The Girl - Draft 1 #amwriting

She was focussed intently on the screen in front of her, so utterly absorbed that she didn't notice me, staring. Thinking about it now, I was quite blatant as I sat across the office, drinking in the smooth perfection of her skin, savouring her plum red pout and following as her dark-lashed eyes darted back and forth from her note book to the screen.

So busy, she had no idea I was fixated on her long, slender, graceful fingers as she left- and right-clicked the mouse around the screen. A frown flitted across her face, resting briefly like an agitated bird, she waved it away before allowing a wave of heavy, silken, inky black hair to flow across her hand. She shook her head softly and sent ripples through her mane, echoing the tingling feeling coursing through my body. The movement of her hair created a turbulence in the air that it seems only I felt, but I felt it deeply, vibrating through my core and leaving me gripping the edge of my desk for stability.

I blinked. She was still there. I don't know what I had expected. Maybe I had imagined her? Maybe, by blinking, I might have broken the spell and she would somehow become less luminous, she would suddenly blend in with the very ordinary fabric of the open plan room. But no, as I sat there, just feet away, she seemed to have gained gravity, she was more real than anything else in the building; taller now, more defined, as though someone had allowed a sleek black panther into the chicken coop and I was the only person who had noticed.

I should have paid attention, I should have sounded the alarms, called for help. I was beyond reasoning when it came to her. If only I'd listened as my amygdala cried out for me to run. Maybe I could have saved us.