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Nervous glances on the grounds. Through halls I find reassurance in your smile.
I love you. God, have I ever told you that? If I haven't, I will. I will, tonight. I promise.
I see you next from far away. It's almost December, and the day's getting cold. Can't distinguish my breath from cigarette smoke. You don't lay eyes on me.
Look at me, Sixsmith, I pray like a child. I want to see you. How long has it been since I last did? A couple of hours?
What I would give to drown in your eyes.
In class I dream of kissing your eyelids and I transcribe them onto my manuscript paper. They're fluttering open and closed, open and closed, and with every motion your eyelashes become grace notes and your eyebrows, curved above, draw glissando, growing, quieting, over the melody. Professor revises it and says it's ridiculous—but I know he lies because it's you and you are beautiful.
Tell me, do you think of me like I do with you? We reason so differently I won't ever know how, but I hope you feel the same regardless. I hope you love me. I hope I am not a pastime or a dalliance. I hope I am yours. I am too much of a coward to ask.
I do not know where to wait for you. I do not know where you are. Let's set up a meeting place, alright?
I checked libraries and I looked into classrooms, and I haven't spotted you yet. I would have given up, but you, my friend, do not set ordinary circumstance for me.
Leaning against a pillar in an archway full of graffiti I light one cigarette, two cigarette, three cigarette. I wait. I hear footsteps and I peer around, but it is only the shuffle of janitors.
I compose some awful piece in my head that is better unwritten. I name it the Janitor Waltz (Where Is Rufus) nonetheless.
I watch the sky fade from grey to black. Lampposts light up. I am still at the pillar and the waltz is long finished.
"Robert!" Your footfall is too rapid for a sluggish three by four, and it matches my heartbeat.
"I can't believe it," I say. I cannot see you very well in this poor light, dark oranges. "I've waited around here for hours."
You laugh and clap me on the shoulder, and you smile for too long even though you've got bags under your eyes.
In all honesty, I only stood around for about thirty minutes.
You're beautiful, have I ever told you that? I won't risk it, so I say it as you open the door to your dormitory. I am only inches away from you.
It is barely audible over the horrendous creak of your door, but I say it. "You're beautiful, did you know?"
I know you heard me because you looked at me like you couldn't decide what emotion to settle on your features, like you do, and because after the door croaked shut and you locked the earth out you held my face in your palms and you gazed at me as if searching (and I looked at your eyes, finally, as they darted here and there, green and green) and you pressed your lips to mine. Your lips are dry and cracked.
This room is small and dim. It has drawn purple curtains and the little desk is so saturated with papers you can barely see any of its surely dusty surface. You must really be exhausted.
Clean up, Sixsmith. You're too tidy for that.
We're slobbering down each other's throats and you work at unbuttoning my shirt while my hands are preoccupied with exploring your hips.
I'm sucking at your neck and small gasps and moans come from you. It's almost dolorous. I leave pinpricks of red and blotches of pink and purple in haphazard blobs. That's all I can give you, Sixsmith, here and now, hidden and unknown, and I'm sorry. I hope it is sufficient.
You're kissing me. You're kissing me. You're kissing me on my lips and on my chest and everywhere else, and we're on your bed and it smells of you: glorious, glorious; and when you kiss me I kiss you back and when you go down I wrap my legs around you and you grab my thighs and I grab at your hair.
You have precious hands, and even more precious fingers. (You have the build for a pianist, if only you weren't such an idiot about music.)
God, Rufus, touch me, I plead, and your digits are the divine providence when they run and caress and squeeze, and our breath couples and hitches to an unknown rhythm that is always there.
You're most beautiful of all after we're done, when we're holding each other, and if I could stay suspended in this moment, all sheets and sweat and warmth, I would. You've shattered before me, and I can see your heart. I can hear it and I can feel it too. I put my ear to your chest. Thump-thump. Beating blood, beating blood.
You say it to me then. "I love you."
I laugh, and you have that look on your face again. I return the sentiment and kiss you for good measure. You look relieved. I'm glad, because that's exactly how I feel.
I love you.