short story rough draft

The back of her neck was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It curved ever so slightly, formed a valley of soft, pale, buttermilk skin. Her hair curled around in tiny wisps, these little feathers scratching her back, so innocently brushing against the milky white beauty. Perhaps this woman was some sort of magical creature - a giraffe of sorts, the way she craned her neck around with such ease. Her graceful shoulders framing that glorious, glowing work of art.

It was the kind of neck that seemed unaware of its perfection, of its charm. Completely unknowing of how it caught my eye, how its simpleness made me want to break down and cry and scream for something so rare, so pure. I thought about how she probably caressed this neck at work, if she did work, or how late at night when she got home, she would lean forward and let the hot shower water pound in. Feel every single drop drum, violently beating its song, then run down her slightly curved spine. Not a spine, but a ladder, leading up to that neck.

She turned the corner and so did I. My house was approximately eighty three steps straight, but maybe I would walk a few steps this way, if only to be in the presence of the most extraordinary neck I had ever encountered. Just five or six steps and I would make myself turn around. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. But I kept walking, ten steps and twenty steps and thirty, following the creamy, pudding-like wonder, the neck that was screaming at me to touch it and press hard until my finger prints were fat red circles imprinted and bruised. At step forty-one she turned left. I took step forty-two and turned left. Her neck, it moved slightly with each step and at one point she casually stretched and it was as if the whole world had opened up. Her head turned upward, her arms stretched up above, her neck so long, so slender, elongated - I thought that time had stopped and space didn't exist. There was a pocket in the air, we were happily walking in it, a pocket that shut out everything bad and horrid and it was just this neck and I. Everything else was gone. Just me, me and this magnificent creature. But no. I was on step twenty-eight and she was turning right.

Maybe I should have turned around and ran all the way home. Quickly - n0, desperately! I should have ran away in terror for nothing this pure could really exist! I could picture it, me sprinting towards my house, the yellow one with blue shutters, and tears would be streaming down my face (really very quickly as my running would cause the wind to whip in my face and squeeze the tears out until it hurt) until I reached my front door. I would forget the neck and pretend it had never happened, it did not exist. I would take off my cardigan and hang it up and sit down and read the newspaper and maybe pretend to call a friend, and we would talk for hours about our lives and our neighbors and how she signed up for a sewing class and I would never mention a neck at all.

Step seven, Step eight, Step nine, Step ten. Step twenty-nine, I said, I'll turn around on step twenty-nine. I'll get away from this thing.

Step twelve. Step thirteen. Now was still only the beginning of my love affair with this neck. The small mole on the bottom right corner, her protruding shoulder bones on either side. We smiled at each other in the way only loved ones do, the small smile that shows you know all about the sadness and the hurt in the world but you still want to be with that person and hold them very close and still and stop breathing so they won't. The kind of love where you curl up into bed and press your bodies close and sleep like babies. Step nineteen.

I could see the end from here. We had moved from being madly in love to wondering what was really holding us together. I questioned that mole, so quiet and staring at me with it's big ugly brown face. How could I have loved such a bestial animal? Dark and brown and everything your neck should have resented. That mole, God's mistake on an almost perfect neck. I knew it could not be true, this neck could not be so completely magnificent and innocent and pure, instead it was laughing at me until it began to cry. It cried for all the sad and hurt we had once shared and smiled about, it cried because it knew I would never really be happy and it knew part of that was its fault.Why did I ever love you, I wondered? You called to me, your tempting neck, that neck I imagined myself slowly stroking while you fell asleep, the neck I dreamed of holding during a deep, passionate kiss, the neck I longed to dig my fingers into and pour into it my soul. Step twenty-four.

I think I'm ready to say goodbye. I took a long look at that neck. No longer did I hate that mole; I loved everything about it that was ugly and horrible. I loved that mole for it was your mole. You are beautiful, I whispered, and I hope you know. You are beautiful because I have loved you.
Step twenty-five.
Step twenty-six.
Step twenty-seven.
Step twenty-eight.
Step twenty-nine.