TM prompt 148: What keeps you up at night?
What keeps you up at night?
I often end up staying late working. I spend most of the evenings talking to Jonathan, even these days. We sit for hours at the dinner table discussing something or other, not caring much about anything we need to do. It is always a while until I even remember to clear the table, and by then Jonathan is exhausted and wants to go to sleep. I have to do my work for the next school day, writing lesson plans and reading students’ work. These days, my eyes ache from doing all that by the light of a single candle, but it’s worth it, because I do love my work and I don’t want to give it up.
But by the time I’m done working, Jonathan is always asleep.
It’s probably a good thing, because both of us have trouble being physically intimate with one another. It’s not that we don’t love each other - we do, oh, so much - but anything more than a kiss is difficult for us both. We both end up looking away from each other, trying not to cry.
At least both of us understand each other in this. I know that seeing me naked beneath him, gasping with pleasure, reminds him too much of the Count’s brides. And he knows that every time he touches me I am reminded of the Count. We don’t talk about it, but we both know.
So I let him fall asleep and then, when I come to bed perhaps a few hours later, I stroke his hair and kiss his cheek and then go to sleep on my side of the bed. And I hope that I won’t dream of the Count’s blood in my mouth again, and wonder if Jonathan is dreaming of the blonde vampire with her wavy hair crouching over him, maybe with her teeth in his neck this time.
I often end up staying late working. I spend most of the evenings talking to Jonathan, even these days. We sit for hours at the dinner table discussing something or other, not caring much about anything we need to do. It is always a while until I even remember to clear the table, and by then Jonathan is exhausted and wants to go to sleep. I have to do my work for the next school day, writing lesson plans and reading students’ work. These days, my eyes ache from doing all that by the light of a single candle, but it’s worth it, because I do love my work and I don’t want to give it up.
But by the time I’m done working, Jonathan is always asleep.
It’s probably a good thing, because both of us have trouble being physically intimate with one another. It’s not that we don’t love each other - we do, oh, so much - but anything more than a kiss is difficult for us both. We both end up looking away from each other, trying not to cry.
At least both of us understand each other in this. I know that seeing me naked beneath him, gasping with pleasure, reminds him too much of the Count’s brides. And he knows that every time he touches me I am reminded of the Count. We don’t talk about it, but we both know.
So I let him fall asleep and then, when I come to bed perhaps a few hours later, I stroke his hair and kiss his cheek and then go to sleep on my side of the bed. And I hope that I won’t dream of the Count’s blood in my mouth again, and wonder if Jonathan is dreaming of the blonde vampire with her wavy hair crouching over him, maybe with her teeth in his neck this time.