When our lips met, everything else became inconsequential

There have been times when I had reacted with utmost sincerity, even though those reactions were not ideal. There have also been times when I had not reacted to the most inopportune moments or mishaps. Come to thin of it, I could have reacted better, or not at all; whatever I heard, whatever I saw happening around me, none of them concerned me. At least not directly.

Yet, I did that. I yelled at the one person who had been nothing but a sweetheart to me. In my urgency of protecting him had inadvertently hurt him. I could not read the flicker in his eyes, or the meaning of the frown, but the sadness was not obscure, and somehow I knew I was causing this.

It had reminded me of all the taunts, teasing comments, humiliating remarks, and everything else that had happened since I had arrived to this town with him. Vee had asked me whether I truly believed it was just love at first sight that had pulled me towards him. Now, standing in front of Max I asked myself, was it truly a mere attraction? Or something else? The answer was clear to me. It was something else.

The faint memories I had may not create the entire picture, but it was enough for me to come to my senses. It was not love at first sight. Love, yes… lust, a lot of it, there was also an undeniable attraction towards him, but this was not the first time I was experiencing this.

I remembered nothing of him, but my body remembered his touch, my mind remembered his whispers, and in my heart I carried the warmth I needed to go on. There were fragments of something close to memories, not enough to claim anything at all but just about enough to know– it was not love at first sight. It was not the first time I had met him, and it was me they waited for.

I was the lover of Max they all had waited for, and I was here.

But I was not prepared for his reaction at all. I expected him to yell at me, fight with me, try to prove how wrong I was–which I was painfully aware of; he did nothing as such. Instead, he started taking steps away from me.

"Talk to me, Max," I whispered after a very long and excruciatingly silent moment. "What is going on in your mind?"

Max shivered as he heard me. His eyes had fear and confusion. He walked past me to stand near the six feet long mirror standing in a corner. His shaking hands went up to his face. Before I knew, a new person was standing there. It was not the man I fell for, but a man I craved for. The man who turned to see me had green eyes. Not the green one would find in a picture, or accidentally in a crown; it was a darker shade of green, something that reminded a forest under the moonlight, if the forest would shimmer. It was a strange green that would take away all the care and anxiety, but it could also fill one's mind with the fear of something terrible.

And those eyes were still playing with a thousand emotions of fear, nervousness, and confusion. Soon it was replaced by relief and tears. "Do you—?" he left his question hanging.

Of course I do… I couldn't say the words, but I knew that he knew.

I couldn't control myself anymore. I pounced on him and started unbuttoning the shirt he wore. Two of the buttons fell on the floor along with my pretences. My hands found his skin under the shirt, warm, smelling like musk. Under my fingers, his nipples felt like raw nerve endings that sent both of us insane. I kissed my way through his chest, while my hands made their way through his trousers. "There is something I should tell you," I whispered in his ears. He shivered like a leaf on the face of an upcoming storm.

"What is it?" he asked me. Anticipation, uncertainty, lust and something else made his voice tremble. I understood most of his emotions, because I was there too, I was going to jump off a cliff, depending only on faith, and people who advocate for the leap of faith should know how impossible the task was for a non-believer like me. It felt like the end of my existence. I didn't know where I was going, or rather where the circumstances were taking me; I just knew that I had to go on. It was like I was left alone, blind, in a tunnel. I wanted to see the light I had waited for a very long time, but I didn't know whether the tunnel ended in light or the worst kind of hell.

"I was travelling with my girlfriend, when I met a man. I didn't know what it was, but his smile sent me to a different place. It was like I was alive, but not living before I met him. I think I fell for the man then and there." My hands found the sensitive part under his trousers, hard and hot. My touch made him moan. His moan echoed in my ears and sent me into a new kind of frenzy. I started moving my hands in a rhythmic motion. I continued speaking under my breath. "He asked me to join him on a new journey to a town I had never heard of. I followed him without any question, without any doubts. For the first time when I touched him, I felt it—the very familiar touch that made me alive. It was the touch I craved; do you know what I am saying?"

He nodded. The beautiful green in his eyes darkened in lust. He started kissing me hungrily. The fervour in him made me smirk. His behaviour was mirroring mine. He was kissing me like a dying man's last wish. He soon found me and started playing with me. His thumb grazed the tip of my manhood. Each of his manoeuvres sent shivers through my skin.

In between moans and hisses, I asked him, "If I leave everything behind and start a new life here, will you be with me?"

He bit my earlobe and panted. "What about your girlfriend?" This surprised me even more. Why was he still thinking about her? Hadn't he already understood who I was and who he was to me? Or he wanted me to choose? If that was the case, I would choose him, each and every time. Didn't he know that by now?

'I will talk to her," I answered hoarsely. Amy and I were never as intimate as lovers should be. It was partially my fault. I was aware of her work and how she was always busy. I should have taken more initiatives, but I never felt the urge to keep her with me. That way I had never felt for anybody, except Max.

We were both very close to climax. There was no space for words anymore. He smiled for an instant, and another hiss took the place of that smile. Moans and hisses filled the silent void in my room. The air permeated with the smell of our sweat and lust. Max whispered in my ear, "Bite me!" I was more than happy to oblige him.

"So, are you really thinking of settling down here?" he asked me later when both of us were lying down on the bed facing each other. "There will be difficulties here for you. You will be hated and feared even, you may lose the friends you have. You still don't know these people well, or this place."

"Can you tell me?" I was tracing my finger over his neck and collarbone, "about these people, or this place?"

"I can tell you only a little. You have to learn everything yourself," he said. His eyes were now closed. "I can only tell you that this place is not like any other place."

"I have observed that," I replied with a smirk.

"There are some places in the earth those are different. The air, the soil, the water, even the people inhabiting those places are different. This town is such a place."

I thought of what he said for a while. If somebody else had told me these I wouldn't have believed them, but I knew what Max meant. "Why is everybody waiting for your lover?" I asked and instantaneously realised I shouldn't have.

Max looked alright, though. "He was very powerful and special. I shuldn't have gotten involved with him, but I had already fallen for him. Sometimes, even you hear all the cautionary tales you just forget them. You find that perfect person, and you meet them in a perfect moment and you just know it. Like I knew, he was the one for me."

"You are talking about your ex while sleeping with me. How cruel is that?" I asked him with a silent laughter.

"You know it, why you should not be jealous or angry. Don't you?"

He was right, I knew. And he knew that I knew.

Strangely, I had forgotten everything that happened throughout the day. When our lips met, everything else became inconsequential.