my hand around it through the fabric first, just to put some pressure on it, just enough to take the edge off. It doesn't work. I think about Mia's mouth, at what it would feel like wrapped around me. Whether she'd look up at me while she did it. Whether she'd take me deep or tease me until I begged.

“Fuck.”

I pull my cock out. I’m painfully hard, already wet at the tip. I stroke slowly once, and my head falls back against the container. I think about her in the loft, standing at the window, lying in bed. Touching herself the way I'm touching myself now. I wonder if she's wet. I wonder if she's thought about me inside her.

My hand moves faster, as I stare at the photograph. At her eyes. Her mouth. I think about pulling her shirt off, and seeing her tits for the first time. Putting my mouth on them. Hearing her moan. I think about spreading her legs, about tasting her. Feeling her come on my tongue. Then sliding inside her. Slow at first, then harder. Until she's saying my name.

My hand is moving fast now. It’s rough, and desperate. I'm so close. I think about her pussy. Tight. Wet. Clenching around me. I think about fucking her until she can't remember her own name. Until the only thing she knows is me.

“Fuck, Mia⁠—”

Her name rips out of me when I come. I’m pulsing and spilling over my hand in thick, hot waves. I stand there for a long time after, still breathing hard, and staring at the photograph. At the woman who just made me come harder than I have in months without even knowing it.

“Fuck.”