Although I’m a pretty late bloomer to all things sexual, I know the difference between sex, and making love. Some people say it’s sentimental bullshit, but sleeping with the guy I loved was probably one of the best experiences of my life. Him not loving me back also made it one of the most awful experiences of my life.
Dylan was always working. I joked that he was married to his work and that I was his mistress. It was “funny” because we knew he never planned on getting married and that I would never advocate cheating. We didn’t get chance to meet up very often, and when we did he would be distracted. It didn’t stop be being excited to see him though, and when we were together I was always light on my feet. Maybe not cloud 9, but cloud 6 or 7 was pretty good too.
A lot of insecurities I have probably come from my time spent with him. I don’t know when I realised I had fallen in love with him. But one day he sparkled. As if an aura of special surrounded him making everything shine a little more. We would email a lot, me sending him long emails about what had been going on, making jokes, asking how he was and how work was going, his generally one or two sentences telling me he was alive. Sometimes he would sign with an x and it made my heart beat wildly.
His work got busier and busier. He was flying all over the place for it, being out of contact for weeks at a time. I got angry, telling him sending me an email cost no time at all. He apologised and said he would. He even sent me sorry flowers once. But it never stuck. After two months of no contact he came back and I spent the night.
He seemed liked a stranger, this man who looked so beautiful to me. I didn’t know what was going on with him, and so I didn’t know him. But I knew ever line on his face and every scar on his body. In bed I took my time, running my hands over his body, trying to memorise it by touch alone. He’s always been ok to lie back passively, and although he’s told me he liked it, I always took his lack of action as lack of interest. Yet this night, I wanted to savour it.
I kissed and tasted him all over. Running trails of kisses across his body, nibbling his ear or lips or neck, running my hands across his chest, his stomach, his thighs. I tried to massage the tautness out of his shoulders, ease the tension in his neck, soothe out the stress in his head I knew he always had. I knew his body, how tired he might be depending on how he lay, or how worried he was about something by the wrinkles on his forehead.
Tonight however he seemed oddly calm. He kissed me and smiled and rolled me over. His body is so big compared to mine, he completely over shadows me and I can feel the immensity of him. When he enters me I have to bite his shoulder, because although he fills me up so completely I also want to cry. This is the closest a man and a woman can ever be, and to be filled by the man you love is wonderful. But at the same time I kept thinking, do I really know him?
We fuck slowly. Quietly. Building it up. Harder. Faster. Deeper. Silent except for gasps I can’t hold in. I grip onto his shoulders tightly, my legs wrapped around his waist. I can hear his heart hammering against my body. I’m covered in sweat and my head is dizzy. Then, in slow waves I feel my climax and squeeze him tighter. The world seems to fade out and I feel him convulse above me. The moment of blinding sensation lasts forever it feels, and when I can think straight again he’s lying on top of me spent, his head against my breasts, our breaths in sync.
Eventually I roll over, and he is the big spoon. We’re in the sleepy haze cacoon of post sex and I can feel him falling asleep. My head is running wild with a single question. I make three silent attempts that fail before finally asking in a quiet voice “Do you love me?”
He stirs and holds me closer for a moment before sighing “yes.” and then I do cry because I realise I don’t believe him.