The Naked Truth

What would I do if you were here now? Whinge about how tired I am, is my first reaction. I’d like to have my hair stroked, and a bath run, and a cup of tea made, and a cigarette lit. And if you could breathe for me, and fall asleep for me, that would be good too.

But I wouldn’t. Sometimes I open my door and am taken by surprise at the memory of you coming up the stairs to me, and I relive pulling you into the hall, and then in real life I grimace at my downstairs neighbor and promise I’ll make sure the outside door is shut and the gate too.

I’d turn you over, face down, and lie my body over yours, face down. Face turned against your neck, breath warm against the chain. My arms stretched out along the length of yours, the tender inside of my elbow cloaking the hard bone of yours, and my fingers would close around your wrists. Breast squashed flat into the broad breadth of your back, and my body would curve over the rise of your ass. My legs would be laid against yours and my feet hooked around your ankles, but only for a moment.

When I say maybe we wouldn’t drive each other crazy, I don’t know if I believe myself, or if it’s what you want to hear or not (it would be more convenient if we did, after all; better if it was just a hopeless cause, but sometimes it’s a comfort to doubt that).

My legs laid along yours until my thighs fell open and my knees came up so I held you gripped beneath me. And I’d lie there silently, though my fingers would release their grip a little and curl in wordless imploration until I felt you twist yourself face up, and then what would I do?

You shouldn’t ask me when I’m tired, because then I think I’d just feel such peace, but if you were here now, I’d be neither tired nor peaceful, just adrenalized into fight or flight mode (but I’d fly to you, not from you, and it would be the mating dance of fight that would effortlessly prevail).

Whatever you wanted, that’s what I’d do; whatever you want now, when I write this, or when you read it, or when I tell you.