Falling Pt. 03 - Fallen

Our eyes are still riveted on one another - misty, florid complexions, tousled hair sticking to our faces - and we push as close as we can without compromising the concentrated movements of our fingers. Our legs are spread, knees pushed against the sides of the bath which supports us, our bodies simmering in perfect synchronicity. Our lips are touching; occasionally the ardent meeting of our tongues as we stroke down to feel each other's accumulating wetness and back up to the molten rawness of our clitorises, fingers wildly gyrating, the fluid sounds of folds of skin being rubbed ever more vigorously... exaltations resonant now as our orgasms begin to suffuse between our bodies, active, the tension erupting, flowing, engulfing us, our jerks and jolts rippling through us, displacing the water, recitations of now familiar sounds bouncing off the white steamed walls as, unerring, we fall into each other, coming and coming and coming...

As we slow, haloed rings of phosphorescent soap are purling back around us as our tongues dance and our hands stroke languidly up and down the length of each other's slick bodies, gripping the back of each other's necks, our damp hair.

Affectionately, we wash the remaining soap from one another, the water cascading down our bodies. There isn't a part of each other we haven't touched. We clean ourselves between our legs; if we touch each other there again, we may never stop.

I watch as you stand for a moment and open the window - will I ever tire of looking at you? - and steam rises from the water in thin tendrils like extinguished candles on a cake. I think: I wish today would never end. I wish I could split myself in two and never leave you. I wish I could float away into forever with you. I wish, I wish...

The water calms, placid as you lie back into me, your back resting against my chest as I encircle you with my arms and softly stroke your skin, kiss your hair and breathe in the lightly perfumed scent of you. We lie still now, quiet, imbued with love.

Years ago, when you told me the best sex had to be with someone you felt an emotional connection to, I put up a foolish argument. I thought about the enticing anonymity of having an illicit rendezvous with a stranger in full adulthood, of understanding more fully the needs of my body and enacting my fantasies away from my husband who I've spent nearly half my life with; sometimes a person can be too close to you - rules of a relationship established long ago, now too firmly set to rewrite, a kind of saving face which isn't necessary with someone you've only just met. With another person, you can be anyone you want - and so I was a different version of myself.

But you are completely different - the only other person who I've fallen for every part of - and I find myself wanting you to know all of me, to know all of you, needing everything with you.

You were right all along.

I recall the first time I heard your voice on the phone as I walked along the path by the green, the tall trees to the right of me, feeling that little tug of connection, even then. When you first opened the door to greet me. Your eyes. Your smile. That first leap of my heart. Not knowing you but feeling, even then, that first pull. Sitting opposite you, my tongue out for you to check, the calm of your voice as you asked me why I'd come for treatment with you. Your fingers around the upturned skin of my wrist to check my pulse, how as the weeks went on I panicked that you'd notice the speed of my heart beating faster under your touch, how I tried to slow my racing mind and body - how I never could. The feel of your fingers running down my legs to check for needles; how I longed for them to travel back up, under the blanket to the warmth of my inner thighs, the soft fabric of my underwear... The motion of your hands massaging my shoulders, how I imagined you reaching around to my breasts and all the other places I wanted them to go... how I never wanted you to stop.

You're the only woman in my whole life who has ever had this immediate effect on me, who I've become attracted to in every way, for whom I feel a complication of emotions which transcend the simplicity of friendship or lust.

To me, you are exceptional, the epitome of perfection.

To you, it must seem I have everything: a loving family, a husband who shares my interests, who is funny, sexy, intelligent, who makes nearly every other person blur into the background, who has captivated me for nearly twenty years, who has seen the darkness in me and wants me anyway, who loves me as unconditionally as a person can love their partner, who would be there for me no matter what...

But this doesn't change my love for you, it doesn't change how I imagine another world which sometimes seems so tangible I could dive right into it. Am I crazy to want this? To secretly wish for a future with you, for this other life which I can never have. To be powerless against the strength of my feelings for you, their indelible permanence, like the tracing of ink over pencil. To keep yearning for you because my world feels incomplete without you in it.

I cherish every moment spent with you.

As we sat by the water, after years of falling for you, I impulsively told you how I felt but - inarticulate, my heart beating in my throat - I struggled to put the depth of my emotions into words. I'm sorry I got it so wrong. I didn't mean to give you the impression that all I wanted was to have sex with you and that, panicking that my feelings weren't reciprocated, I said stupidly the words I'll always regret: I'm not saying I'm in love with you. When what I meant then was only: I'm not in love with you yet. When what I should have said was: I'm falling in love with you. The truth is: I've been falling in love with you from the very beginning.

I just needed some time to get to know your personality a little more deeply, to come to terms with feeling this way about another woman for the first time, to feel the sparks ignite as I touch my lips to yours...

Even more than my salacious thoughts of you, I fantasise about tearing the fabric of my life and weaving it anew: carrying out the everyday acts of our lives together, taking you to meet my family and my other friends, walking with your hand in mine, kissing whenever and wherever we please, looking into your eyes and saying the words which have been trapped in my head for so long, looping and repeating...

I love you - 'poet in my heart', my inspiration.

So now, fallen, my lips brushing against your moistened hair to rest by your ear, I whisper three words. I feel you smile and relax in my arms, our breaths resonating, and I feel at peace.

The water is cooling around us and we both know we can't exist in this little eden forever. But we can stay a while longer; we'll keep each other warm.