I wanted to touch her hand.

Feel her fingers intertwined with mine.

That's it. Just once. For a moment.

Then I'd be done. I'd be good.

It would be enough.

Or it would be addicting.

And I'd be fucked.

Absolutely.

Unequivocally.

Fucked.

So I did nothing.

I sat, I spoke.

Gestured with my hands.

Perhaps too much.

I don't know.

One day it would go away.

The craving, the necessity, the need to know.

It always did.

Surely, she was like the others, the rest.

Wasn't she?

Surely, I thought.

Still talking, still gesturing.

Still keeping my hands busy.

But as I looked at her, I realized.

She wasn't them; they weren't her.

And there was nothing I could do.

I was fucked.

Absolutely, unequivocally fucked.

She was becoming what she shouldn't be, couldn't be.

There was little I could do to stop it.

A touch or not.

It didn't matter.

I talked on, tried to take my thoughts elsewhere.

Willed myself to be elsewhere.

But there was nowhere else.

She was everywhere, would be everywhere.

And damned to this awakening,

I vowed - against my most ardent wish -

She would never know what I know.

Feel what I feel.

So I sat, I spoke.

I gestured with my hands.

They had to stay busy, my hands.

Because in one touch they could tell all my secrets.

Absolutely and unequivocally, every last one of them.