Writing About Body Language Novels & Stories

"Without genuine curiosity about your partner's responses. Without willingness to learn their specific body." She walked to a massage table set up at the side of the stage. The movement drew my eyes to her legs. The dress ended just above her knees. Professional. Appropriate. My brain cataloged the curve of her calves anyway. Stop it. A volunteer joined her onstage. A woman in a university sweatshirt who lay face down on the table, fully clothed. "Touch is a language." The lecturer placed her hands on the volunteer's shoulders. "Like any language, it requires both speaking and listening."

It’s in the way they lean over to whisper in his ear, or how they look at each other when they form a mind link. Their body language is subtle, nearly imperceptible, but I’m hyper alert, picking up on even the minutest twitches or eye movements. Being quiet and still for long periods, spending time alone, just watching people, taught me how to read them. And my father isn’t nearly as sneaky as he likes to believe he is. The man is a wide, open book printed in big, bold letters.

I asked ever so slowly that my voice came out all low and guttural. She shook her head, but not before biting the side of her lower lip—a habit I was beginning to associate with lies or denial from her. Funny how I was already studying this whore like she was a fucking exam I planned to ace. Even she would be shocked at the kind of shit I could tell from her body language alone. I took a few calming breaths to calm the fire raging inside me before letting go of her. I needed to breathe air that didn't reek of lavender and unholy temptation.

"My best friend on the other hand... she wishes you could keep the volume at zero." "Oh, that's why she hates me." "Hate is a big word." I chuckle. "How did you even know that she hates you? You guys don't talk." "Body language speaks volumes." Nate suddenly looks away and turns to his laptop. He goes silent on me again. Busy buried in his laptop. I'm sipping my coffee when he looks up from the screen, a bizarre look on his face. Almost like he's trying to microanalyze me. "What?"

Her voice trembled, and I couldn’t help but lean in, brushing my lips against her ear. “Shhhh… You don’t need to say anything,” I whispered, my breath warm against her skin. “I know what you’re feeling. Don’t fight it.” She didn’t answer. But she didn’t need to. Her body language told me everything. The way her chest rose and fell in rapid succession, the way her lips parted just a fraction, the way she leaned into me without even realizing it. I was done playing around. My hand moved to her back, pulling her toward me, the space between us closing in an instant.

I won't let him forget it. The day ticks forward. He takes another call, then another. His body language betrays him, stepping away each time, hushed and hurried. My suspicion grows with every furtive move, every nervous glance. I make myself comfortable, make myself home. I stretch, let my body show its true nature. The canines in my mouth begin to press against my lips, and I smile.

I saw his face inching to the side, watching every crease and dot on my face. “Do you know what your body wants?” He asked. “Food,” I said. “No. It wants security, warmth, love, and pleasure. It wants everything, all at once, and even then it won't be content. The body is easy to read, all the tells it has, to show just what it wants at that moment,” he drew lines over my leg with his fingers.

“It’s a very different festival energy. More listening, less… chaos.” Paul’s voice lowered slightly, more sincere. “Yeah. It’s… special.” Celeste watched his hands as he spoke, tracking the small movements. Fingers flexing once, then settling into stillness. He leaned closer to the mic when he meant something, voice dropping slightly, pulled back when he was joking, adding physical distance to emotional distance. His body was a map, every gesture a signpost. She could read him better than he liked, better than he probably knew. The host nodded, eyes bright. “Do you feel pressure going into that?”

He follows the instruction with the focus of a man who has always learned best through his body, his fingers tracing the exact path I described on the page, down the curve of my stomach and over my hip bone and across the crease of my thigh until his middle finger finds me slick and swollen. The sound I make is the sound the character on page twelve makes, which means either my writing is more autobiographical than I thought or his hands are better at interpreting prose than any workshop I’ve ever attended. “What happens next,” he says against my hip, and it isn’t a question. “Next your mouth replaces your hand.” His mouth replaces his hand.

I put the book down. "Rhea thinks you need to learn rooms," she said. "I agree with Rhea, which is not something I say often, so note it." She pulled a chair up and sat across from me with the direct, economical posture she carried everywhere, the posture of someone who had never in her life wasted a physical inch on performance. "I am going to teach you how to read a room and how to move through one and how to make people feel that you are exactly where you are supposed to be even when you have never been in that room before in your life. This is a learnable skill. It is not glamour and it is not magic. It is information management and body language and knowing where the power in any given