One slow, cautious, quiet, step at a time to the door of the bedroom. Trying not to breathe. Listening to her breathing. Her labored, urgent breathing. Checking each floorboard carefully with the tips of my toes. Knowing against hope the vision on the other side of the wall, hoping against all knowledge to hear a spoken word, a whispered name, a fervent cry. Timing each small noise I make to echo each small noise she makes.

Closer. Closer now. Almost. It is hot in the apartment. How does she make it out of bed so quietly each Saturday morning, so quietly that I do not wake? Am I that thorough a sleeper? If I were would the soft insistent thudding of the couch against the wall wake me? Even this morning, planning for a week, I almost missed her, but I am sure we have not reached that point yet, the point of soft insistent thudding.

I have reached the corner. The moment of truth. Dare I look? I hear nothing but her breathing, and now a whisper almost. I dare, briefly, my head snapping forward an inch, maybe six at most, and then back, too fast to be seen by someone so preoccupied, but long enough to register. She is seated on the couch, still wearing her blue shorts, a catalog (a magazine?) open on her lap, her blue tanktop rolled up onto the firm full slope of her breasts, exposing her hard nipples to her own wandering fingers.

Years later I will find a picture on the web and download it for safekeeping. It is a picture of the title character of a cartoon musical, standing in the middle of a field, stripped to the waist, her right hand holding a book, her left hand fondling her breasts. The picture will not stay on the web long, as the giant corporation that claims the copyright does not take kindly to such images of its characters. I will be glad I saved a copy, for everything about that picture, even the legal wrangling over the image, will remind me of this moment.

In the picture, the book is "Prince Charming" but that will be then, and this is now, and now I cannot see the name of the publication she is flipping through excitedly, I cannot hear her fevered, trancelike whisper, I cannot even read her lips. For all the incredible visual imagery of the moment, having finally seen a sight I have dreamed of these many years, my mind is focused on the words I cannot hear, the thoughts I cannot share. Abandoning my careful plan of hiding I strain, futilely, to hear the name, the phrase, repeated from the lips I kiss each night before my troubled dreaming.

The hand which flipped the pages has stolen beneath the pages and between her legs. Carefully, deliberately, dramatically, she sets the magazine (catalog?) on the couch beside her, stands, her proud excited breasts swaying, hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts, bends full at the waist toward the floor, pulling them off in one swift motion, her naked ass jutting into the air, her head turning to the side.

And sees me.