I wanted to kiss you there and then. To gently press my lips on yours, just for a few seconds, just to taste you.

But would it have been right? After all, we only met two hours ago, drank coffee and talked for an hour and forty minutes. An hour and forty minutes to try to gain some intimacy, an hour and forty minutes to discreetly look you up and down; to assess you perfectly shaped rear; to imagine the rest of you under your shirt; to admire your handsome face, your white teeth and pretty brown eyes, long blond hair tamed in a ponytail and neat beard. No, you are not my usual type, but you are a stunning vista, a foreign landscape, like looking over Venice rather than my usual East coast seaside town.

Yes, I wanted to kiss you, to transport myself to this other world. But I am still not sure you are ready to take me. There was a brief hesitation, a flicker in your eyes as we parted at the station, but you are playing your cards close to your chest.

Maybe I am not enough for your land, not the willowy, long-limbed beauty who would match you, too much bulk to sit well in your gondola. Maybe it would tip a little more at my side – not quite a perfect symmetry.

As I teetered back to our table with more coffee, I sensed you watching me, scanning my top to toe as I looked down to try not to spill hot liquids.

Were you disappointed? Was I a five out of ten? For you are surely an eight or nine.

But still, I wanted to kiss you, to taste the sweet nectar of an eight or nine, to entwine myself around your perfect frame, maybe even glide a hand down to your textbook –perfect rear, to feel you against me. A brief few seconds to drink you in would at least give me a glimpse, a peek through a crack into this unreachable world.