Soft. Wet. Pink. 

Soft.

Wet.

Pink.

I’m looking at her face, at her mouth, and all I can think of is: Soft, wet, pink.

Soft wet smacking, slipping sliding sounds. I’m looking at her mouth again as it opens, closes, opens again, and I watch her tongue dance across her teeth.

Soft. Wet. Her mouth is exquisite, inviting as though I were her prey and she were the predator here, my ultimate purpose simply to be inside her mouth.

I’m in front of her, and she is in front of me. Since the class started months ago all I have thought of, all I have been ABLE to think of, is her.

Jealousy scrambles across my mind and I wonder who else sees her how I do, who else is even CAPABLE of seeing her as I do. How could they? How could they appreciate her as I do, see her how I do? 

They can’t. They don’t. 

I sit here, looking at her, completely aware of how oblivious she is. 

If only she knew what I thought of every day. I sit here, watching her chew her gum, soft pink globs shifting and wrapping around her teeth, her tongue. She smacks her gum again and I am alone in this room with her, I am inside her mouth wrapped in gum. Blanketed in the soft pink folds while she consumes me. 

A lock of her hair, blindingly bright white like the corona of a sun, shifts and falls across her face until she corrects it with a long delicate finger, restoring her silk crown. 

If only she knew. I know that if I spoke to her, she would read it in my voice, she would know instantly. I think about that and I wonder if she would understand it right away and desire what I do, or if she would be afraid. If she would be concerned, or worried, or tentative. Weak. 

I don’t think either outcome would bother me. They would both make her appealing in different ways, but something keeps me from showing her, from making apparent to her what has been painfully obvious to me. 

I think about the folds in her skin, and I want to explore them from beginning to their end. I want to know every hidden part of her, every crease and fold, every wrinkle and liver spot, and every age-emptied follicle. 

Mrs. Miller, if you only knew why I sat in the front row every day.

Author’s note: If I recall correctly, this was inspired by a classmate I had had who had developed a crush on one of our professors that was so severe he dropped all of his classes and transferred schools. In reality, our professor was young and very pretty, but the idea that she might be geriatric struck me as amusing in a kind of twisted way. I wanted to play with expectations here, with the obviously vulgar language ultimately tied to both the gum as well as what you’d initially assume, as well as the love interest’s age–I’d kind of hoped that by “nesting” my “twists” it would make it a more interesting/enjoyable read. It still amuses me in a pretty vulgar, juvenile way.