Torture.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t distracted.

I mean, I’m doing work, sure, but only in the interim between the silent chimes of my phone. As I’m typing at my computer, I’m accutely aware of its prescence at the corner of my desk. After a moment, I see the colored ball dance a rainbow from yellow to orange to red to blue, and it strikes me as odd that these are the colors of open flame. Immediately, everything on the monitor is all but forgotten.

I read. Before I can even get to the concluding period, my facade of cool has all but left me. I’m squirming in my chair, my thighs squeezed tight at my knees, my breathing thick. My mouth goes simultaneously desert dry and then fills with saliva like craving something you’re dying to eat. I swallow, just barely and suddenly I’m extremely aware of the weight of my hair on my neck. I twist it up and clip it on top of my head. My eyes are mere slants beneath heavy lids and my body temperature has shot up at least 10 degrees. Sweat prickles at the small of my back as I pop a button on my collared shirt.

I type back, each word feeling like falling a foot further down this spiral, and what alarms me is that I have absolutely no intention of NOT hitting the bottom.

I turn back to my work, my breathing still more than slightly choppy, every inch of my skin very much so aware of every stitch of fabric that lays on it. In my mind, I’m unbuttoning each button on my white shirt, loosening my hair from its clip and shaking it loose around my shoulders, unzipping my skirt from behind, peeling it over the curve of my hips before kicking it aside. Maybe I’d leave the pearls and the heels on.

But in reality, I’m just a girl sitting at a desk, mildly interested in typing up the project on the screen in front of her, pretending that the words rolling across her phone have no affect on her, just another random assembly of words, the syntax of which is not any kind of cerebral foreplay to which I find myself thouroughly addicted to.

The lights dance their silent fire in the corner and my breath catches in my throat. Just that quick, I too have gone from yellow, to orange, to red, to the hottest blue, aflame from inside, each letter stroking the outward edges of the fire and fanning it out. Everything it touches turns to ash, an insignificant impediment to the impending explosion.

With every word, I’m damn near engulfed.

After reading again, this time the temperature turned up another 20 degrees, I have to sit back. I’m so hopelessly out of control. I want to maintain my footing, to respond with something equal parts witty and suggestive, but I find myself speechless. I close my eyes, my head hung low, my hair hopefully covering the deep flush that has risen across my breasts and up to my face. I chew on my bottom lip, feeling my heartbeat fall several feet below where it should reside.

This is, by far, the sweetest kind of torture.