Nineteen and never been kissed. Painfully aware of her inadequacy when it came to the opposite sex, she leant against the smooth white pillar at the corner of the dance floor which was teeming with young glowing bodies writhing and bouncing to the tune of the music and dizzying light show.
Everybody was flirting with each other; sexual chemistry was sizzling through the air like sparks emerging from a hot bonfire.
She sighed and was just about to turn away when something caught her eye: there, leaning on the other pillar right across the floor, looking just as bored was Chris. Her Chris. Well, he didn’t really know that she existed, and she didn’t have a clue what his name was. She’d been fantasizing about him for ages now, ever since he’d started coming to her gym. She’d named him Chris. After all, he looked just like Chris Pine.
***
Before she could disappear and hide in the crowd, he had noticed her staring at him. Oh my god. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to stop gawking at him.
He pushed himself off the pillar and started to elbow his way through the convulsing bodies at the edge of the dance floor – towards her.
Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming ten-ton truck, she watched his tall, lanky frame come closer and closer, her panic rising to the red danger zone by the second.
“Hi.” He smiled at her with crinkling blue eyes. “Do I know you from somewhere?” He had to shout into her right ear to make himself heard above the din in the nightclub.
She could smell him: a heady mixture of male sweat and some kind of spicy, rich scent – one that you just want to suck up your nose and keep there forever and ever.
His soft dark voice vibrated in her ear and she could feel her mouth going dry and numb with the excitement surging through every vein in her body.
“I don’t think so.” She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his ear – the most beautiful ear she had ever seen. And, of course, then it happened – her notorious clumsiness made her lose her balance and her full 5 foot 6 inches crashed against him, knocking her chin hard on his shoulder. Blast.
Before she could straighten herself up, she felt his left arm around her waist, steadying her with unexpected strength and firmness.
Oh, she wanted to faint – no, she didn’t want to faint, wanted to stay like this till the end of time.
“Sorry.” She mouthed breathlessly against his shoulder.
“I’m Chris,” he said. What? Really?
“Oh, hi. I’m Millie. Great to meet you.” She smiled up at him.
“Shall we go into the next room so that we can talk?” he asked. She nodded, and he removed his arm from her waist to take her hand, pulling her gently along through the crowd.
The music started to fade as they reached the corridor. He guided her into a corner, out of the way of the never-ending stream of nightclub dwellers eager to reach the dance floor.
“Millie. That’s a lovely name.” He smiled that smile again – just for her. She cleared her throat, but could not think of a damned thing to say. That was exactly why she had never been kissed before. The guys just got bored with her doe-eyed muteness.
Now, Chris just stood there and smiled at her, so warmly and openly that for the first time she felt that she did not have to say anything. She just smiled back, feeling totally at ease with him, as though she had known him for a long time. They must have stood there for a couple of minutes, like two happy idiots just smiling at each other, absorbing the other one’s face as though they wanted to turn into each other.
There was no sound, no crowd, just them: the last two people on this earth.
Then it happened, Chris bent his head towards her, his lips searching for hers. She closed her eyes, ready to be kissed for the first time ever…ever…ever…ever…
***
“Oy, daydreamer! Are you coming to dance?” Jenny pushed her sharply from the side, nearly sending her falling into the bouncing bodies in front of her.
She sighed and followed her friend onto the dance floor.
Well, she’d have to get that kiss sooner or later.
Maybe even later tonight…?
Caren is a qualified and experienced digital copy & content writer with both a corporate and small business owner background. She runs KreativeInc Agency, a web design, development and content creation agency with her autistic son Callum Gamble.
She specialises in creating Inbound Marketing content for business websites and blogs. Using her expert knowledge, skills and personal experience in business development, personal improvement and autism, she crafts content that makes people take action. Her work is found in retail publications, professional websites, on her writer’s platform StoryBlog and more.
She is also an active advocate of neurodiversity in the workplace and co-founder of the NeuroPool network, neuropool.co.uk. Here, she is organising free educational workshops for employers on how to utilise the extraordinary talent found in people with autism, ADHD, dyspraxia and dyslexia within their business.
When she isn’t typing away on her keyboard or spreading her mission, you can see her having her nose buried in a book or hiking up and down the steep hills of the Yorkshire countryside with her husband, son and daughter.
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