He was the kind of man that would lean over and linger, hovering in that five inch space, the carved out air, that hugged the curve of my neck, the edge of my ear. I would know this before I picked up the telephone to dial, when he was just a name, and I would hurtle across the line a disembodied voice, husky, gravelly by days end, and say hello, and the snatches of conversation, the shared photographs, the laughter, You should have been there when she, my friend would say to him, laughing with her eyes crinkling, the lines across her head.

He would see me in that brief hello, when my voice took on an image. I knew as I reached, reached to dial, the thought before doing of picking up the phone, the thought and it hurtled there to me, his voice caressing me, softly, would he hear in my voice and eagerness to please, would I murmur?

I stepped back from the sink where I first thought, I will call, I will call my friend, and then unbidden, him, the man, answering, and I knew I would do what I do, I would lean in and my voice would lean with me, tilting my head, inclining my neck, so that when I met him in person, he would hesitate, that first kiss, the glance across the cheek, his head, his body would stutter, still inclined, reaching in to place his lips upon my neck, the smoothness of his lips touching, glancing and fastening.

I poured a glass, cabernet sauvignon, and wet my lips. I thought of my friend there, cute and open and solid, curled upon the couch, leaning onto the pillows, eyes eager, Uh, huh, she would say as he spoke of his day, and then he, big, filled with air, And then I, and she, swiping with her hand, her arm following from her shoulder, Donald. Wrapped there upon the sofa she had just moved within the room, the bridal magazine beneath the cushions where surely he would not look. I placed the phone back on the wall, turning off the ringer.