Free Yearning by Kate Belle Page A

pulled the contents into the light. His breathing quickened as he opened the letter, his fingers barely still.
    I ache for you in ways I never thought were possible. I long to hear your voice close to my ear, my body longs for your touch. I smoulder in your presence.
    I want to reveal myself to you. I want to open my heart, my soul, my legs and let you in, so you can see me, so you can know me, as I do not know myself. I need your eyes to see, your hands to touch, your spirit to acknowledge that which I hold most deeply and secretly in my heart. My yearning for you.
    He smoothed the paper on the cool of the kitchen bench and felt the painful longing in the words as they reached out to him from the page. He held the note over the bin and willed his fingers to release it, but they wouldn’t. Instead, he read it through a second and third time. The effect was like a drug. He was mesmerised and excited. And the urge to give in to her was beginning to overcome his better judgement.
    Later he tossed in his bed, sleepless and alone. The digital clock glowed 2.13 am. Alison had dropped in on her way home from a job, fucked him in a rush and left him unfastened and empty-hearted. He gave up wrestling with his conscience and slid open his bedside drawer. He pulled out the four love notes, the pages trembling in his hands. He read and re-read them until his body bristled with want.
    Solomon sought some relief in a fantasy of her spread across his wide bed, but it only served to deepen his restlessness. As he wiped his semen away he berated himself. What was he doing? This growing interest in her wasn’t right. He’d been down this path before and knew the potential consequences. He must be stronger, find a way to exorcise this desire. The letters had to go. He had to stop thinking about them. He had to stop encouraging her.
    He fingered the pages gently, willing himself again to throw them out. He thought about hanging curtainsin his study, to block her view of him. As long as he kept his distance from her he would be okay. The danger was in proximity. He imagined her in the room beside and above him, sleeping in her bed. Hair tousled, arm flung carelessly above her head, those sweet, innocent lips parted as she breathed, the whiteness of her neck.
    He glanced at the clock: 3.18 am. In the deep sleeplessness of the night something quiet began to take root in him. He felt his barren heart bending under temptation, the pull of the letters drawing him towards her. But it was impossible. Divinely tempting, and hopelessly impossible.
    *
    Monday. Two days since he’d had a visit from Alison and she was busy all week with clients and albums. No chance of getting laid in the near future and the letters were doing a slow burn on his insides.
    Coffee, cigarettes and a newspaper for company. A neatly-made bed and an empty day unfolding before him. He had no interest in his study. He cast about for something physical to do, anything to direct his mind away from those stirring missive pulsating secretly in his drawer. He needed to occupy himself with something practical, something to keep his hands busy and his mind distracted from the persistent threat of an erection.
    He wrote a list. The garden. Housework. A perfect diversion for his restless thoughts. First, the lawn. The physical exertion of mowing made him sweat, the vibration of the machine jolting his arms. Lush piles of spring grass lay dewy and emerald under a watery sun. He made himself another coffee and revelled in the smell of thedamp soil exposed to the air, reminding him of the earthy muskiness of a woman’s vagina.
    Next, pruning. Fresh young leaves dropped at his feet. Twigs and sticks clustered in nests. Determined, he cut back the unbridled vegetation, trying to tame the eruption of spring and find order in the chaos of growth. In the tangle of green he discovered rosebuds on the verge of opening their soft, tender lips to the sun. He cleared away the surrounding foliage,