Dead-pan honest

"I think that you are a wandering spirit and it shines much more than your features. I am apt to think that you are attractive in that sense. If you meant your appearance, which I think you do, Mr. Boardmann, then I am not sure. It keeps changing every time I see you. Maybe it's the angle of the lighting and how you feel at any one particular time. Your appearance changes with your ups and downs. You seem to me to be a very passionate man but you are not attractive in that physical way." I replied.

He looked at me thoughtfully.

"I have given you my honest answer. I know I have not flattered you, if you were hoping for me to say that you are a wholly attractive man to boost your pride." I said.

He let out a deep, rumbling laugh.

"Oh, Lila. I certainly paid good money for you. I suspect you may have concealed certain things from me, but you are dead-pan honest. I like that a lot." He said.

"Thank you, Mr. Boardmann." I said, feeling surprised at his reaction to me basically calling him ugly, albeit in an indirect way.

I should not try to understand this man. He is far too complicated. His mind was just millions of light years away from mine. Incomprehensible and unreachable to the core!

"I might as well say it. I find you insanely attractive, Lila. Your whole body is made to please men, and I am sure it does, but that is not what immediately stands out when I look at you." He said.

His voice was a little huskier by the second.

My heart was beating faster by the minute. I prayed that he did not see through my soul. It was all dark. I could not get out.

"Your eyes... there's an ethereal quality about it; those intense pupils are the colour of the darkness of night and surrounded by golden irises which seem, by its fiery light to draw me into your existence. Alas I know you are not willing to talk more than I am willing to turn myself around from this abyss." He said.

His voice was roughened by some unfathomable emotion.

We both held each other's gaze then. His eyes sought mine like no other had done before, and because I felt we were both in awkward conversation again, I looked down.

"The sea long gone; its waves ebb away but still I see the vastness of what is and I see it your eyes. You strange creature, she who torments me with her eyes." He said, in a husky voice.

"I do not seek to torment you, Mr. Boardmann. You torment only yourself. I have been trying not to look at you too much." I said, in a quiet voice.

"That I know, Lila. You are barely looking at me when you set your mind to it." He said, softly and gently but he continued, "Still you look at me from the corners of your searching eyes."

This conversation was out of my league. I needed something more tangible.