For the next ten minutes...
And on Sunday mornings we would lie there next to each other in her antique bed, bathing in each other's company. She would always make breakfast and bring it to me in bed. Fried eggs, turkey bacon, and orange juice. Sitting Indian-style facing me, she would talk freely and laugh openly while she would pick apart her eggs with her hands. Then, she would wipe her greasy fingers on a paper towel and lean forward to kiss me, before standing and stepping over me and into the kitchen, to deposit our soiled plates in the sink.
Lying on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed she slowly ate her Lucky Charms, carefully picking out the cereal pieces first and placing them gently on her tongue, one at a time. I sat up against the footboard, watching her and listening to her effortlessly croon the lyrics to thousands of songs stored in the voluminous caverns of her memory. She used to say that every new song she learned pushed out some other, less-important memory, like her first step or her first kiss.
Sundays were her writing days. She spent hours lying half naked on that bed scrawling her artist's hand into the journals she was constantly filling. Occasionally she would rest her chin on her hand, look up at me, and tell me something I could never have thought of myself. Sometimes, she even read a passage she was particularly proud of out loud; then she would search my face, looking for the reaction behind my responding words.
Even the over-sized, bulky sweaters she wore some days couldn't hide the beautiful softness in the sloping surfaces of her body. She always swept her long hair up into a messy pile on top of her head, and it always fell stubbornly back into her focused face. She smiled, but did not look up when I brushed it behind her ear.
After her shower, she walked naked to where I still sat reading, her hair wrapped in a towel. She sat in my lap, straddling me so that her eyes met mine, and took away the towel so that her hair fell in gentle waves onto her shoulders and back. The clean scent of her hair and the feel of her downy, still-damp skin against me as she kissed me and held my face with prune-y fingers were the things of dreams, of drug-induced ecstasy. She was answering the very question Cat Stevens was asking over the speakers - she was telling me that she loved me - better than any words could.
Sundays were shopping days, too. A short trip down the block in thick coats and the scarves she knitted for the both of us. At the sharp rush of winter wind, she grabbed my arm in hers and held it tightly to her chest, burying her nose in the wool and smiling. Whole chickens and potatoes to mash and Cool Whip and Bisquick and fresh berries and 2% milk and thick cream and dark coffee and whole grains and grits and thick cheeses and butter - all comfort foods to console some hidden brooding deep inside. I laugh when she says, "Comfortable is my favorite feeling," because I know it's true. Back into the cold, sniffling and laughing and carrying her share, of course.
We are barely inside before she presses herself into me again, mouth hungry for mine, fingers already undoing buttons and zippers. For these few moments there is nothing but us. For one second, the world revolves around us. Her breasts and stomach against my chest, her arms around me and mine around her. Our rhythm together and her legs encircling my torso, pulling me closer. We put our arms 'round each other, tried to shove ourselves back together.
At night she draws a bath and lights incense and candles. I am rarely invited into this sanctuary, but the nights I am are the best nights of my life. Sitting in the warm water across from her or wrapping my arms around her from behind, I never enjoy her company more than when I am allowed to enter this womb-like home she creates in a four-by-six porcelain basin. Than when I could truly feel that we were one, that her arms and legs were mine, that our lips melded together in a perfect fit.
I never tired of our Sunday routine.
The day I left was a Sunday. That morning, finding her last marshmallow gone, she stood and walked into the bathroom. I heard her begin running a bath, which made me look up from yesterday's paper. I turned to see her in the doorway, leaning naked against the frame. She stared right through me as she said, "I want you gone when I come out." I didn't say anything. How could I? I knew. I sighed and looked away. When I looked back, the door had shut, and I was alone.
Lying on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed she slowly ate her Lucky Charms, carefully picking out the cereal pieces first and placing them gently on her tongue, one at a time. I sat up against the footboard, watching her and listening to her effortlessly croon the lyrics to thousands of songs stored in the voluminous caverns of her memory. She used to say that every new song she learned pushed out some other, less-important memory, like her first step or her first kiss.
Sundays were her writing days. She spent hours lying half naked on that bed scrawling her artist's hand into the journals she was constantly filling. Occasionally she would rest her chin on her hand, look up at me, and tell me something I could never have thought of myself. Sometimes, she even read a passage she was particularly proud of out loud; then she would search my face, looking for the reaction behind my responding words.
Even the over-sized, bulky sweaters she wore some days couldn't hide the beautiful softness in the sloping surfaces of her body. She always swept her long hair up into a messy pile on top of her head, and it always fell stubbornly back into her focused face. She smiled, but did not look up when I brushed it behind her ear.
After her shower, she walked naked to where I still sat reading, her hair wrapped in a towel. She sat in my lap, straddling me so that her eyes met mine, and took away the towel so that her hair fell in gentle waves onto her shoulders and back. The clean scent of her hair and the feel of her downy, still-damp skin against me as she kissed me and held my face with prune-y fingers were the things of dreams, of drug-induced ecstasy. She was answering the very question Cat Stevens was asking over the speakers - she was telling me that she loved me - better than any words could.
Sundays were shopping days, too. A short trip down the block in thick coats and the scarves she knitted for the both of us. At the sharp rush of winter wind, she grabbed my arm in hers and held it tightly to her chest, burying her nose in the wool and smiling. Whole chickens and potatoes to mash and Cool Whip and Bisquick and fresh berries and 2% milk and thick cream and dark coffee and whole grains and grits and thick cheeses and butter - all comfort foods to console some hidden brooding deep inside. I laugh when she says, "Comfortable is my favorite feeling," because I know it's true. Back into the cold, sniffling and laughing and carrying her share, of course.
We are barely inside before she presses herself into me again, mouth hungry for mine, fingers already undoing buttons and zippers. For these few moments there is nothing but us. For one second, the world revolves around us. Her breasts and stomach against my chest, her arms around me and mine around her. Our rhythm together and her legs encircling my torso, pulling me closer. We put our arms 'round each other, tried to shove ourselves back together.
At night she draws a bath and lights incense and candles. I am rarely invited into this sanctuary, but the nights I am are the best nights of my life. Sitting in the warm water across from her or wrapping my arms around her from behind, I never enjoy her company more than when I am allowed to enter this womb-like home she creates in a four-by-six porcelain basin. Than when I could truly feel that we were one, that her arms and legs were mine, that our lips melded together in a perfect fit.
I never tired of our Sunday routine.
The day I left was a Sunday. That morning, finding her last marshmallow gone, she stood and walked into the bathroom. I heard her begin running a bath, which made me look up from yesterday's paper. I turned to see her in the doorway, leaning naked against the frame. She stared right through me as she said, "I want you gone when I come out." I didn't say anything. How could I? I knew. I sighed and looked away. When I looked back, the door had shut, and I was alone.