Voyeur

He dared to lean forward again, carefully, just into the light, and still she was there - standing, hands on hips, surveying the small piles of clothes before her on the bed. She began placing them into the suitcase next to them, tucking the items in gently after placing each pile. Of course, she was oblivious to his presence and he savoured this moment in the warm evening – the first truly warm evening of the spring. In the still night, all he heard was the gentle rattle of crickets. The air was sweet with the scents of jasmine, freesias and fresh grass, and the moon was bright; waxing and almost full. All the more dangerous for getting caught, he thought; he must stay in the shadows.

In the room, she paused over the half-packed suitcase, forefinger and thumb to her chin in thought. Then, without warning, she crossed her arms briefly in front of her body, grasped the bottom hem of her top and pulled it deftly and smoothly up over her head and off her body. Her bare breasts were released to the world and settled with a momentary bounce as she drew down her arms. She turned the inside-out top in the right way, folded it, and placed in in the suitcase.   

He had already been enjoying his moment of quiet voyeurism before this unexpected development, but now he noticed his pulse raise and felt a twitch of warm desire in his groin. He looked at her breasts. They were nicely rounded, firm-looking, and the nipples stood proud from their darker areolas. There were a few dark moles on her breasts, giving character to their otherwise milky landscape. He counted the moles he could see – three on one breast, five on the other.

Her hair, so often tied up and back in a ponytail or bun, cascaded over her shoulders in soft dark curls. It surprised him to see how long it had become. She leant over to reach into the suitcase then stood straight again, hands on hips, and her hair flowed over her breasts like a cascade trickling over rocks.

As he stood and watched, his desire grew. How sweet was this moment of anticipation, he thought, when the future awaited in perfect sequential moments, yet to be sullied by the complications of reality. He imagined caressing those breasts, gently pushing the dark curls out of the way as he drew her to him.

He took a small step closer to the wire door that separated them but lost his balance and, trying to regain it, he grabbed a branch of the tree that concealed him. The leaves released a sudden, noisy rustle into the still night. His heart leaped as the she looked up suddenly.

‘Hello? Who’s there?!’

Damn.

He was caught, yes – but not deterred. In that moment he made the irrevocable decision to move forward into the light and make himself known. Why not? he thought. Let his fantasy live on. It was now or never. He felt brazen.

‘It’s me. I would like to come in and caress your beautiful breasts,’ he said, hoping he sounded confident and intriguing rather than sleazy. He could only watch and wait for her response. His heart pounded loudly in his ears. 

He didn’t have to wait long. ‘Oh, it’s you. Darling – that would be lovely if not for that daughter of ours still awake in the next room, and if I didn’t have to get up in six hours for the flight to the conference. What are you doing out there anyway, spying on me like some peeping tom? Actually, while you’re out there can you do me a favour and get my blue shirt off the clothesline?’ She looked back down to her suitcase.

So rebuffed, he turned and headed resignedly toward the clothesline. He should be disappointed. And yet. Something about the smell of the grass and the jasmine, the light of the moon… Something about the natural way she’d slid off her top, the way her hair fell softly over her breasts. In watching her while she was so oblivious to him, he felt she had unwittingly revealed something of herself to him – not her physical self but her private, inner self.

He took that moment, gratefully, and he put it away. Like a photo of a loved one in a wallet, he folded the moment up for safe-keeping, to be taken out and admired from time to time. A part of her, new to him. And that was enough.