It's morning, the sunlight is filtering its way through the curtains but that's not what wakes me. It's your hand, gently but insistently stroking between my legs. I lie still for a moment, not yet acknowledging your touch, debating whether or not to open my eyes. I decide to play a waiting game, wondering what you will do next.
You keep on and, just as I decide that you must be aware that I am awake, I hear the impatient huffing noise that you sometimes make and something in me sighs in resignation as I open my eyes. You are looking at my face while your hand continues its relentless movement. I smile and murmur "Good morning".
Your only reply is the smirk that deepens on your face.
I move closer to you, slipping one hand between our bodies, finding you already erect and ready for me. Impatient for my touch, you shove yourself against me. Your eyes are closed now and, as I move still closer to you, you make no attempt to hold me, one hand folded beneath your head on the pillow, the other busying working beneath the sheet.
It comes to me then. This is all about last night. I saw the grim expression on your face as you saw me talking to another, your scowl when I laughed when he told me something funny. This is about reminding me that I am yours, marking your territory like some rampant tomcat.
As you open your eyes I close mine, fearful that you might see the realisation in my eyes. I love you and for that reason I decide that if this is what you want then so be it. But I don't like it.
I open my eyes again and see that yours are closed. There is a strange expression on your face and I recognise it as disappointment. Your hand continues its movements but you are having no effect on me. You are impatient with me, needing me to be as aroused as you are. I can't help but frown as I realise that you are more excited this morning than you have been for a long time. I don't like what that tells me about you and I push it to the back of my mind, reaching for your lips with mine.
Whether it was coincidence that made you choose that exact moment to move, or whether it was intentional, I will never know, but it was just another nail in the coffin. You sit up and throw back the sheet, sliding one hand down to my legs, pulling them apart as you move down between them. You slide down the bed until your mouth finds its target, nuzzling and licking in an attempt to remedy the dryness that you find there. Your fingers push into me, opening me up, jabbing into me.
It puzzles me that your actions still have no effect. In the past, when you have done this, it has made me cry aloud with the sensations that I feel. This morning there is nothing and I do not understand how that can be. I see you steal a sly glance at me and realise that you too are puzzled and I try to remember my former reactions so that I can mimic them. I writhe a little and whimper and your ego is satisfied. I can see the grin on your face as you slide back up the bed towards me.
It is only when you speak, hoarsely ordering me to turn around, that I realise that you have said nothing so far. There are no words of love for me this morning, no soft breathless whispers of passion.
I feel your hardness pushing between my thighs and gasp as you roughly enter me. You take it for a sign of my pleasure and not the discomfit that it was. One hand strays down to my breast, the first time since I awoke that you have touched me anywhere except between my legs. Your hand is rough, tweaking insensitively at my nipple, and I'm glad that I am turned away from you so that you cannot see the expression on my face. I grit my teeth.
To give you your due, you are trying now to be gentle. You nuzzle my neck and I can smell your breath, sour with the beer that you drank the night before.
I feel you pull out of me and I wonder fleetingly what is happening. I do not need to wonder for long as you turn me onto my back, positioning yourself above me, lifting my legs to gain access as you enter me again. I realise, with a sinking heart, that you need to see my face. For a moment I think about letting you know how I feel about this. Again, it is out of love that I call upon my acting skills, biting my lip and pasting a look of pleasure on my face.
I peer at your face through my eyelashes and see the frown on your face as your movements become more urgent, your hips jerking spasmodically as you slam yourself in and out of my body. I find myself being crushed against the mattress as the headboard thuds rhythmically against the bedroom wall. I am grateful for the fact that we have done this so many times before that my body is used to yours and I only feel a mild discomfort.
But then again, that was love and this cannot be described as any more than sex.
Your movements grow more urgent still and I am frightened by the violence with which you thrust into me. I am even beginning to panic until I see the frown deepen on your face and you slam yourself deep inside me. I feel the hot rush of your seed and I hear you moan. Your movements first slowing, then stopping as your body sinks onto mine briefly before you lift yourself off, rolling on to the mattress next to me.
I lie still for a moment, letting the air back into my crushed lungs. Then I turn my head to look at you. You lie on your back; both arms flung upward next to your head on the pillow. Your eyes are closed but I don't think you are asleep. And so we lie there together, lovers yet strangers sharing this bed, so close yet a million miles apart. In possessing me this way you have only served to drive us further apart than I could have imagined possible.
I think about the women that I know who would be content with this, trading their bodies in exchange for the warmth of a body next to theirs. But it is not enough for me to share your body, or even your mind. It is your soul I wish to share, joining together so completely that there is no pretence or unanswered questions. Each of us knowing and accepting the other completely. But then, I am a romantic, and perhaps that feeling exists only in my imagination.
I am the first to move. I sit up and pull my flimsy dressing gown from its place on the chair next to the bed, needing to cover myself in front of your eyes, as I have never needed to before.
Before I slip out of bed and make for the shower I lean over and gently press my lips to yours. The only acknowledgement you make is a soft grunting noise. I wait for your arms to move around me but they don't.
I pull away from you then, finding no intimacy there, even as I taste myself on your lips. I had no idea it was possible to feel this alone and I think that it must have been that moment that decided me. This was not what I wanted. You were not the person I had been waiting for.
You had no idea and I could not tell you. Even at that moment, concern for your male pride struck me dumb and I decided that it would have to wait. There would be a time and a place to tell you but this was not it. But there was no doubt in my mind.
