Desire

In my memory, it still exists: a version of two bodies that desired each other to remedy the lack of closeness between them. A chance to gradually realize that there was someone who understood you.

That someone was Valeria, and the brightest thing about her clothes were the white stripes on her Old Skool Vans, which she replaced every other day with black Converse with white laces. When I first met her, I saw in her light gray eyes that we would become more than two individuals sitting next to each other in the doctor's waiting room.

I limped into the group practice because I had bumped into a piece of metal that morning while taking a photo of a carriage driver and not paying attention to my surroundings. There were two seats available, one next to her and the other next to an older man who couldn't stop coughing.

I nodded to her before sitting down. She had one foot on the seat of her chair and was chewing gum. Her face was pale and her black hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was either pushing the septum in her nose back and forth, scratching the back of her hand, or twirling a black ring on her finger. As she played with her hair, the smell of green apple wafted into my nose.

Without thinking, I said, "Hello," as I sank deeper into my chair. She looked right through me as if I were walking past her on the street, staring instead at my camera, which I had stowed in my bag. Five inconspicuous glances later, when I was called into the treatment room, she whispered, "Bum."

With a prescription for ointment, painkillers, and advice to rest my foot, I returned to the waiting area, where I recognized only the old man coughing. I stepped outside, took out my camera, lit a cigarette, took a few photos, and smoked as I stood there, when a woman's voice behind me asked, "Got a light?"

I turned around. "Sure," I replied and lit her cigarette. She had taken off her " " jacket, which had previously covered her tattooed arms. There were two moths on her wrists and spider webs on her elbows. Skull motifs were scattered in between. She caught my gaze and said, "Do you want to photograph them, or why are you staring so much?"

"I take pictures without being noticed."

"So you're a peeping Tom after all?" I watched the corners of her mouth turn up.

"Something like that."

"Go ahead, take my picture."

"If you ignore me."

She turned her gaze away from me, took a drag on her cigarette, and made me feel invisible.

I photographed her from different angles: smoking, staring at a spot, lost in thought, one arm crossed over her chest, the other propped up. I captured a look that was a mixture of pride, longing, and a mood I couldn't interpret. I had seen this expression before in other people and photographed it. When I moved to Vienna four years ago, I saw it so regularly that I tried to study it extensively. Now that I was encountering it again, I was sure I was close to understanding it.

I went back to her and showed her the photos.

"They're not that bad."

"Not bad for a first try."

"Professional or hobby?"

"Neither."

She narrowed her eyes. "Well, it must be something."

"Something in between."

"If I tell my customers that, they'll think I'm crazy."

"What do you do?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

I shrugged and played with my camera.

"A prostitute, of course. Why else would I be talking to you?"

"Oh, I see. I thought so. I'm relieved." I continued turning the dial on my Leica, studying her to see what she was trying to do.

"How much?"

"Depends on how long. The daily rate is 1050 euros. For clients I know well, 750 euros."

"I thought it was billed by the hour?"

"I don't do that anymore."

I opened my mouth.

"I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, I'm fully booked for the next few months." She took a drag on her cigarette, smiled, threw it onto the street, took a business card out of her jacket, and stepped closer to me. Through the cigarette smoke, she smelled like a charred apple tree. She pressed the card into my hand.

"I didn't know you guys handed out business cards now."

"With online appointment booking," she said, turned around, and walked away. I watched her turn the corner in her tight black jeans. When she was gone, I looked at the card and started laughing. I almost believed her.

The business card took me to her Instagram page under the name Valeria_Artisttattoos. I scrolled through her work. Fine lines with realistic elements. She was pictured at various conventions: at Gods of Ink in Frankfurt, the Mondial du Tatouage in Paris, but also at the Evergreen Tattoo Expo in Oregon. Images with big names like Nikko Hurtado, Teresa Sharpe, and the Versatile Arts studio adorned her page. I clicked "Follow" and that same evening, as I looked through the photos I had taken that day, I edited her photos. The most obvious thing to do was to convert the images to monochrome, but I decided against it and instead enhanced the colors in the background, bathing everything in a warm tone so that she stood out from the backdrop. She was the contrast in a colorful world, immovable, like a rock.

I printed out the photos, put them in a folder, and ran to her place the next day before the studio closed. It was located on a side street in the second district. Her name was written in calligraphy on a round sign. She was sitting on a brown bench in front of the studio with a blonde woman with piercings on her eyebrows, whose left leg was red and swollen from tattooing. As they were engrossed in conversation, I stood on the opposite corner. They didn't notice me. I took out my camera, snapped a few pictures of them, and turned away.

After walking around the block, they disappeared into the building, and after four more minutes, the blonde woman said goodbye. My chance. I went to the studio. It was located on a corner, with glass walls on both sides, allowing me to see the reception area. I entered. Dark gray walls, light wood, their logo in neon tubes on the wall. In the background, a melodic hardcore band from Australia that I had been on tour with was playing, and I smiled.

"Thought you'd never come."

"Any more appointments?"

"Not anymore," she said, looking past her screen at the folder in my hand. I pulled out the envelope with the pictures and placed it on the counter in front of her. She turned the music down.

"By the way, I saw you earlier."

I nodded. "I'm not as inconspicuous as I think I am, am I?"

She laughed, her septum bobbing up and down.

"I want those pictures too."

"Take a look at these first."

Valeria leaned forward, grabbed the envelope, opened it, and looked at the photos without saying a word. She stared at the picture of herself looking into the distance with that indecipherable expression for so long that I could have walked around the block again. Her expression was almost as if she had discovered a side of herself that she had lost at some point. When she put the photo aside, she awoke from her trance and asked me: " " "Would you like something to drink? I'll tell you right now, I don't have any alcohol here."

"Just some water."

"Water?"

"Sparkling."

"Oh, okay."

She went to a glass-fronted refrigerator, took out two bottles of water, and placed them on the counter. Then she immersed herself in the pictures again, as if I weren't there. I briefly considered leaving, but I stood there frozen, watching her play with her black hair as she searched for something in the pictures. When she reached the last photo, she looked at me. Her gray eyes were now almost blue.

"No one has ever photographed me like this before."

"You mean like a peeping Tom?"

"No, I mean like this," she pursed her lips, "intensely."

"You can keep them."

She smiled at me and nodded. Then we opened our water bottles, I sat down next to her, and we talked. I learned that she had only opened the studio two years ago, that she had previously worked in another tattoo studio, and that she had studied media design before that.

"So you've lived here long?"

"Nine years. Long enough, right?"

"Four years."

"Beginner," she said, laughing and putting her hand on my forearm. The spot on my arm tingled. We sat on two bar stools next to each other behind the reception desk. Her logo in neon tubes cast a golden shadow on the gray wall behind us.

"So what's the deal with your semi-professional, or whatever, photography?"

"Oh, I'm actually a street photographer, and to keep my head above water, I let bands book me for their tours or clubs. Stuff like that."

"Do you do wedding photos or couple shoots?" she asked me with a laugh.

"Look at me, do you think I take wedding photos?"

She scanned me, then said, "Well, I could imagine it."

"Very funny."

"How did you get into taking photos of complete strangers without their consent?"

"I'll tell you another time."

"Who says there'll be another time?"

"I thought you might want the photos from the bench earlier."

"Seems like it," she said, taking a sip and glancing at the pictures.

"Come on, tell me. Or is it that special?"

"No, not really. I was just interested in photography and then, through a series of twists and turns, I ended up wanting to do it all day long."

"Wow, really exciting. Through a series of detours?"

"I dropped out of medical school."

"Oh, that sounds more interesting."

"My mother is a surgeon, my father is a urologist."

She clapped her hands together, her septum bobbing. "Okay, now you've got me, but you can really tell me that another time. Family drama, no thanks."

I raised my water bottle, clinked it with hers, and nodded. After another bottle and after it had gotten dark, she slid off her stool. "I'm closing up shop."

I took my folder. "Want to smoke another one?"

She nodded, grabbed her bag and the photos and tucked them under her arm. When we were outside, I gave her a cigarette, lit both of ours, and we smoked in the glow of the streetlight, which I photographed in the night.

"You can stop showing off now."

"Are you impressed yet?"

"Keep dreaming."

"Oh, good, I thought I'd have to keep showing you what I can't do." Then I took two pictures of her standing in front of her shop with the photos under her arm and the cigarette in her hand, smiling at me with eyes shining in the lamplight. I wanted to capture her smile, which warmed my body and made me breathe faster.

"I'll stop, I promise. You just look so good right now."

"Right now?"

"Cigarettes just suit you."

She took another drag, flicked it on the ground, stamped it out, and waved her arm with the photos back and forth. "Would you like to walk me home? I feel like the photos will get too wrinkled if I carry them all the way like this, and you have your portfolio with you."

"Sure, no problem."

I put the pictures back in my briefcase. Together we strolled through the muggy night, my T-shirt sticking to my lower back. We watched moths fluttering around streetlights, around these islands of light, walked past shop windows, immersed in the colors of the city: neon yellow, bright shop lights, dark blue neon signs. As we stood on the escalator to the subway, me one step below her, a gust of wind blew her T-shirt up, revealing a black sun around her belly button. Valeria let her T-shirt with the words "Black Sabbath" flutter in the wind, and as we sat in the subway, she put her arm around me and leaned back. I looked at her tattooed forearms, where I discovered subtle scars hidden by her tattoos.

We got off at the Volkstheater, followed the stairs up and walked two streets near Neubaugasse into a house. A stone staircase leading in circles led to her apartment. Her hand in mine, as if she had never been anywhere else. My heart was pounding against my chest. Despite her petite stature, her hand was strong. She had long, , slender fingers that wrapped around my rather broad hand, cooling it and tingling my skin at the same time. When we reached a shiny white door, I gave her the photos.

"Can I have the digital pictures too?"

"That too?" I grinned, and she took a step towards me. "Then I'll have to send you another bill soon."

"Go ahead."

Sweat gathered in my hands, and my feet grew cold.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

My legs felt like concrete. Valeria's upper lip trembled. Her gaze shifted back and forth between my lips and eyes. When I closed my eyes, it was as if I were standing under an apple tree, the sun pouring through the leaves onto my face. My feet grew lighter, my knee brushed her thigh, I ran my fingers through her hair, then our lips touched and it was as if I were floating.

She pulled me closer, tickled my neck, pressed her lips harder against mine. Her hair smelled like autumn, her tongue tasted sweet. We stood there like that, my hand on her waist, sliding down to her butt, pressing her closer to me until she pulled away and asked: "Don't you want to come in? Maybe you can help me put up the photos?"

"I can try."

"But the camera stays off."

I nodded, stowed the camera in my backpack, and followed her into the apartment.

When she took off her jeans and exposed her tattoo-covered legs, which looked like smooth black paintings to me, I knew I had to taste those legs. I had to explore every inch of her body. To my surprise, she was wearing yellow panties, which I slid down from her hips. When she stood naked in front of me and looked at me, there it was again, that look.

Little fireworks went off inside me. We didn't say anything, trying to touch each other everywhere at once to take in as much of each other's closeness as possible. That night, she was a goddess to me, breathing new life into me with her black hair that framed my face and shielded me from the outside world. When she came and her lower body trembled, this tremor rushed through me, shaking everything I had tried to hide inside me for years. This feeling of skin on skin became our drug, which we indulged in until I not only had the scent of the apple tree on my skin, but could also smell it.

Her gaze changed during that night. Although we didn't know each other well, it said what every human being would like to feel: I see you.

We slept for two hours, her hand on my body, caressing it, when her alarm clock rang. She moaned, took her hand off me, and moved it up to my face. There it was again. Those wide-open eyes, the fine wrinkles around them, which formed a smile around her eyes. My hair was stuck to my neck. She said she was going to take a shower. I stayed lying down and watched her.

Our breakfast consisted of two cups of filter coffee, which she brewed in a Japanese carafe . We drank it from glass-like cups. The apartment looked as if she hardly spent any time there: everything was in its place, nothing was on the floor, the blanket on the sofa was folded and placed on the backrest, but the grayish layer of dust did not lie. Her home had high ceilings and, to my surprise, it wasn't all black, but made of the same light wood as her studio. Valeria looked like a foreign object in the white walls, and for a moment I thought it wasn't hers.

The heat of the coffee made my fingertips throb. The brew settled on my tongue, leaving a taste as if I had bitten into a grapefruit.

"It's good, isn't it?"

I nodded, put the mug down again and pushed it back and forth.

"I'm afraid I have to kick you out in a minute. I have an appointment with a client at half past eight."

"Okay, sure."

I finished my cup and hesitated to ask her the question that had been running through my head all morning. As she slipped into her Chucks and pressed the shoehorn into my hand, I asked her, "Will we see each other again?"

She paused, looked at me: "Depends."

"On what?"

She exhaled loudly. "Whether you can handle it."

"Cope with what?"

"That it's just sex." I felt a stab in my stomach.

"Sure, of course it is. That's all I wanted."

"Good, because my marriage comes first."

Marriage, what marriage? I looked at her, she seemed to understand, went to the key box next to the door. She pointed to a picture of her and a guy with blonde streaks in his hair, both smiling at the camera, him kissing her on the cheek. I hadn't noticed the picture yesterday.

"You mean?"

"Don't worry, it's okay. Open marriage, everything's cool. I told you that yesterday."

I nodded. "Yeah, sure, sorry." A stab, like from a red-hot needle, shot through my stomach. I couldn't breathe and wanted to get out of the apartment as quickly as possible.

"It's still okay for you, right?"

"Absolutely, everything's cool."

She smiled. "Next time we'll just meet at your place."

"Sure, I'd love to."

She opened the door. I had trouble putting one foot in front of the other, my arms hanging limply at my sides. When we were standing on the street, she said, "You have to promise me one thing. Never just show up here. We agreed no dates in our apartment."

I nodded.

"Let me know if you want to continue."

"Don't worry, I promise."

"Good."

She stroked my shoulder, turned around, and walked away from me. I was left behind with her scent and the feeling of her body on my skin. I wandered aimlessly around the city all day, holding my camera in front of me but not taking any photos. Sometimes I thought she was standing next to me, then I looked around and saw someone else in a black T-shirt. What was wrong with me? Had I fallen in love with her? So quickly? No, that couldn't be. I told myself it was the lack of closeness that made me think about her all the time.

Marriage—the word made my stomach churn. By now I was standing on Stephansplatz. A group of tourists from America pushed past me, their voices ringing in my ears. Then I said it out loud: "Why didn't she say anything to me?" None of the white tourists wearing washed-out caps looked up. Had she said something and I had simply ignored her? "Hey, by the way, I'm in an open marriage, but fucking is okay, everything's cool." I thought of her ring. I was an idiot.

"Everything's cool," I said to myself, "everything's cool."

I couldn't blame her. I should have seen the signs. I should have asked her who the razor in her bathroom belonged to and who was in the picture in the hallway, which I convinced myself was her brother. All I could see was her naked body. That was all that mattered at that moment. I didn't care about the consequences, which didn't affect her and her husband, but me.

How I wished I could talk to someone about these tangled thoughts, to untangle them one by one. I missed not only the feeling, but also the intoxication, the sense of belonging to someone that I had lost in recent years because I had withdrawn from everything. It was a similar kind of intoxication that gripped me, like in the old days when I was out with my friends and we thought the world was playing by our rules.

Now I had no one I could confide in. I still had friends, but they were more colleagues from the photography industry than people with whom I shared my deepest feelings. I wasn't anyone's best friend and didn't have anyone who was mine.

I thought of all the friendships formed in childhood and adolescence, which are as pure and unblemished as the sunniest memories of those times. Now as an adult, it seems to me that such things can rarely, if ever, exist anymore, as the lightheartedness of youth has long since been stifled by obligations and work. I realized too late that these friendships were slipping away from me, like water running through my fingers. At that point, this hunger, this longing for connections that go deep under the skin, was only satisfied by Valeria's touch.

Three days later, she was lying naked on my bed. I sat on the edge of the bed, dazed, unable to believe that I had done it again. My body was covered in beads of sweat. I took a sip of water and handed her the glass. She took a sip, put it down beside her and motioned with her index finger for me to come back to her. Goosebumps covered her body when I kissed her, pushed my tongue deeper into her mouth and she bit my lips. I think she already knew at that point that I was addicted to her.

When she texted me earlier asking if I wanted to meet up, I should have just replied that I didn't want to see her anymore. But when I saw her name on my screen and read her message, my hands took on a life of their own and replied, "Yes," and sent her my address.

The prospect of being close to her transformed me into a version of myself I didn't know.

"Can I take a photo of you?"

She held my gaze, followed it to the camera lying on the table, and said yes. Valeria pulled the blanket over her body so that only her hips, one leg, and her cleavage were visible. Golden light fell from the windows onto her back, caressing her figure and casting shadows on the package. It was such a beautiful image that my vision blurred and I wiped my face with my forearm.

I would later win a photo contest with this picture: "Unknown Lover." I wasn't too far off with the title. Although we were so physically intimate, I knew next to nothing about her. Who her friends were, what she did when she was alone, or how she felt when it rained.

Today I know that I knew her better than I realized. Her inconspicuous habits, which I collected in my memories like lucky coins. When she slept next to me, she put her hand on me, but I didn't put mine on her because it bothered her. She laughed loudly and uninhibitedly, attracting glances that made people smile. Every time she walked through an automatic sliding door, she made a hissing sound. When she got out of bed, she always smoothed out the covers. My favorite coins were the little dimples around her nose that quivered when she smiled at me.

She also traced the rim of her coffee cup after she had finished drinking and looked at me with her light gray eyes that said, "I know it's silly, but I do it anyway." I could lose myself in her eyes, her habits, and her touch, which brought all logic to a standstill in me. These were just observations that scratched the surface of her being, little things that got under my skin when I watched her.

"Let's go get something to eat," I asked her as I sat up and put my Leica next to the bed.

She brushed her hair away from her face, ran her fingers over her lips, and patted the spot next to her. I sat down, she kissed me, bit my neck.

"I know what you're up to."

"What?"

She laughed briefly, continuing to breathe into my neck. "It's no use."

"Don't you need to eat?"

"I'm not falling in love with you."

"Are you sure?" She bit my ear.

I laughed, pushed her away from me, stood up, and got dressed. "You have to try the pizza."

Valeria watched me, I could see the little wrinkles around her nose moving up and down. Then she got up and slipped into her black clothes.

There was an Italian restaurant on my street that served authentic Neapolitan pizza. The pizza oven took up half the restaurant. It smelled of garlic, red wine, basil, and fresh dough baked at 485 degrees. The chef, Mauricio, greeted me with a handshake and said I looked better than last time. He pulled me toward him and asked if the woman was the reason.

"Without women, life is meaningless," he said, kissing Valeria's hand, who looked at me and laughed, and gave us a table in the back on the left. We sat down on the wooden chairs, the white and red checkered tablecloth brightening her face.

"Almost like in a pizzeria in Florence where I used to go with my parents."

I smiled and ordered two Birra Moretti, which she declined. "I don't drink. Not anymore."

I nodded, ordered two Oranginas, and apologized. "It's okay, you couldn't have known."

She smoothed out the tablecloth and studied the menu. "What do you recommend?"

"I always have the Margherita."

"Hmm." She looked at me over her laminated menu.

"At your own risk."

She smiled. "Okay, I think it's boring, but I'll trust you."

Then she looked at me with eyes whose clarity reminded me of a mountain lake. When we had drunk half of the Oranginas, she told me that she loved rain and had no dreams: she lived from day to day without disappointment. She had three close friends, or maybe four, she didn't know where to draw the line, and what fascinated her about tattoos was the fact that you could design your body however you wanted. "For me, it means freedom. We're all different, but somehow we're all the same. But when I put color on my skin, I feel more secure. Like a protective layer, a human filter."

As she told me this, our pizzas arrived. The aroma of mozzarella, tomato, and basil filled my nose as I put a slice in my mouth. I came here at least once a week because it not only alleviated my loneliness, but also provided an oasis of calm in this piece of baked dough.

She looked at me as I chewed with my eyes closed. Valeria giggled, imitated me, and breathed in and out quickly with enthusiasm: "Okay, you were right."

Halfway through the pizza, she broke the silence and asked, "I never asked you why you take pictures."

I took a sip. Rubbed my forehead with my crumbly fingers: "There are two reasons. Somehow I've always wanted to understand people, especially when they feel unobserved, or in those beautiful little moments that last only a few seconds. I wanted to capture that, to observe who we really are. And on the other hand, the camera has always been a way for me to hide from others. Something I could hold on to."

She reached for my hand and squeezed it. Her eyes sparkled, then she continued eating. After dinner, we went back to my apartment. She said she couldn't stay much longer, yawned, lay down on my couch, and stretched out her arms. I lay down next to her, she wrapped her arms around me, her head resting on my shoulder. She said she had to leave in an hour. "Don't watch me. You know you can't." But for me, it was already too late.

The pressure of her body on me, following her breath, the scent of green apple. At that moment, I realized that I would fall apart if she lost interest in me. I pushed the thought aside.

While she slept, she lifted her hand and let it fall onto my chest. I brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her hairline. Her hand, with its long, thin fingers, now closed more tightly around my waist, then sleep overtook me too, and with it a feeling of security, as if only the two of us existed.

After two hours, I woke up, the pressure of her body gone. I rubbed my eyes, looked around, called her name. No answer, only the walls echoing my call. In front of me on the table was a note, written in long, delicate handwriting, the dots on the vowels replaced with an x, next to it my camera.

You're so cute when you sleep. Today was very nice, I'm already looking forward to next time.

P.S. Camera

A swarm of insects burst inside me, flying into my limbs. Could it be? No, don't get your hopes up. It will never be like that, you mustn't, but the note.

I lifted the paper by the edges with my fingertips and put it in a folder. Then I turned on the camera and looked at the pictures she had taken of me. I was lying on my back with my mouth open, my head turned to one side. A blush rose to my face, then I saw a picture she had taken of me. I recognized those little wrinkles around her nose, those eyes that formed a smile. I pressed on, then came the picture of her in bed, and I immediately sat down at my computer to transfer it.

Two days later, I saw her again. I asked her if I could come by in the morning, to which she replied, "Sure, I'll be taking a break at 11:30." When I entered the studio, she treated me like a customer, then took me into her small office to the right of the reception desk, which was no bigger than a storage room. She closed the door and hugged me for a long time. I thought my longing for her would disappear when I could touch her again, but it only grew stronger.

I kissed her, her smile warming me so much that I wanted to take off my T-shirt. I took out my folder.

"Thought you might be interested." First, I showed her the pictures she had taken of us while I was asleep. She took them in her hand, pointed at me, and laughed. "Look at you." Valeria choked with laughter.

"That funny?"

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. "You grunt in your sleep, you know? I just had to imagine that."

I grinned, then she saw her picture. "That's me?"

I nodded. "Wow, me. I don't know what to say."

Her gaze fell to the floor. "The picture is beautiful."

"That's how I see you. Not all the time, but most of the time. I'd like to take a lot more pictures of myself, dressed, I mean."

She looked at the picture again, goosebumps covering her arms. "And I'd like you to keep taking pictures of me," she said, still staring at the photograph. "What you said the other day, that you want to capture the truth in people. You already did that with me in the first photos. You know, that's what I do with my tattoos, too. I show who people really are. Their innermost selves turned inside out."

I nodded. "For me, there are two kinds of people: those who stay on the surface and those who go under the skin. In that sense, you're much braver than me; you wear part of your personality on your skin. I just hide behind a camera, hoping to revive old, better times."

She ran her fingers through my hair and we hugged, while she held the picture behind me up in the air, closed her eyes, and let her head fall onto my heart. She sighed and rubbed her face briefly against me. "What kind of person am I to you?"

The shrill ringtone of her smartphone tore us apart, robbing me of my chance to answer. The portrait of a man I knew from the picture in her apartment appeared. She blushed and answered. I held my breath and reflexively left the room. His voice would only make him seem more real to me. I only heard her: "Now, sure, I'm really looking forward to it." Then she hung up and stepped out of her office.

"You have to go." She pressed her lips together, her shoulders slumping. I nodded, stroked her face again, wanted to kiss her, but she shook her head.

On the street, I pulled on my baseball cap and ran around the block so fast that I was out of breath and stopped at the corner of the house diagonally across from her shop until he came. He walked toward her with his oversized clothes, tattooed arms, and dark, medium-length hair in a leisurely gait. I saw Valeria hug him, her smile different from the one she had given me, her gaze once again indecipherable.

For a moment, I feared she was giving him the same look she gave me. At the thought of him touching her, kissing her, and sleeping with her, black spots danced before my eyes. I leaned against the wall of the house. I was the troublemaker, despite her open marriage. He was her husband, she had chosen him, she was everything to him and he was everything to her, but I couldn't get her scent off my skin.

Whenever she pursed her lips, looked at me, ran her fingers through my hair with her mouth slightly open, moaned in my ear when we slept together, or, as recently as last night, when we just lay together on the couch, it was as if all my pain and loneliness were forgotten, as if none of it existed. She was a person who didn't bounce off the surface, she dug into my skin.

After I saw them together, I shuffled straight home. I stumbled from lamppost to lamppost, leaning against walls for support. My vision blurred. I put on my sunglasses and when I entered my apartment, I stripped off all my clothes and stood in front of the bathroom mirror with a knife in my hand.

I wanted to cut off my manhood, give everything back, so I wouldn't have to feel these feelings anymore, this longing, this desire for skin, the pressure of another body. The merging, becoming one, feeling yourself and the other person, was driving me crazy. I wanted to free myself from all of it. What was I thinking? Even though we weren't doing anything wrong, with every thought, a little piece of me crumbled away.

I started, waited, looked at myself in the game. There it was, that look I finally understood: desire. I made a cut, superficial. The spot burned, thick blood dripped onto the tiles. I put the knife aside, disinfected the wound, and applied a bandage. What an idiot I was. My action changed nothing, even if I had gone through with it. It had long since ceased to be just about the physical. I got dressed again, then a message appeared on my smartphone.

"You didn't answer my question from earlier."

I sat down and read the message over and over again. Then, with my heart pounding, I typed: "You're someone who gets under your skin, touches you, leaves a mark and stays there."

An hour later, she replied: "When will we see each other again?"