The Slow Part

You took your coat off like the evening was going to be a long one.

And you hung it up. Which nobody does. And I noticed that I noticed.

There's a way that people move when there's somewhere else they've got to be —

you weren't doing it. And I have not stopped thinking about that since.

You asked me something. Then you did the strange thing — you waited for the answer.

All the way to the end of it. Didn't start your bit halfway through mine.

Do you know what that does. Do you have any idea what that does.

I've been talked over by better-looking men and it did nothing at all.

And your hand got as far as my wrist and then it just stayed there,

and you were in no rush about it, and the whole room went warm—

This is the slow part.

Stay in the slow part.

Anybody can do the fast part — the fast part isn't the part.

Take the long way over. I've got nowhere I have to be.

This is the slow part, baby.

Stay in it with me.

I'm not twenty-two. There's a bit of a history on me and it shows.

And you looked at the whole of it and you didn't do the polite face.

You looked like a man reading something he'd been waiting years to get to,

and you took your time with it. And I have had enough of being skimmed.

And you said my name like it was the entire sentence,

and there was nothing coming after it, and there didn't need to be—

This is the slow part.

Stay in the slow part.

I don't want to be got through. I want to be got to.

Take the long way over. There is nothing after this.

This is the slow part, baby.

Stay in it with me.

Turn the big light off. Leave the one out in the hall.

No — don't say anything clever. You were doing so well.

There's a version of this that takes about twenty minutes and I've had it.

I'm not interested. I want the one where you forget what time it is.

This is the slow part.

(stay in the slow part)

Nobody's timing this. Nobody's keeping score.

Take the long way over — take the longest way you know.

This is the slow part, baby.

Stay in it with me.

Stay in it with me.

Don't look at the time.

I'm not looking at the time.

...Good.