He took a drink to steel his resolve. "this is going to be hard, " he thought, " the hardest thing I've ever had to do." This was an understatement, of course. Throughout his travels, the slightly jaded, forever engaged man about town that he was, would dabble in any and everything he could. The attempt was to savor life to its fullest. No Fear. No inhibitions. Except, when it came to love. He could jump out of an airplane with no parachute and land safely on guts and heart alone, but he could never bring himself to fully love. Let alone tell anyone he did or even allude to the fact. He had been in love of course. The first time left him jaded and the second left him broken.
So, yes, This was going to be hard for him. Seconds danced with infinity as the the ice in his whiskey(on the rocks always) shifted glacially. Waiters moved like erosion on an old mountain. He could see the sinew in his steak soften. "Jesus, he thought, I sure wish this tympani in my chest would quiet down. Pianissimo, big fella pianissimo." Wit was easy in his head, but then again, his brain wasn't nearly as breathtaking as his companion before him. Not in the first.
"HELL-OH," his companion blurted. "You said you had something to say and then you just went blank." Damn, he thought she would just let it go when the waiter brought her duck with cranberries. But, no, the spitfire pressed on. She was going to make him say this. Wasn't she? Couldn't she see in his eyes that his love for her stretched to an infant star whose light had yet to reach earth. Didn't she feel, telepathically, the longing and need when he was away from her; the permanence of passion; the ubiquitous yearning. Simply, she was his drug. He would have to climb Everest in mammoth skin to reach the height and warmth of her being and her presence. Why couldn't she just SEE it. Why did he have to SAY it. Words come a dime a dozen and are worth about as much as a teet with no nipple in the face of action. Action. That was no problem. It was the words. It was the risk that she would break him again, leaving the jumper with no parachute, guts, or heart as he plummeted back down from Everest. 
It was worth the risk. The only risk he thought twice about. She made him kiss the sky and savor the vapor as he flew. She was his atmosphere when there was no air. She was his earth when he was unstable. She was his water when the aridness of a single life parched the skin. She was his..."Ahhh, I hate it when you do that. Stop stalling and tell me, " she spoke, interrupting the reverie. He needed one last sip; the fire of the liquor started a furnace inside him. It raged in him like the fury of an unruly sea, like a petulant child deprived of his candy filling his void of courage. Say it, you bastard. Just say it, he thought. "I know I've said a lot of things to you in our time together half of it bull and the other half shit, but hyperbole aside my dear, I..."
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