Unspoken Secrets push in against the back of your mind, a slow, hot, consuming burn that flutters in tandem with the frantic beat of your heart. Phantom fingers trace along the curves of your body, delineate your collarbone, drag blunted nails up your neck where they wrap one by one in slow, deliberate claim. You are mine, it whispers against skin, a breath that precedes the weight of a body pressed up against you, behind you. I am yours. More fingers, this time at your hips, catching at hipbone and dragging slowly across your stomach to the other side, catching in fabric and brushing feather-light against exposed flesh. You wanted this. Lips find your shoulder-blades as that hand on your hip jerks you back, seals the gaps between your bodies, bodies that begin a slow sway back and forth — as if you are dancing, losing yourselves to something slow, something intimate, something that needs not the accompaniment of music. You wanted me. A shuddered exhale as nose, lips, the barest hint of teeth press against your jaw, your cheek, and drag up, up, up to your cheekbone, back against your ear in slow, agonizing movement. And I wanted you. The hand at your hip rises up along your side, curls fingers over each bump of your ribcage, traces up along the curve of shoulder to grab your upper arm, and it pushes you forward, using your unsteady footing to twist you back around, to drag you in right against it, chest to chest, hip to hip, the hand at your neck curving back along your jaw to cup your head at the base of your skull as it leans over you, as it bends you back to meet its persistent dominance. But it is our secret. When you open your eyes, the figure you think you see seems to disintegrate into sand, blown away by the breeze — a breeze that isn't there. Surely not. Not here. Not against the sweltering heat of sands, framed beneath the dome of the arena.
Unspoken Secrets trickle in, consume, command, hold your attention. You can feel the presence here, sense its eyes raking your body as it takes even, measured, predatory steps around you. No matter which way you turn, it seems you can never quite see it; it's elusive, slipping through your fingers like the sand beneath your feet even as it burns the blood in your veins with the promise of more, of what comes next — those what ifs, those whens, those secret wishes and darkest desires that, until now, have been kept silent. You came back to me, it whispers, a gentle caress of sensual ignition, a pleased rasp of sound that sends shivers dancing down along your spine to pool in your belly, to spark electricity where once there was only heat, to set aflame every single inch of flesh and skin until every nerve-ending comes alive with need and begs for more. You will stay. You are mine. It mirrors your movements, captures you in its thrall, captivates every sense until there's nothing left, nothing so important as you, or it, or this. Every thought that strays from the touch of fingers, from the hitch of breath, from the alarming, persistent command of its attention is snuffed out viciously, brought back around, forced away from those faces that wait for you to come home (I am your home), forced back from those occupations you pursued before fate put your hands on this shell (I am your masterpiece), chased from hopes, and dreams, and who you were before this moment by who you are now (My everything). But you resist being consumed; you resist burning and burning and burning and burning even though burning is everything you want and — LOOK AT ME. Your breath catches in your throat as fingers curve along your neck, as that face comes closer, as that grip tightens, as it lowers lips to lips and — emptiness. You cannot escape me. The air is empty, void of little more than heat.
Unspoken Secrets fall, steady as the thrum of each beat your heart makes. There's a gentleness, a trepid hesitation, a longing as phantom fingers reach for you, desire for you, whisper you closer, closer, closer, into its waiting arms. You remember this time that there is something important, that this illusion isn't real, that this fantasy, this game of make believe is little more than pretend. But you came back, it persists, whispers, sends goosebumps racing down along your arms because yesyesyes. How could this have ever been wrong? Why would you have ever gone back? You passed the final threshold; you are mine now. Forever. You move forward, hear without hearing that hiss of Yessssssss as you draw closer, as each step sheds one more worry: friends, family, duties, dreams, hopes, desires, self. It's a total surrender, succumbing to this dream, to this hope, to this desire. It catches you in its embrace, presses hands to your belly as lips drop to your neck, as it coaxes whispered secrets from your lips — pleas, and commands, and tiny fragmented bits of memories you never intended for anybody else to know. There is no going back now. I am yours. You are mine. But there's something that persists, something that won't be quiet or still beneath the rush of want and need and yesyesyesyespleaseyes in your ears — that heat that threatens to rise to a fever pitch, that threatens to consume you, all of you, until what's left is… You turn in that embrace, open your eyes to find a mask, reach up with shaking fingers to cup a phantom jaw that can't be but is; you push those fingers back, up, curve them along jaw and cheek until they twist in against that mask and pull. The screaming starts then, a cacophony of sound that reverberates and rebounds, that echoes and swells with each shriek of, TRAITOR, TRAITOR, TRAITOR until you're thrown back to the sands, the ringing in your ears deafening against the sudden silence.