There's sunlight streaming in through the window. The morning sun seems to be getting comfortable about the prospect of it being morning. There don't appear to be too many clouds outside to obscure much of anything. I'm lying on the floor next to a paper, but it's not the paper that I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the flesh on her legs as she reads the paper. She seems to know that I'm looking at her legs. I suppose that I could call her attention to the perfection that I'm seeing when I'm looking at the way she's sitting there with those beautiful legs crossed as they are, but I'm afraid that it might mean that she would be interested in what I'd be interested in, and we'd be right back in bed.
“What should we do today?” she asks. I'm weighing the sound of her voice and the emotion behind it. There's a piece of delicious music about it that hangs there in the air precisely the way only it could. It makes everything seem to vibrate with something that feels like my pulse.
"I don't know that I care," I say. "We're here. And my here is with you, and I have the day off so...y'know...everything else is incidental." She smiles. I notice that she's still looking at the paper as I notice that I'm still looking at her legs. All the visual gravity in the room seems to head in their direction, so it only makes sense. Of course, I'm here on the floor next to someone so beautiful that she couldn't possibly exist, so my whole conception of what does and doesn't make sense is a bit suspect.
"We have the day off, though." She says. "We could do anything. Anything at all. Do you have any ideas?" And all that I seem to be doing is looking at her legs, but her words are prodding me in other directions, so I'm thinking about other things, like the fact that she's looking at a paper now. And now I'm looking at a paper in the morning light not far from the chill of the world outside.
And just as the moment hits, it occurs to me that it’s strange. The precise geometry of her beauty seems to be perfectly in line with the way that things are right now. The precise geometry of her beauty is a hell of a lot more timeless than what she’s reading right now. And when was it that reading words of ink on large sheets of newsprint in the morning had come to be so retro? It’s like we’re pretending to be a couple on a Saturday from a few decades ago. Only it’s now, and now isn’t even a Saturday, or a Sunday, or any kind of a weekend.
“We could take over the world,” she says, turning the next page into the world news section. She has my attention. There might be laughter, and it might be mine. I'm looking right at her, as she looks right at the paper. I'm smiling. I suspect that she might be smiling as well, but I'm trying not to look too far into her. I feel like it might casually consume me on my way into the next moment. "We could always take over the world."
"I don't think that we have enough time for that," I say. She smiles and glances over. Her eyes meet mine. I am suddenly quite aware of my pulse in ways that I don't think that I'd ever been before. I once had a similar but altogether different experience when I met eyes with a lion at the county zoo.
“Nonsense,” she says. “It’s not even 10 a.m. yet. We could take over the world and then have a late lunch somewhere.” She turns her beautiful gaze back to the paper in front of her. I feel my breath catching itself as the whole room seems to regain some sense of balance.
"I don't know," I say, gazing into some kind of weird ad involving a pensive squirrel with a bindle over its shoulder. "That's a huge step for us."
“What,” she asks in a casual stretch, “world domination?”
"Yes," I say, gazing up at the ceiling. "World domination sounds like it could be easy. At least...YOU make it sound easy. That wouldn't be the problem," I say, tossing aside the housing section of the paper. "I mean...what are we going to do once we actually take over the world? That's a hell of responsibility for one couple."
"So," she says, standing to stretch a bit more formally. "So we get other people to help us out. Like...advisors and things."
"Yeah," I say, looking up at her. "But it could be a hell of a time just interviewing everyone to be our advisors."
“You’re right," she says, curving perfectly into a tree pose as her eyes scan the world outside the window, “That could take the better part of the afternoon.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” I say.
"So maybe we put a pin in the whole world domination thing and come back to it later." She says. She looks at me and nods. I can do nothing but nod in return.
“Yeah...that’s a good idea,” I say, losing my balance on my way to my feet. The whole room looks like it could start spinning at any moment.
"But we need to come back to the whole world domination thing later-on totally," she says. "I think that we'd be really good at it."
And I'm looking at her, as she's looking at me, and just at the moment, I can't imagine her possibly being wrong. A little while later, she's going to suggest that we go out for a walk. I might be a little bit resistant, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to tell her that I don't want to go along with her.