I'm due to leave tomorrow, and suddenly I feel like I haven't done anything. I've taken notes furiously even though it's stuff that I don't understand and can't possibly affect me. I was giving it my best effort to pay rapt attention to a discussion of the northern cyclonic process, of all things.
My last night with Wald had a similar feel, intense because you know it has to end. He was giving me a grand send-off, but I was working on him too. After a few hours of my teasing -- my pushing here, stroking there -- something snapped. Suddenly his reserve, his slightly too-gentle deference, his need to please me, evaporated. There was only his desire, his need, and what he needed was to merge his body with mine. He bumped me like a madman, a wild look in his eyes and feral growl deep in this chest. It was a little scary, and I liked it.
We lay close and quiet for a while, and I was nearly asleep when he began to nuzzle my neck. I couldn't believe he wanted to go again after all that but I suppose I was game. It didn't matter how sore I was tomorrow, I was just going to sit in a glider all day. But then he started to talk.
"I don't think I've ever told you," he whispered, "what I think of you. I don't know how you manage to do what you do. I can't stand the thought of you being gone for another year. I think I've always felt..."
This had to stop. "Wald," I interrupted, "I don't love you."
"What?" he mumbled.
"We don't love each other. This is an endorphin vacation, nothing else."
"Yeah," he said, looking like a puppy that's been smacked for peeing on the floor. "I know that. I was just saying that I'll miss you."
"We'll still talk," I said.
"Sure," he said. Then he flipped over and pretended to sleep.
I'm an idiot. Why do I do this to myself? Of course everyone's a colleague, but Wald's more than that: he's a co-author. He has the same boss. If I was so desperate to have a man I should have bumped Nat when he offered -- he's in mission support.
I didn't sleep well. Although he's a good faker I don't think Wald did either.
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