Spoiler alert: mild sexual content Last seen in Hanoi. Last seen by me, over 20 years ago... I didn’t know if it was going anywhere but I really liked him. He had eyes that glowed like melting chocolate when he smiled, laughed, looked at me for prolonged moments. He would consume me with those eyes. They would linger over me like I was on the dessert trolley and I would feel uncomfortably present to being eaten alive. Yes, I liked him alright. I wanted to ‘do things to him’ in that sticky sugary state, that I think he would have liked. But quite honestly, I didn’t know what he liked apart from, it would seem, playing the long game. We didn’t share a spoken language, as such, but we did communicate in subtleties. Subtleties you would have had to have traded, in order to fully understand. I’m smiling now that I’m thinking back on it... I used to blink my eyes, slowly pressing my lids together like a camera shutter, taking pictures of him with my mind’s eye. He began to do the same, mirroring me, and ‘taking pictures of each other with our eyes’ became arousing in-and-of itself. Capturing moments and all that was shared within them for our own private pleasures. It was beautiful and became synonymous for, well, an expression of something akin to love or adoration, or perhaps gratitude for whatever it was between us. The closest I got to handling him was to purposefully groom my fingers through his strong straight hair, grabbing it in mock fist. I had wanted to push him face down onto an aching nipple. Push him deep between my breasts. Drown him in soft, murmuring skin so that only his eyes remained, squeezed shut. Deeply drowning. A simple, almost juvenile act but the thought of it just about blew all of my fuses. He wasn’t used to seeing a woman incandescent with excitement and didn’t quite know where to put himself. I spared him his embarrassment and willingly sat, naked, marinading under his soft, hungry gaze, whilst licking my lips at the thought of slipping myself along his long, brown-skinned body. I never did of course. He was playing the long game, which as it turned out was too long - it was time for me to go. We were worlds apart and our time was up. Leaving Hanoi was painful in many ways, none of which I could explain to him. I felt a choking sense of guilt, for leaving the darkroom door open on my way out and exposing to the light all the frames of each other’s love we’d captured together. But I have all my frames intact, in my mind. They’re alive still, vivid with colour and heat. So, here I am. 20 plus years later. Looking for him where I found him first, and left him last. I know I’ll know him when I see him. Those eyes. A nod to the beautiful @bethKempton and her worthy SoulCirle here on Substack - a constant prompt in a world with more questions than answers.