When He Asked If He Could Touch Me In Public

Please let me, he begged,
his hands grasping my inner thighs, bare, sun-kissed.
I scrunched my turquoise dress with my fingers,
turning my knees inward,
telling him, soundlessly, not yet,
my feet dangling, sitting, contently, on the splintered wooden beam,
the roaring ocean hundred feet below.
I peered over his shoulder,
looking toward the shore,
at the end of the quarter-mile-long pier,
desolate and dark, only the moon illuminating the pathway.

I peered over my shoulder,
out, into the vastness
and then down below,
the moon’s light sparkling against the ocean’s surface,
begging us to stay right here,
to enjoy this moment.

I pulled him in again, grabbing onto his shirt,
kissing, tasting him, the fish and chips on his mouth,

and then opened my legs.

The 90-degree wind tousled my hair.

I watched him between my legs,
his hold firmer,
listening to my directions,
and I clenched the beam harder with my feet
with each moan,
one hand over mouth,
trying not to scream,
trying not to let the pier’s security guard know I was here,
against the rules,
with a man between my legs.

I looked out into the dark sky again,
the wind picking up as I felt it build,
and the smirk on my face grew into oblivion.