Morning Love

The comforter crumpled beneath him, his long body stretched out naked, warm, waiting.

I stopped in my tracks to take in the still-surprising sight of him in my bed. He held out his hand to me and I moved to sit on the edge of the bed and smile down at him. He looked younger, clearer, more like he might have back then, I thought, with her.

He slid a hand under my hair, wrapped it around the nape of my neck and pulled me to him. He kissed me, then buried his face in my neck. "I know we have to go soon, but..."

I covered him with my body and kissed him everywhere, each kiss a prayer. The noon light filtered through the curtains and reflected out in strange glowing shapes from inside the dresser mirror. And sound itself seemed to hush.

When my prayers were done I rose and, straddling him, began moving my hips in slow circles over his. He watched my eyes as I ran my hands down the length of his waist over and over again. And in that warm forgiving moment, we witnessed each other into becoming; adjusting ourselves, together, into this new place.

I bent forward to let my hair fall over his face, to kiss his wet cheeks, his open mouth, the sharp bristly curve of his jaw. His hands wound through my hair and over my breasts, and his hips rose tightly to meet me at every circling of my own. But as my hand closed around him to guide him into me, he stopped me and sat up, wrapping his arms around me, kissing my neck. Finally, into the rising heat between us, he whispered something without words. I drew back, not understanding, but trusting, I waited for what he wanted.

Finally, he moved out from under me and sat up against the pillows at the head of the bed. He settled himself with his legs crossed but slightly open and held his arms out to me. I crawled into the nest he had made of himself and he laid me sideways across his body, cradling me, wrapping one arm around me while the other gently opened my legs. I leaned back to rest my head against his chest and closed my eyes to feel his touch trace a line along my inner thigh, up and over my belly and down the other thigh. He did this over and over until I turned to kiss him. And as I opened his mouth with mine, he slid his hand along my belly and down between my legs. Then more tenderly than I have ever felt a man's touch, he simply rested his cupped hand against me. And that was all.

He rubbed his cheek against my hair and let his breath brush across my ear, but other than that he did not move. I could feel the rising fullness of his cock straining between my hip and his belly, but still his hand did not move. I took in a great, satisfied breath, and he curved himself inward slightly to make room for me.

This is how he said it.

We breathed. And for the longest time, there was only the slow coming together of our breath's rhythm. And then I understood... this is the giving that lives beneath the words. And so I let myself begin to rest into his giving, opening to receive it. And eventually, his stillness made me still. Still in an ageless way - present, sacred. And as I lay there in his arms, learning how to rest in his hand, in the wash of that filtered noon sun, I began to hear the chant of a world that had never spoken to me before.

And the voice of that world sang to me, "you are safe, you are safe, you are safe... let go" until the melting truth of it came as all the tears I never cried. And before I could know it, I felt all the perverted obsessive highs of the past wither and fall away in dishonor. All the times I made myself silent and invisible, legs too tightly together out of fear of being hurt, invaded, destroyed... fell away. All the jabbing in and slipping out of diaphragms and IUDs, the burn of spermicides, the irritation of condoms, all the cramping and pain of month after month of the flow of blood that had been shamed. All the infections, irritations, frustrations. All the awkward digging and poking invasions of doctors and other learned men. All the gut-punch injustices of being female in this distorted world simply fell away in that precious moment. And there I was. Unwrapped.

My sobbing eventually subsided, and the stillness between us continued to feed on the tides of our breath but did not move from its own inviolable center. It seemed for a time that the sun itself had even paused in its arc for us, to give us this moment, this healing, this temporary shelter in which to house, for just a moment, the deep mystery of being human - a man and a woman.

But as the day rose inevitably to its own warmth, the increasing heat between the center of myself and his holding hand became, in the most luscious way, too much. And finally I no longer wanted to resist the delicious urge to push just a little against the hollow cup of his palm and then more urgently against the broad hard heel of his hand. I no longer wanted to be still. And as my wetness began to spread down my thighs and soak his wrist, and the musky salt smell of me began to wrap itself around us, he took in a sharp breath of it and clenched his jaw. He let out a long low throaty moan and shifted his hips under mine so that his cock was pressed more firmly against me.

I looked down to see his forearm flex as he pushed his hand up, almost imperceptively, against me. And at this new firmness, I opened my legs wider, slid my hands over my breasts and down along my thighs and began to thrust my whole body forward and back in a slow tense oval within his hand. My thighs began to shake from the tension and the small of my back arched up away from his body. I turned my face into the crook of his neck and opened my mouth so I could take in more of his scent. And from somewhere deep inside me, my voice hummed up through my throat in an old old song, and I felt my pelvis let go into an effortless rocking, the same unquestioning trust of deep water against the great holding earth below it. And I became, at that moment, the wet salt sea herself, held in the loving hand of her secret god.

The entire room held us within our own scent, tangy and consecrated, and vastly fresh like endless turquoise water. His breath and mine became a single golden ribbon weaving through the room, lifted and swayed by a confluence of currents, air moving towards visibility. And with every deep breath I took of that living air, waves of colors I have no names for radiated outward from the edges of the mirror as clouds passed over the sun and drifted away.

Light unpacked its wares and that beautiful first morning of May bent itself to make room for the weight of living. And in the center of it all, I was dancing and everything female danced with me. Rocking in the webwork of his open hand. And just as I let go, just as I opened my whole self to the uncoiling whorl of it all, I heard him strain and groan under the expectant weight of my pleasure.

A forever later, I opened my eyes to see him watching me intently, waiting. I could not speak. Words, like the margins of my own body, the walls of that bedroom, simply had not been re-invented yet. But the intensity in his gaze brought me back little by little until I realized that his whole body was vibrating around me. I reached up to touch his mouth, as if I could feel words into being there. But instead, he took my hand in his and licked my palm, deliberately and deliciously, then guided my hand down to his cock.

As soon as my wet hand made contact, his whole body arched and he was suddenly and fiercely above me, shoving my legs apart with his. He hovered over me, elbows to either side of my head, and grabbed my hair in two tight handfuls. He held me there for a long moment, looking into my eyes desperately, as if he would never see me again. And as he thrust full into me with a low throaty grunt, his eyes never left mine. We watched ourselves in each other's eyes until he slowly withdrew and thrust again. And a third time until I fell into the long blue halls behind his eyes and the sound that came from my mouth was one that told him I was not afraid for either of us to die. He let go of my hair, gathered me tight against his chest and closed his mouth roughly on mine. He buried himself within me again and again until his voice suddenly broke open, surrendering into my mouth the cry no man ever plans to make. And as he poured into me, I received him deep and holy, like a last breath. And for the first time in his life, he gave all he was without shame.