Watching Brief

It wasn’t your footsteps that gave you away. It wasn’t your breathing either, though if I close my eyes and stay absolutely silent, I can now hear the occasional stifled gasp as you go to work somewhere behind me.

I’d like to say it was your camera – that the steady, measured click-click of the shutter carried just far enough for me to measure each stroke – but we both know that would be a lie. You’re too clever for that, too cautious, and if you’re using the same fancy piece of equipment you brought to our neighbourhood street party – yes, I watch you too – I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make a noise anyway.

Perfume is a funny thing. We get so used to carrying it round with us, to smelling it on our own skin, that we forget how easily it marks us out to others. The first time I caught it drifting above the familiar mix of lube and damp, fresh-cut grass – the faintest of floral top notes – I knew you were out there in the darkness. I knew you were watching.

I remember pausing for the briefest of moments. A heartbeat, maybe two. I didn’t know it then, but I stood at the fork of two diverging paths, only one of which I could walk. I closed my eyes and felt your eyes on my naked body. On the twitching muscle running along my forearm and the bunched tension in my spread thighs. On my bare back, set square to the bench seat and dappled with sweat even in the cool evening air.

I felt your eyes take it all in. I flexed my fingers and curled them tighter, pressing my thumb hard into the base of my cock. I made my decision.

I’ve never thought about what you do with the photos. I suppose I should, right? Maybe you don’t do anything at all. Maybe you wipe your camera clean each night, ready to start over the next day. Maybe you like to paint on a blank canvas.

But to me, those moments only exist as they’re taking place. My slicked fingers slowly working the head of my cock, as my bare feet brace hard against the ground and my ass grinds into the wooden bench. The soft squelch that gets quicker, louder, as I push my hips forward and thrust through my fist, driven by warring urges. That moment when the handbrake flies off and everything is pure white noise.

Sometimes I sense that you’ve moved closer: your scent is stronger, more insistent, and once I half-turned to catch a flash of sunlight glinting off the lens of your camera, just a few feet behind me in the bushes. It’s silly, but I lay awake that night and worried you wouldn’t come back – that the accidental moment of discovery would scare you away for good.

The fear I felt as I took my seat the next morning and pulled gently at my semi-erect cock lasted less than a minute. I don’t know whether it was the certainty of your presence or my own sudden relief – the exhalation of breath I didn’t even know I was holding – that got me hard.

One day, I’d like to see your orgasm too. I know you’re not just taking photos back there, and while I can’t say for certain whether it’s just my brain playing tricks, I feel like I can smell your cunt sometimes, when you’re really turned on. That always drives me crazy, so I can only imagine what it would be like to watch you in the same way you watch me.

Maybe one day I’ll get to find out. Maybe.

For now though, I’m just glad you like the view.