confessions of a beleaguered mind

r | language | sexual content

You sit there, and I'm torn between wanting to throw you on the floor and wanting to throw you against the wall.

You tap your finger against your cheek as you read the file. I can hear it, and it's driving me nuts. I'm trying to work you know? I have my own case to process, and you make it almost impossible to think about how this woman could have killed her husband. And why.

Maybe it was because he tapped his finger against his cheek when he read the newspaper in the morning. Maybe the noise drove her insane. You think about that?

I want to walk up to you, slap you, and say, 'Fuck you.'

I want to walk up to you, drag you into the nearest closet, and say, 'Fuck me.'

I remember all those times I caught you staring at me. Checking out my breasts, getting a nice view of my ass. If it had been Nick or Greg or Brass or any other man on the face of the planet, I would have called it ogling. But I didn't mind when you did it. Maybe it was because I checked you out too. I'd watch you as you walked down the hall or bent over at a crime scene. Sometimes when you stood a little too close to me, I'd even drop my gaze to your crotch for a nanosecond, trying to see if my scent, if my touch, if my proximity had any effect on you.

I never saw anything.

So, was it just ogling? Am I just some chick with a nice rack? Eye candy? When you look at me, what do you think? Do you think about how sex with me could be incredible? How it might be fun to bed some pretty, young thing, if only I wasn't your employee? Or do you think about how you'd like to hold me close after we make love?

Or do you just think, hey, nice tits?

I don't think that's it. I don't think you're like that. I don't think I'm just a piece of meat to you.

But hey, I thought it was the girlfriend in the Melvin case last week. It turned out Nick was right and it was the roommate. What the fuck do I know?

Do you know what you've done to me? My thoughts are paradoxical. They make no sense.

I want to touch you. I want to feel your lips against mine. I want your tongue in my mouth. I want our bodies, naked, in my bed or on the floor or in a car or somewhere, anywhere, I don't even care anymore. I want you so badly sometimes that my body hurts. As much as it sounds like a line from a cheap romance novel, my body physically aches for you. I want to taste you and feel you and hear you calling my name. I want you to call me 'honey' again. I want you to cry it out while we're in bed. I want to wake up and find out you stole the sheets.

I don't want you near me. I don't want to smell that distinctive scent that is eau de Gil Grissom. I don't want your hand brushing my arm as we pass in the hallway. I don't want to feel your stare - yes, I can feel it. I know when you're looking at me, and it used to make me tingle. Now, it makes me sick. It makes me want to cry, because I see something there. I do. I feel something when we touch. Whenever you're close to me, I feel like we share some kind of deep connection, one that goes beyond anything I've ever experienced before.

Sometimes I believe it's real, and sometimes I think I'm nuts.

Lately, I've just been convinced I'm nuts.

Poor, stupid, delusional Sara. You know, I thought you had a thing for me back then, too. Yeah. You always had this small smile when you called on me. You said my name in a way that was different from the way you said the others'. When I asked you if you wanted to grab a cup of coffee afterwards, you took me up on it. We talked. You didn't move your foot away when I put mine right next to yours. I was wearing flip-flops, and I could feel the texture of your loafers against my bare skin. When our fingers brushed, your face changed, into an expression that I saw only one other time, when I dared to reach out and make contact again. I thought you liked me. I thought you thought I was attractive. I thought maybe if I asked you out, you'd accept. The seminar was over. There was no conflict of interest.

But I never did, because I was too scared. Because a stupid little part of my mind insisted that you couldn't possibly be interested in me. You sent out signals, but not enough to be definitive. I wasn't sure. And having just gotten dumped two weeks before, I told myself that my attraction to you was just some psychological thing - a need to get laid or something, to show myself - and the world - that I was still attractive.

So I let you go.

I love you. I've never really been sure of what that word means. Or at least what it means to me. I still don't really know. But I have no way of explaining coherently what you do to me, so I'll call it love. It's more than just a sexual attraction. It's more than just friendship or respect. It's... just love, I guess. I feel like maybe our souls really were two pieces of one being, separated and longing to be reunited.

God, I sound like a Hallmark card.

I hate you. I hate you for what you've done to me. I hate that I spend so much time thinking about you. Dreaming about you. I hate that I've cried over you. Yeah, I cried for you. When I heard you'd been attacked by the Strip Strangler, I cried. I waited until I was home, alone, where no one could see. I thought about how I could have lost you. I thought about how if Catherine hadn't been there, I might have been giving an eulogy at your fucking funeral.

Fuck's a nice word, isn't it? You can get a lot of emotion out in that word. You gotta put more effort into creating the 'f' sound then the 'sh' or 'd' sounds in some other curse words. You have to practically fling your lip at the person to make the 'f' sound. And that 'ck' at the end sounds nice and sharp. It feels like you could actually cut someone with that word.

I don't say it a lot. I didn't used to. But today I feel like shouting it right in your face. I feel like screaming it at the top of my lungs until I'm out of breath. If this were a bad movie, I'd break down in tears and you'd hold me, kissing my cheeks and telling me that you love me. That you've always loved me.

But this isn't a movie. It's real life. It's my life and it's your life and there's no script and I can't order a rewrite.

You feel something. I know you do. And it's not just physical. It can't be. If it was, you could brush it off and walk away. There's something there. I know there is. You know it's there, too.

Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?

I hate that song. Now the chorus is going to be playing in my head for the rest of the afternoon.

What's wrong with us being together? What's so wrong about two people who care for each other having a relationship? What's wrong with us sleeping in the same bed and making love when we get home? What's wrong with us eating dinner? Why can't we eat dinner?

Is it because you know it wouldn't just be dinner? Does that scare you? Why?

You don't make sense. You expect me to believe that, suddenly, if we were sleeping together, that we couldn't be professionals at work? How is it better now? Like this? With the tension between us unresolved? Explain that to me. Five hundred words or less.

Maybe you think I can just move on, and fall in love with someone else. Maybe I can. But I don't know if I want to. I've been in love before, but it's never felt like this. It's never been this consuming. This powerful.

And I'm back to sounding like a bad romance novel.

The thing is... if you absolutely couldn't be with me if we were working together... I'd quit. I think I'd quit my job, just to be with you.

And I bet that if I offered to do that, you still wouldn't start a relationship with me. You'd babble on about how you couldn't let me do that, because later on, I might be mad at you for causing my career to detour, and that would ruin our relationship. Maybe you're right about that. I don't know.

"You okay, Sara?"

Ha. What do I do here? Do I lie? Will you be able to tell? Do you want the truth?

Do you care anymore? Just... tell me you care.

"No."

You look concerned. You gave me the same look when you found me after the explosion.

It gives me hope.

It makes me sick.

I get up and leave. Maybe you watch me go. Maybe you think about how you need me in your life. Maybe you're thinking about how you almost lost me. Maybe you're thinking about how you love me. Maybe you're contemplating what would happen if you kissed me.

Or maybe you're just thinking, hey, nice ass.

(fin.)