My Lady Crush

Elle gets stared at alot. Sometimes I watch other people stare at her. Elle is half Japanese, and half I don't know what. She walks with the elegant and slightly haughty gait of a ballerina with hips that sway imperceptibly. Her lustrous long hair nearly reaches her waist. It's hair to die for, like in the pantene ads. If you were to touch it, it would feel like silk, like cashmere. Her voice could be an aphrodisiac. It doesn't matter what she says. Profanity eludes her. She curses like she recites poetry. The professor makes her read out loud because she's good at it. The melodic lilt of her voice, the perfect articulation, the rhythmic ease as if she doesn't need to pause to breathe...You could admire her blind. She is effortlessly exquisite and unaware that she is so. That's why she is effortless: she is unaware of her allure. If someone told her she was beautiful she'd smile politely. Composure never fails her.

Sometimes I notice my classmate's eyes flicker with desire when she casually tosses her coal black hair over her shoulder, when she crosses and uncrosses her legs, when she frowns in concentration...She doesn't know that she is being watched. If she became aware of her magnetism she might abuse it. She might defiantly stare her admirer down. Her admirer might blush, turn away, then chance another glance because he finds her irresistible, and her defiance even more so. Her beauty makes her unapproachable. That's the only thing that's keeping him back. He's told me so. "I wouldn't dare", he says, half-laughing to let the torture out.

It's not necessarily Elle's beauty I admire, it's her ability to attract. I am obsessed with attraction. The greed of each other. I wonder what Elle's admirer would do to her if he got the chance: whether he'd be timid at first, hardly daring to touch his Helen, his Madonna, his Venus. Perhaps his desire would become barbarous. I don't know if Elle is capable of ravishment, of sweating and panting in an unladylike manner. Elle with disheveled hair. Elle with limbs flung in disarray. Elle undone.

Now I understand why I keep looking at Elle. I want her unravelment to be my own.