Touch.

Touch.

Breathe in.

Fingertips in passing.

A chewed lip, eyes vacant.

Escalating to ever greater heights, losing sleep now.

Squirming guts, hot skin, goose bumps, shivers, unable to focus, concentration all wrong.

He knows this pattern, this ache, this sickness, recognizes the formula, the ever expanding growth of it, the unhealthy, obsessive admiration.

A foolish grin, unstoppable, rises to his face and is returned, frighteningly enough, like maybe there's a chance. Unthinkable to miss a variable like a hot, heavy hand lingering too long on his shoulder.

It doesn't balance, but then it never does, the careful calculations and the blistering want. The skin itching for the press of lips and the beat of cold water spraying from the shower head. The touch of his own hand on his thigh and the imagined shadow of a lover behind him in the steam.

Florescent lights hum and computer fans hiss as he leans in for the first kiss. Propagating spiral. Swelling geopotenial height. Ever increasing revolutions per minute. Blame it on the late hours. On the stress. On the way the figures stack atop each other like an inverted pyramid. Eventually it will topple. Eventually it will slip out from under the squeaking chalk and escape into the ether. At this moment, it is enough that he can touch, touch, one hand on a knee, his pencil point completing the final digit.