When I was young sex was something you did. Or something you looked forward to doing. Maybe you watched, but you either watched because you couldn't yet or because you were waiting your turn, and maybe those two reasons were one and the same. Or you watched because no one was around and you needed a quick release.
I'd never really thought about being watched, not until I was there with him and he leaned back and said, "I want to see you." I wasn't pretty. I wasn't someone that people wanted to see. I was just doing this for me and him.
He ran his hand down my cheek. "I want to see you," he said again, and then moved away, as if removing the temptation.
Some things come naturally to some people. Taking my clothes off, in an entertaining way at least, never did for me. I choke in pressure situations. Whenever I'd tried it, just because I knew it was expected, it never seemed right. Sure, people said they enjoyed it, but it never felt right. And now he wanted me to take off my clothes and he wasn't going to help at all. And this wasn't just some goof. I had to do it right.
So I started crying. Because that's what I do when I choke in pressure situations. Always have, and probably always will. Even if the situations have changed or become less common. I can't help myself. Tears started to trickle down my face.
His arms were around me in an instant and he held me close. "I'm not asking because of me," he said. "I want you to know how beautiful you are. I want to see you. I don't want a strip tease or something tawdry. I just want to see you."
I stopped crying and sniffled, which I'm sure made me all the more attractive (or maybe it really did; I can't fathom some things that people find attractive). "Close your eyes," he said. "Don't think about me. I just..." He trailed off, because I knew what he was going to finish with. He wanted to see me.
Closing my eyes didn't help, but at least I didn't have to see his reactions. If he had reactions. I reached up, eyes closed, and slowly slipped my blouse over my head. Then I undid my skirt and pulled it off too. "Lie back and let me just look," he said, not an order, a request, almost a plea. "I wish you could see what I see."
I could, or I thought I could. He saw a gangly kid with practically no curves, not skinny enough or maybe too skinny, no boobs to speak of either. I wasn't fucking him, so why would he like what he saw? That's the only reason anyone really wanted to see me, because if I was naked then I'd put out. But I kept my eyes closed and let him look, because otherwise I'd see him looking.
Then, when the tension got too much for me, or because I wanted to prove that he was going to get some, I don't know, I pulled my bra off too. And that's when the closed eyes finally tuned me in to my other senses, and I heard him suck in his breath, almost inaudibly. And I realized that he wasn't looking because he wanted me, or rather he was looking because he wanted to see me, like he said. He was telling the truth.
I could have opened my eyes then, because I no longer minded the idea of him looking at me. But I kept them closed because then I could almost feel his eyes on me. I arched my back a little, then slid my panties off and lay back again, legs spread. I felt the heat of his gaze on my pubis, or maybe it was my own internal heat. I didn't gyrate or talk dirty, I didn't finger myself or suck my thumb, I just lay there until he asked me to roll over, then I lay on my stomach until he shifted his weight and reached to touch, not my pussy, but the small of my back, running his hand down my shoulders and spine and resting it just above my buttocks. It was warm, sexual in a non-sexual way, just a touch.
We fucked after that; it wasn't like I was going to stop at that. I didn't open my eyes as he helped me roll over again, kept them closed as he fed me his cock and then got between my legs and mounted me. I didn't open them until I came the first time, his hot breath on my face, looking down at me as he thrust over and over. And I found myself wishing, as our eyes met, that there had been a third person in the room with us, so I could have felt two pairs of eyes.
I won't say that it was the last time I was awkward, or the last time that I felt unattractive or was ashamed of my body. Adolescence is tough, and just being alive is tougher. But before that, I never thought of myself as something worth looking at. I never thought that eyes could caress me. I never thought.
4 comments:
Feeling "observed" is something I still struggle with sometimes. Love this post.
I struggle with it too sometimes, but nowhere near as much as I did when I was an adolescent, thank god. When I was a kid I had no problem with people looking at me, but suddenly I got all shy, and it took me forever to get over that. I'm still getting over it. Stupid popular culture body image ;)
I could easily say something about seeing yoru pictures and telling you again that you are pretty, but being pretty has nothing to do with being seen.
To be seen, to be looked at, is a very intimate act. One, you have to show me, you ahve to agree to have me look at you, and with that there is the possibility of judgement, rejection, dissapointment, or even as scary, lust, love, and happiness. Secondly, you have to accept the watcher. You have to, at some level, say, 'I trust you to see me.' Avatar, the movie, not the cartoon series, made a heavey-handed but resonant point that to see someone, and to see someone is different. They could speak in bold type and see past the fears of the person on display and see a person who is facing her fear of display.
Lost yet? i know I am, so I better stop.
“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”
“How many? I don't know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
Sorry, it made me think of that. The distinction Holmes is drawing is not exactly the same, but it's the same idea. We see people all the time. But we're not watching them, or at least we probably shouldn't be ;)
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