Number One Fan

"So...wha'd you think?" He asked. 

He was breathing quite heavy, as though he'd carried a body on his shoulder up a mountain. He waited a minute, thinking he hadn't spoken. Thinking there was a possibility that he had asked the question in his mind. He was quite nervous, you know. A minute turned to two. Two turned to three. On the fifth, he looked to his side and asked again. 

"I said wha'd you think', didn't you hear me?" He tickled the snow on the ground, not meeting her eyes. 

She was beautiful to him. He fancied her. An antique. Something he wished he could place on a shelf and look at for the rest of his life. Her toes, feet, her legs, thighs, hips, her stomach, her chest, her weal, frail arms, her hands and elegant fingers, her long neck-- enough space for him to hide his eyes, her crooked chin, her skinny lips, her trail of freckles leading to her brown eyes. 

He looked up wanting to see them. She was looking back. She looked down to her lips. He had forgotten the duct tape he placed before they left. 

"Oh, gosh. Sorry." He laughed. "I forgot about that. Never be too careful, ya'know." 

He positioned her back against a tree, and took hold of her cheek with his right hand. With the concentration of a surgeon, he took a corner. He couldn't go too fast or too slow, he had to go at the right speed, or else he'd hurt her. He didn't want to do that. 

"Pain is temporary. It goes away." He said. 

She looked at him, and tilt her head. 

He shut his eyes and yanked. 

Silence. 

Kneeled in front of her, with his head resting on her chest, he felt her lips. She rested her head on his. 

"Wha'd you think?" He asked for the final time. 

"Of?" She said. Her voice was steady. Deep. Humorous considering the position she was in. 

"The silence."

"It's nice."

"You don't like it."

"I do like it."

"It took me months to find it."

"it's perfect. Just like I imagined." 

"Really?" He asked. So surprised, he hit his head on her chin as he got up to look at her. 

"Yes."

"The tress and the sky? Even the amount of snow?"

He was asking the impossible. But to soothe his soul, she told him what he desperately wanted to hear. 

"I'm impressed. Even the scent brings me back." She said. 

He stood and paced around the area, and started to laugh. An exhausted, worrying laugh. The kind that comes from a man who's been working for years without rest and was finally told he had days of vacation. 

"Poor him." She thought.

He had a healthy body. A man who ate potatoes, meat, and a salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. His thighs could squash watermelons. He had sausages for fingers. And a fighters back.But his eyes...they looked restless. His brain was probably rotting. 

"You're very secretive. And you have one friend-- she was a hassle, by the way. You carry a flip phone and only take work emails.  Do you have any idea how hard you were to find?" He kept laughing. 

The place he chose was exceptionally beautiful. They were surrounded by pine trees, except for an opening in front of her with a view people pay thousands to see. She felt like an eagle, looking straight ahead, wondering what would happen if she threw herself from the peak, would she spread out wings and escape this wonderful, terrifying man? But she was tired, and covered in bruises. It was a pain to move a finger, and her eyelids carried 10lb. dumbbells. 

"I want to make those steady eyes nervous, and that voice yours scream." He said. 

She closed her eyes and waited for whatever he had planned. Of course, she knew. She had written the ending, and how funny that it turned out to be hers.