After some time spent looking through records we purchase a few things separately. We maintain a comfortable but voluminous silence that washes over me. As we turn out the door onto the sidewalk dusk is setting. There is a new tension around everything in the transition, an expectancy around the dusk... around what we are. I look over and you take my free hand lacing our fingers gently. We walk into the purple gray light like we're wearing old things and new things together. There is sadness and wholeness, a loss and a closeness and the sudden transparency of it revolves around us. I can feel the weight of my high-necked black sweater on my shoulders and the way my jeans brush the tops of my thighs in my stride. I don't want to mar it. I don't want cut into it. I don't want to break open the loveliness of the moment but I want to speak. I feel the beat open up between us and look over slightly.
"You know what I love about this moment?"
"What?"
"We're here in this place. We're going home and I'm so relieved. I know who I am supposed to be. What I need. What's needed of me. I know what's going to happen when we get there and it makes me feel so good. I get to be in this moment. I don't have to make anything or force anything. It's just going to happen the way it's meant to be. We're going to walk in the door and you're going to put on one of the things we bought. I will walk directly to the bedroom and climb into the bed and lean into the backboard, closing my eyes. I know I don't need to go anywhere else or say anything. I can just go right there and what you choose will start echoing down the hallway. And you're going to come in after me and possibly kneel against the edge of the bed with your hands in your pockets at that weird angle you always do. You'll look at me for a moment. We'll look at each other. You'll lean towards me and pull the sweater over my head and drop it behind you. You'll move over me while I pull off your shirt and you'll start touching me everywhere. There's no space for anything else. No questioning silence while we sit next to each other while you pluck intensely at your guitar. I don't have to fill a pregnant lull with inane thoughts. I don't need to wonder what to do with myself. We know how it began even if we don't know how it ends and that's all that matters in this beat. It's the best I've ever felt in any moment. I know what I want. I know what I feel and I'm not alone in this moment. After everything you need me like I need you."
"Yeah," he says in his sympathetic thoughtful way. Silence. "But couldn't we just say we're going home to screw around?"
I feel laughter and relief arc out of me. He looks over at me grinning but his eyes are the give. What I said was more than effecting and possibly unnerving. His cosmic gift: humor with understanding.
"It felt good to say it but maybe that was too intense for the not-so-casual stroll back to the fuck lair. It's okay, I'll be easier after you fuck it out of me."
He pulls me closer tittering slightly and puts his arm around my waist. I lean into his smell putting my head on his shoulder. I reach up to the top of his neck to finger his dark curls.
The thick is broken and as we approach the apartment door the seriousness descends again but in a different bend. He puts his hand on the door knob and looks back to me with a wide-eyed anticipatory jokey look but, as always, his eyes betray him. We go in and he takes the bag out of my hand and sets it on a table. His embrace comes on so quickly I almost forget who I am. His kiss lifts me out of myself a bit. I pull back to pant a bit "Why is it like this?"
"I don't know. Be quiet," he says. I laugh. He is kissing me and walking me towards the hall. The bed inches closer and he lets me down onto it. I pull him down onto the bed and roll over on top of him. I pull off my top and throw it hard lightly laughing. He pulls me down while I'm starting to work off his shirt and tears start running down my face involuntarily. He treats this reaction with reverence and puts his mouth on the curve of my neck.
"Jesus," I exhale.
