She’s too pretty for me, he told himself yet again, breaking up his daydream. He wasn’t intensely interested in going down on the woman, but he thought for sure if she’d just give him a chance, she’d be seeing stars in the bedroom. That’s what he was daydreaming about… his mouth on her most sensitive bud. And, he also thought that’s all he needed: one night with her and she would be his for a very long time if not forever. He would prove to her that he could make up for his lack of incredible vanity. He was not, as they say, a looker. He never would be, if you asked him.
The chances were always slim to none, he thought. He daydreamed of what he could do to make sure she got hers every time they were in bed. To him, that was all he could prove himself with. It was all that could possibly make her fall in love with the likes of him, wasn’t it? Obviously, this is the thing he was most insecure about. The disparity between how pleasing it was to him to gaze upon her and the lack of interest in himself when he checked himself out in the mirror. In fact, it led him to experimenting with a new hairstyle to try to be more attractive. To her, specifically.
He found her nipples back on his brain. He wanted to cradle her breasts in his hands and lavish attention on each one in turn, using his warm, wet mouth and his questing tongue to elicit sounds of sheer excitement and pleasure out of her. He wanted to make love to her, long and slow, taking his time and making sure she had a smile plastered on her face at the very end. It was surely the only way to win her love. He could think of nothing to say to her. Nothing about him would be interesting to a bombshell blonde, surely. Especially when he had no idea why she stared at him constantly for months on end.
All men have to do something extraordinary to turn a real woman’s head, it seemed. He continued to reminisce about seeing her all year, day in and day out, with ever increasing frequency. He thought about how he followed her briefly through the store earlier that week, but not through the self-checkout line, chickening out when it came to closing the deal. He’d called himself a creeper for getting close to doing just that. To be fair, he didn’t want to close the deal that way. He wanted to meet her somewhere else, somewhere neutral and independent of his work place, where he wouldn’t be observed by the people who have come to know him by his name. Somewhere more intimate or private.
He didn’t want his coworkers to watch him strike out when he asked her out on a date. He couldn’t imagine the sheer humiliation of such a thing, but he tried to, willing himself to feel it before it could even happen. He was trying to inure himself to what he thought would surely follow: everyone harassing him for trying to date “up.” He would be guilty of encouraging an Amazonian beauty to date “down.” He was definitely a minor league player while she owned the major league. He saw many men follow her every time she walked through the store, actually. He knew she must get solicited in one way or another no matter what she did, so he’d have to be something different. Something special. That’s what he told himself, anyway.
He thought of her on top of him, straddling him in bed, joined together as she made noise after noise, arriving at the destination before he was even close thanks to some expert love-making. He wanted to see her “o” face a million times before he died, he thought. He’d settle for just her everyday face if he had to, though. He wanted his hands all over her body and their mouths locked in a kiss. He wanted to hold her, too, but he was obsessing over the fact that his libido sky-rocketed recently. He’d managed to drop a few pounds and was feeling good about himself again. And this is precisely what made him too shy to speak to her.
Combine the utter attractiveness of the woman with his wandering mind and he could not bring himself to even say hello when he had the chance. Instead, as they passed each other, he found himself casting his gaze aside… until he figured out she was mirroring him. He’d gotten brave enough to look back at her after a few times of looking away. As it turned out, she also looked away. He took every opportunity to openly admire her face… that is, until she stopped looking away. And so did he. Their eyes locked onto each other while they passed each other.
He thought about how he’d walked in front of her cart recently, her eyes staring into his even from ten feet behind the counter. She knew he was walking her way the whole time, which slowed her down, but then, once he’d passed her cart, she didn’t follow him with her gaze. She’d looked straight forward instead. They’d shared a moment, he knew that, but he had no idea what it meant to her. He cursed himself for not being a touch braver. In fact, he cursed himself for dilly dallying and keeping her waiting in the parking lot, too.
Woman, he thought at the image of her, won’t you just marry me? I’d be yours forever and a day, I promise you that. Your beauty is in your smile and the twinkle in your eyes. It will never die and I know it.
He imagined her protesting, but not because she didn’t like him. Because they weren’t familiar with each other yet. He tried to imagine her fluttering her eyelashes at him with a tiny little smile and then promptly mentally smacked himself because clearly that was going to make his blood boil. The woman did nothing other than stare into his eyes to date. She never really smiled because of him, though she had smiled at him a few times.
He’d seen her at 7:30 three nights in a row. One of those nights was the night he followed her through the store and erroneously pried himself away from her, failing to follow her to the door of the building. She’d absolutely seen him. She’d just grabbed a pizza round off the shelf. A rather expensive flatbread pizza round made in his deli. She never seemed to buy anything from the deli, though, so that was puzzling. He’d thought she just started shopping but she did the unexpected: she turned around and walked through produce. He had been hoping to have a little time to work up the nerve to talk to her, but she had no idea, it seemed.
She stared into his eyes as she went into the self-checkout lane. He remembered she blinked twice at that. Any time he’d been up close so far, and she looked him in the eyes, she did something that made him begin to think that maybe it wasn’t all just wishful thinking on his part. A double-take, a double blink, a small smile. It was the day after that she drove past him while he sat in his car, texting someone about how bummed he was that he didn’t get to ask her out again. He needed help finding his courage… though maybe not after she sort of stalked him. Although, waiting for him in the parking lot was a far cry from stalking, honestly; she didn’t follow him anywhere. He could no longer lie to himself after that, though. It meant something.
It’s impossible, you know. He’d defeated himself without even trying. Yet, he searches the crowd for her face again and again all day every day until his eyes fall upon her angelic features, taking her in from across the room and even up close, which made her exceedingly more lovely to him. He was consumed by the brightness of her soul and completely unaware of the spiritual component that was drawing them together.
She stares back at him every time. She thinks he is shy, and he is. He’s been told by other beautiful women that he allowed to consume him briefly that he will never measure up because he is no Prince. Boy, that fella had to have all the womenfolk he ever wanted. It comes with its own troubles, however. This was not as brief, this time; those women that had convinced him he could not have someone who threaded herself into his soul like this were utterly cruel, selfish, and mean… This woman, he knew she wasn’t a terrible person, for he’d watched her purposefully stay out of his way so as not to interrupt his work. He watched her speak to a coworker briefly and then smile at him and walk away, too, someone who interrupted her shopping.
Would she walk away from him like that, too? He had supposed that at least she’d finally smile at him, so he had to try.
As Ms. Ani DiFranco will tell you in 32 Flavors:
God help you if you are an ugly girl
— Ani, 32 Flavors
‘Cause too pretty is also your doom
‘Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
For the prettiest girl in the room
And god help you if you are a phoenix
And you dare to rise up from the ash
A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
While you are just flying past
What do you do when you are a phoenix?
A telepathic phoenix that can hear the envy and hatred?
An empathic phoenix that can literally feel what you feel?
She is a woman who knows what feeling ugly is all about, even if she is not ugly. A fucking unicorn, taking a shit storm from literally everyone in her life just for winning the genetic lotto unbeknownst to her and for cultivating her spirit and soul like you’re advised to do when you don’t win the genetic lottery. And he has no idea that she is this way. He thinks she must be vain because she looks attractive, day in and day out. He is absolutely certain he has seen her with bed head and she is still lovely as can be. A rose that is always in bloom.
That is, until she hacks her hair off and dyes it all black and feels completely miserable about it.
Then she’s in his league suddenly. He pays her a compliment but there is no smile to accompany it, unlike the first time he paid her a compliment. He forgets he did not smile in delivery. He remembers both women saying “thank you.” Not “thanks.” The same exact words. He does not know they are the same woman yet. He’s not even sure if foxy-eared girl is blondie. He isn’t that sure of her face… until now, anyway. He’s gotten bold enough to stare at her openly every day. She stares back curiously, which he mistakes for casual interest. She has a poker face to rival his own.
If he had merely conquered himself by now, he would already know she is the only girl he’s given compliments to in ages. Two different versions of her and counting. We’re waiting for him to give a third compliment. It’s either third strike and you’re out or third time’s the charm. It’s a real problem that he walks away after paying those compliments, bustling past her because he is beyond nervous talking to a woman of such stunning beauty. Perhaps this time, she’ll put a hand on his arm and stop him.
She’d be amused to plant a kiss on his lips without saying a word, but she has no idea the depths of his yearning for her. Or so she thinks, ignoring the telepathic messages she receives day in and day out, believing them to be tricks from the ether. A test of her character. A sacred quest on the way to true love.
Is it the right move to wait for him to conquer himself and step forward? Is it the right move to intervene? What does staring actually mean? Why does his face come up randomly while she’s watching a movie? Why do thoughts of him interrupt her when she is consumed by a story as good as The School of Good and Evil?
As a tender Hindu boy advised her, it must mean something. It’s every day. The encounters they had, which were silent outside of those compliments, mean something to him. She thinks to herself, Yeah, that I’m a creeper. Especially after I sat in the parking lot for over an hour just to try to say hello to him.
She started picking him out of the crowd of workers after he paid the brunette version of her a compliment. That was April. It is now December. She felt so disgusting in those days due to her chronic life-threatening illness. The compliment was beyond meaningful to her; she rarely received compliments in her lifetime. She also had fits of anguish over the notion that maybe he only liked the brunette enough to speak up. However, he couldn’t pick her out of the crowd until much later. He needed that choker to find her. The damn necklace fell apart, sadly, the same day he mentioned it to her. Hot Topic junk.
For a long time, he was the only man in the delicatessen with a beard. It made it incredibly easy to find him, and she was thankful for that because she had prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces. He literally looked too much like everyone else to her while he was trim and beardless. He started growing his hair out, too, covering it with a bandanna. Another way to tell him apart from the other men that wore the same uniform he did. Well, most of the time. There was one time someone else had worn a bandanna. A would-be rival to this “simple” man, a looker, as they say.
But the looker didn’t have a candle to hold to the less vain lad. Joe thought of her day in and day out. She was well aware when each and every person on planet Urth was thinking about her, though she was having trouble separating them when it was concurrent. And she knew what they were thinking to some degree as her brain generated responses. The speed of telepathy is amazing. The raw efficiency factor of it is astounding, in a word.
Entire life histories could be exchanged within about an hour. Forty some years of a lifetime, communicated instantly and known beneath the surface of consciousness.
Magic.
God Magic, to be precise.
The woman wanted Joe to be her husband for the mere fact that he was already devoted to her. In fact, I’m about to show her how much he’s devoted to her. I’m going to change her hair again and watch to see if he can follow along or not. We’re going to dye it purple. He should be able to tell in a heartbeat it’s her because it’s a color she wears often. Very few others wear the same specific shade of purple. His eyes track to royal purple whenever it enters the store because his heart jumps for joy, thinking he’s going to see her again. Then he faces disappointment should it be anyone but her. (Rare but bound to happen, as luck would have it, since that color was the color of a high school football team.)
And this is how human beings should choose to love, if you ask me. You didn’t, but I’m telling you that you’re all wrong. You’re choosing each other based on superficial qualities that cost a fortune to keep as you age. You’re choosing each other based on eye sight alone. You think that you must be turned on by your partner in order to be with them. If you want a loyal man who is true to you, ladies, you need to wait for a man like Joe. He has to stare at you for a good long time and convince himself he really needs to talk to you. He has to choose to commit before he even meets you, otherwise he’ll talk his way into your panties. Eventually, it’ll become about good sex rather than actually liking each other or caring about each other because you fail to have anything in common. One of the reasons Joe likes her is that he’s seen her in a Zelda t-shirt. He loves video games. Another is that choker, too.
The last part? I’m not going to spoil it. He’s going to give her another compliment some day. We’ll tell you when it happens.
So here’s to actual True Love(tm). Raise your glasses (hopefully filled with mineral water, because I already told you the importance of that, you idiots) and have a toast to world peace. It’s coming.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be the bigger person and never say “I told you so.”
Angel-Sansara 