Forget-Me-Not Dahlia

An uncomplicated, but compelling man stared at Dahlia. He's put aside his principles, rational behaviour and his plentiful supply of commonsense. They were sweep away the first time she rode past him in the park. He's a little too old to have fallen in love for the first time, but that's exactly what's happened. He can't take his eyes off her.

George has seen Dahlia many times whirl past on her bicycle, her dress clutching at her thighs. His strolls had been a once weekly affair, which grew into a daily jaunt. Why this young woman was so enthralling to him, he didn't know, but sure enough he'd anticipate the smile of her rose coloured lips. The smile that transformed her into an alluring subject with unembellished hair. These fleeting glimpses of Dahlia were about to be interrupted.

The park they both frequented was woven with paths. Walking along them would reveal a plethora of flowers, and a surround of trees squeezing at an open sky. Just this sight meets the eyes of the pair as they progress through the park to opposite ends. Great anticipation swells in George's stomach as the moment they cross paths draws nearer. Dahlia rides on unaware of the impact she has. She swings around another green corner towards her favourite part of her ride; an old cobbled together bridge with a sheath of lichen, and its wriggling brook beneath.

Oh fuck! Were Dahlia's last thoughts before she veered off down the bank towards the brook. Bruised or wet? She decided on bruised. Probably less embarrassing, she thinks. She leans sideways to fall onto Daffodils. Cutting dark sappy cracks in their stalks, and squeezing bright yellow from their trumpet shaped corona, she falls. Crushing petals to ground.

George straightens to realise he may have inadvertently injured his love. He abandons his hold on the freshly picked flower, and runs to her. He can see her sprawled out in a patch of Daffodils. He slides to her side, kicking lose rocks aside. His eyes become shackled to her frame, wandering over her, reaching the edge of her thin cotton dress hoicked up on her thigh. He can almost see to the top of her pale olive leg and the slightest line of white cotton knickers. He can see where fine velvety hair starts in the middle of her thigh. Nobody was supposed to see this far, he gratefully mused.

I need to touch her to help, George decides. He has to touch her. He starts moving his hand to her waist so he can gently awaken her, as if she were merely asleep. He's slowly losing his sense of decency as his hand stokes across her stomach feeling it jump under his touch. He's worried, but his tantalizing proximity to her is too much to swallow down. Curling his hand around her waist he can feel her shape just beneath a thin cotton layer. Wrought with effort to control himself, and yet being completely unable leaves him shaking with thrill and trepidation.

Down here it's secluded; even if someone walked past they wouldn't see, not that there's anyone around this early. George leans down to check her breathing. Heat from her skin lifts her scent. Distinguishing it clearly through the mingling scents of the flowers, he draws in a deep breath of her sweet smelling lotions tangled with feminine sweat. Warm moist breath spreads on his cheek. Unexpectedly she lets out a short moan that ascends and fills his ear. He turns his head to look at her, realising soon she'll open her eyes. He wants to be what she sees. Kissing the crest of her lips, he moves his hands down to her thigh.

In her dreamy state she softy pushes her lips into his. Her hands move to touch him. Tucking them beneath his suit coat, and stroking his cotton covered chest. Her eyes snap open awakening her thoughts; her mind suddenly recapturing the accident. Feeling her soft touch become a harsh shove, he collapses backwards with a dejected look upon his face.

Appalled, Dahlia jumps up and marches to her bicycle dragging it from a nearby shrub.

"HOW COULD YOU?! I could have been… WHILE I'M INJURED! What were you… YOU BASTARD! I CAN'T BELIEVE… I ought to…"

Dahlia was seething with anger at the stupefied man on the floor. Her outrage forbid her from coming up with a suitable lengthy verbal tongue-lashing, he so clearly needed.

He's stunned. He's not yet fully aware of what he's just done, but by her tone it sounds pretty bad. Where had his principles gone? And still all he was thinking about, throughout her justified yelling, was how she responded to his touch.

Dahlia couldn't imagine why he'd taken advantage of her in this way. And yet looking at his hurt face she felt… guilty! Guilty for shouting at him. Why do I feel guilty? Yes he came to my rescue but then he… she thought, pushing the guilt to the back of her mind determined to concentrate on the anger. She was unable to cope with the rushes of emotion any longer. She mounted her bicycle and left him behind, not however before letting out a few more indignant half sentences.

Cycling briskly off leaves Dahlia feeling faint. There's a sharp pain in her leg as she strains to push down the pedals. The nature of the encounter has stirred up misguided romantic thoughts in her mind. She never had a stranger kiss her before so softly. Gently. Eagerly. She rode on uneasy about the nascent fantasies in her head, the anger in her heart, and the warm tingle in her stomach.

That's great! Some Samaritan you turned out to be, was George's final tormenting thought. Coming to his senses he scrambled after her, only to glimpse her disappearing. His hands brushed though his short brown hair in exasperation. What was he to do now?

****************

A daisy in the lapel? Dahlia thought, as she looked upon this despicable gentleman who had stepped from nowhere. He now stood before her, blocking her path. She'd chanced going back to the park a week later; she sorely missed her excursions. But life, she thought, just wouldn't relent and give her back this fragment of daily pleasure. Somehow she knew deep down that he'd be there. What had she come for? An explanation? Or to confirm that he was as attractive as she remembered. She is now extremely uncomfortable being under his intense inspection.

Dahlia did not stare back in fact she avoided it. Unfortunately there were always moments when their eyes seemed to connect, even if it was only by a dotted line. She shifted her field of vision so her peripherals did not include him. He's out of sight, but still in my mind, she reluctantly observed.

Dahlia went to push her bicycle past him, without a word, but a couple of happy sideways steps by the maligned gentleman brought him back into view. She realised that he had no intention of letting her go easily. She could see him clearly now in his brown tweed suit jacket and white shirt, which declared his age to be at least late 30's. Shabby jeans, that appeared to have seen a lot of dirt recently, jarred with the jacket. He wore it all however, with a strange enthusiastic energy, unfathomably messy hair, a seductive smile, and of course that unaccountable flower.

"Are you all right?" His eyes resting on a large purple bruise he could see appearing from the bottom line of her dress.

"You mean after being fondled by a stranger" She snapped.

He smiled at this; he liked her spirited retort. He knew it would make it all the more gratifying when finally she submitted to him. He'd decided to pursue her intently and from a close proximity this time. What was the point in going back?

"From the moment I saw you, I knew I should like to get to know you. You'll let me, won't you?"

She felt there was more implied in his request than just friendly conversation. He was talking like nothing untoward had taken place just a short week ago. She couldn't muster the energy to knock the dumbfounded expression from her face.

"Perhaps I could say that my name was George and you might reply that your name is..." Said the gentleman now known to Dahlia as George.

"You don't know me".

She ignored his introduction and went to move past him.

"This is obvious, but I would so much like to".

"Well you won't!… Goodbye"

"Please! A moment more" Was his much to emotional and untempered response to her rejection.

Madness! She thought we have only just met, what is he thinking. But pity rolled from her eyes and onto his rough face. He looked drawn with this different expression of desperation. The confidence of his first words eroded away.

She rushed past him brushing the arm of his tweed jacket. The lightest of touches caught the top of her arm. Her head and middle swept round, only to meet the heated stare of a stranger's desire. But still she moved forwards. An unchangeable will moved her on, sliding George's hand the length of her arm. His hand stroking her shivering skin. The look that was there, it said not to leave him. It screamed from his eyes almost audible, she could hear it in his head as she stared through his eyes. Their fingers met, and before a moments thought she had let her fingers arch upwards to catch his. In a second it looked like lovers being torn apart, not strangers parting.

She finally turned her head, and a sharp stuttered intake of breath was all she could do to compose herself as she hurried away. She languished in the feeling of being wanted longer than she should have. It was harmful to let such feeling take root, especially when they came from a stranger who would not be returning into her life.

He talked so oddly and was a lot older than me, what would people care to say about that. Dahlia thought.

She then put it to the back of her mind and strode on concentrating, as she ever did, on the endless grey paths and her green surroundings.

It was no good she'd have to stop coming to the park and so cut off this strange man's connection to her.

******************

A year passed and there was no sign of the forward man George. Dahlia's life remained secluded and filled with ennui. Her oppressive life trailed on, as if she were a star with nothing to light, but the darkness around her. But just like a star a meagre amount of little still reaches far away places, and in a far away mind someone was still thinking of her.

Dahlia had spent the last year trying to find decent employment. Something that would enable her to find somewhere adequate to live, and start life the way she'd planned. No opportunity came her way and she was left to wonder whether putting of university, in favour of moving away from home, was the wrong choice.

After waking one day it was set in her mind that she couldn't conceivably stay here waiting for a career or an interest that sparked her passion. A month later she had reduced her working hours, and moved in with a friend called Eliza and her boyfriend Ted. She'd enrolled in the nearest university. It didn't matter what its reputation was like; she had passion enough to overcome any short falling it had.

An enjoyment of the green and floral displays in the park presented Dahlia with a clear idea for the direction she wished her studies to take. Time spent around the green of trees, blossoms of flowers and their industrious arthropods made her, at least for a while, happy.

*****************

The breeze sweeps her hair lightly back as she strolls through a university gate into her new surroundings, on a warm orange autumn day.

*****************

A week later Dahlia arrived punctually for her first plant science lecture. Without looking around she made quickly for the middle seats. Here it would be unlikely she'd be called on for questions, but it was close enough to catch the finer details. A few other students were milling around. Dumping her bag, she rooted around for paper.

She half ignores the low unified mumble of the surrounding students bustling to their seats, until amongst them she perceives a deeper more familiar voice, making its way up to her. It echoes past her up turned bum and her face still buried in her bag. She circles into her chair only to be looking directly at a well presented man, with a silly adornment, stood at the front of the lecture hall conversing with a gangly female student. Student and professor parted. Turning he headed for the podium causing his suit coat to billow open. A fresh flower twisted in the buttonhole of his lapel.

George! The lecturer! The professor! My stranger!

Dahlia tried to hide the increasing panic on her face. Red blood fizzed up into her skin. She wriggled lower in her chair. Her mind a jumble of incoherent escape plans. The double doors clicked shut, and slowly the chairs in the lecture hall warmed, except for Dahlia's, which was already melting under the heat from her embarrassment.

The lecture started in due course. Dahlia's eyes scrutinised George or the professor, as she should call him, from behind her thick wavy brown hair. She brushed more of the waves in front of her face. Now she suddenly wished she'd gone for that daring haircut she'd persuaded herself was silly, instead she'd kept it the same as it was a year ago.

Dahlia wrote nothing for the thumping in her ears was much too loud to hear anything. But as time went on, two minutes…five minutes…ten…fifteen… It gave her hope that she may go unnoticed in the expanse of students. Her tactic of looking at the desk in front whenever his eyes swept the room worked well. She thought she perceived that he lingered his gaze longer over the area where she was seated, but she brushed it off as paranoia. She calmed slowly, his thick voice began to flow past her heartbeats and rested gently on her mind.

Dahlia felt an uncertain daze fill her. George's words were relaxing. Her skin still warm from panic now seemed to run with an electric touch. There was something interesting, indulgent, stimulating about being in the same space as him once again. Unknowingly her fingers creep across her thighs until her fingertips brushed together on her lap.

Dahlia was drawn out of the concoction of desire and fantasy by the gnarly elbow of her neighbour. A man with a black thatch of hair and darting eyes, who would jab her every time he jostled in his chair. She pulled herself up in her seat to drag herself away from this nitwit.

In the silence of the hall the creak of her chair screamed out and her invisibility was shattered as his eyes shot to her, now straight backed, still and breathless in her seat. She grabbed at the hope of him being forgetful. The delicate flutter of graphite heavy pages collapsing on the floor persuaded her she was ill informed of George's memory.

"Y YOU!" He yelled and stammered at the same time.

He tripped forwards a few steps. Staring fixedly at her all the while. Rashness pushed him to her. However he quickly stopped short remembering his position. Looking around he seemed confused as to what to do. He met her eyes with a punishingly desperate stare; his eyes locked on her as he slowly stepped back. It was only a seconds worth of interruption, but it had aroused the room from their deeply sombre scrawlings.

Cherry red blood fired up within her heart. Splurging forward through her flesh it spread like fire on her skin, and burned into the air bringing with it complete embarrassment. Anxiousness built within her bones waiting to see what his next reaction would be.

No! No, no, no, breathe; this isn't the time to get a reputation. People aren't going to understand why the professor would cry out to me. I don't understand why he does!

Seeing him retreat, relenting to the situation, she breathed slightly. He too was a deep shade of crimson. His thoughts dashing about within his head. He stooped to pick up the pages. It gave him time to avert his face, time to think… what was going on? It's her, can she really be here? He glanced up, still scrambling for the pages. Yes… she's bloody here!

Dahlia felt her agitation hush a little as the professor took away his fervent watch on her. Instead looking to his fallen scripts. Dahlia then noticed a straight haired blonde girl two seats over from her who had an excessively florid complexion. Caused, most obviously, by the occupants of the surrounding seats who stared at her, believing her to be the eye catcher. If this weren't more proof of her plain looks, she'd need no more evidence.

As George stood again his concern over the current situation slowly started to give way to something else. An irrational smile crept onto his face as a new realisation changed his frame of mind. For the moment, he couldn't talk to her, touch her or make her his. But this new realisation was just as comforting. He'd found her again.

He was once again standing at the podium reshuffling his papers tying to continue with the lecture as best he could. His papers crinkled, unwilling to lie down in his sweaty hands. He managed to retrace his last words and continue the lecture. But he no longer strode around the front of the room as he had done before, full of zeal for his plant physiology lecture. Instead he stood, with his hands grasping tightly onto the podium. Everytime he looked up he saw her and the rest of his lecture was rather fragmented, as his thoughts turned to rapture.

Dahlia sat mortified by the past minutes occurrences. Yet in part she felt her stomach tingle and her senses intensify as she observed George from the shade of her long brown waves.

He ended the lecture and unbelievably left immediately. She thought she would have to try and avoid him on her way out, as he would try to call to her while she used the other bustling students as cover, but no he was gone! She gathered her things and made her way slowly into the winding corridors. She had no desire to catch up with him and resume her embarrassment.

Maybe a long year had quelled his passion. Dahlia felt strangely dismayed by this thought. She'd often used George in her fantasises, fabricating the perfect lover. It gave her hope in her loneliest moments. Somebody out there, no matter how weird and unsuitable, liked her. Of course her idealised George was everything she could ever want. Lost in her reverie she wandered out of drab sliding doors into the green courtyard, where she heard her illusion speak…

"From the moment I saw you…again." George stood with an excited smile.

She let out an exasperated start, and put her hand up to cover her heart, when George once again stepped into her view. They both froze. George's face now a picture of concern and Dahlia's one of complete surprise, combined with a growing anger at being startled. She was working up to berating him for such an underhanded approach, if only she could get past her nervousness.

All at once he pulled her into him to avoid her being bumped by a burly male student. They both watched him hulk past. Moving their sight to where he still held her they both realised it was the first instance they'd touched in a year. She felt her staunch disposition melt a bit at his kind touch. He relaxed his hold and slid his hands lightly down her arm almost taking her hand in his, but thinking better of it.

Dahlia was anxious to be gone, that she might break free from his all too penetrating stare.

"Yes professor Estraven?" Dahlia hoped he would have nothing to say.

"Have you forgotten my name so readily then?" He said with a glum look upon his face.

"No George!" She said impetuously. Then saw his new expression of glee.

Stupid! Of course I should have made it look like I'd forgotten him. Anybody else would have forgotten such absurd passing moments. Why haven't I? How can you entertain such thoughts about a man who…who…

She'd been embarrassed and caught unawares in the throws of fantasies she'd rather not admit to herself she had. She was angry with herself for keeping up such stupid musing for so long. She hoped her present anger could be used to disguise her embarrassment and her previous concupiscent thoughts.