Here in the Real World
Originally published at Postcards from the Wasteland. Please leave any comments there.
It’s after a longish night texting that I realize how much I miss him. Not because I am aroused by the punters-if anything, it’s the opposite. But when I have to answer “what are you wearing” with the 9-thousandth variant of “something sexy”, and realize how often I ask him that question, I realize that I really want to know what he IS wearing. That it’s the him in jeans and a t-shirt that attracts me, not some made-up froth.
And I am equally honest with him-expecting him to feel the same way, because, frankly, he KNOWS I am not a fancy-pants girl and is startled by it when I try. Not to say that he doesn’t like it, but he was more tickled with a pair of skull-crusted boy-cuts than he was with a sexy little frilly black lace number I wore. He loved the “idea” of me dressing up for him-and even admitted that I looked fantastic in it, but was like, “You just don’t look as comfortable!”
And that, somehow, is a sweetness, a specialness. It tells me that this is a man who is ok with it if I am running around with a masque on my face and socks on my feet (Ok, he has admitted he does NOT like me sleeping in socks). But someone who is mature enough to understand that we aren’t always gorgeous. Someone who understands what a level of trust it is when we, as women, let them see us with our hair in a squashy Afro and crusts of drool by our mouth.
It’s real. He’s real. And so am I. No more Pinocchio-style games for this girl.