Paper Flirtation

She wasn't strikingly beautiful. Normal hair, normal eyes. Her lips
did appear darker than normal though, which he attributed to the white
of her skin. He could easily see himself touching those lips. Seeing
how deep they really went. Seeing how sharp her teeth would be, digging
into his fingers. He could see himself touching her and listening to
her make serious comments, deep comments, comments about what he was
doing to her quiet contained self.

Five minutes till class. The room has filled up a little more. He takes
a glance to the left. A glance to the right. Closer than ever she sits,
her white skin under a thick red cotton hoodie. It mixes nicely with
her complexion. She looks so intent studying her book. The whole
semester, surreptitious in her own thoughts, she never broke the shade
of seclusion about her, never left her fortress of solitude, and now
she's sitting right next to him.

And he sits, tapping his blue ball-point pen on his white paper.
Looking back at her, he notices his paper is turned in such a way that
her eyes seem to be focused right under the sheets to where she studies
her book.

An idea pops like a zit in his head. He reaches out, his ball-point
covering the distance to the white paper. He will write a message to
her. A simple message about what she is to him. He thinks a moment,
then writes.

..So Quiet

The words stick out dark against the brightness of the blank page. The
two words look like deep blue cheerios in a filled bowl of milk. He
withdraws his hand, taking care not to give up a glance in her
direction, and starts the tapping again.

From the corner of his eye he watches her, studying her face. He feels
a little excited inside. Such a small detail, innocent and absurd.
Those two words sitting before her- Will they come to her as a message?
Or will she think them nothing more than a personal note? Will she
think of them at all?

A minute goes by. Detecting no sign of reaction, his pen stretches the
distance and lays down two more words.

?So Quiet?Yes You

The words appear so bold as to be slapping across her face. Being so
close to her, and so exposed on that blank paper, surely she must have
glanced up to see it. She must have fallen victim to an unconscious
glance, like when one looks up instinctively as a person enters the
room. How could she not? Could she be that contained within herself as
to become blind to all that surrounds her? The trickle of excitement
runs down him like a broken faucet. He holds still, keeping the look of
a boorish bystander waiting for class to begin.

Cheerios in milk. She goes on studying without an utter of
awareness.

He taps his pencil lightly against his fingers and watches her fingers
breeze down the pages in her book. Head crooked, hair fallen to side,
she sits and studies.

Again his cool hand comes out and drops deafly onto the paper.

?So Quiet?Yes You?In The Red

One bold message, on the desk two feet away from the girl, pulsing into
the space in front of her eyes like a scream, like a sharp pinch, like
a quick zap on the door handle.

He is certain that she must now know he is playing a game on her. But
not a change, not a twitch, not a slight tweak from her gray irises.
Like an unmovable fortress, she is immune to his clever provocations. A
minute passes. Another. She continues to write her notes.

He goes back to tapping his pen. Is she shy or snobbish? What makes her
take this in without a touch of arousal? Maybe she's just too wrapped
up in her studies. Maybe this isn't a part of her modest upbringing.
When the fabric of societal conventions is being bent, maybe she is at
a loss at how to bend back.

As he sits and contemplates, the girl softly brings out a new pad of
note paper. After a moment she turns the yellow note in the direction
of his absent gaze and goes back to studying.

Suddenly, the young man finds himself staring at it.

?Am I so bad?

As the teacher goes into his opening comment, the young man lets out an
abrupt burst of laughter, filling the room. A second later he
embarrassingly staggers to a silence.

"Excuse me sir?" the annoyed professor spoke, "do you find something
amusing?"