The Long Highway Pt. 48

The Window Sill

You had stayed over and left in the morning, had something to do. I understood.

You'd liked a potted plant in the bedroom and before leaving reached to it on the window sill, took the clay pot in both hands without moving it, just to see and feel, admire, brought your face up close. I admired you in turn, watched you hold the curved earthen surface gently in your palms as if you were caressing me in the morning light, so thin and insubstantial at that hour but building strength moment by moment.

Then with a whispered goodbye you were gone. "Stay," you said. You wanted me to keep luxuriating in bed where we had together, to feel you a while longer, to breathe in the perfume we'd made overnight, and I did, eased back to the pale violet sheets, pale almost white and badly rumpled. You watched me turn around, get comfortable. I could see you wanted to join me again.

My husband had been away on a trip for work and returned earlier than expected. I was still in bed. He didn't come in to the bedroom, thought I was asleep and kindly wanted not to wake me.

I turned to cleaning up your come from the sheet. There was a lot. I looked under me. The sheet was covered but not only there. Further up by the pillow I found wide pool after sticky wet pool. You'd come so much because you'd been so excited. I remember how you'd called out, a deep roar, a surprise, your animal nature erupting.

I cleaned and cleaned, hoping to leave no trace before Mitchell came in. I couldn't get everything- it wouldn't be dry before he arrived- but thought that would be okay. There was no cause for him to examine the sheets, no reason for suspicion.

I didn't feel worried, only good after my night with you.

Mitchell would wonder why I was getting up later than usual and I would explain, make a simple story. He wouldn't question it because the situation did not stand out as special.

Meanwhile, you were with the police in a car. They were questioning you, asking if you were the person who had been with me. You said no.

The police had heard that someone had slept with me and it was a crime- who had told them this?- and spotting you on their patrol they'd picked you up. But you weren't a criminal! It was a funny scene but also could end badly.

You too were carefree, no more worried in the police car than I had been in bed when you left. You talked to the police cheerfully and they didn't like that, took your good mood as a lack of respect for them rather than what it really was, a sign you were innocent. To repay the unintended insult, they meant to make things rough for you.

Another factor they disliked was your outfit. You were naked except for underpants, red-orange ones.

Had the police found you like that after you'd slipped out, before you'd had a chance to fully dress?

They'd taken you even though you were not a criminal. You'd just put your penis in me and pulled it in and out and made us both wet and feel good. Nothing wrong with that. It wasn't rape. Maybe adultery was a crime once but it isn't now.

Was this a case of mistaken identity. The world seemed turned upside down, as you had turned me upside down in bed. But that was fun and this wasn't- although in the end you were freed, of course. You'd harmed no one, not even my husband, because he didn't know about us.

The investigation, its source and purpose, would remain a mystery.

I lay in bed with my legs open, long in the building sunlight, thinking of you, feeling you. My body bucked, undulated, thinking about you, feeling you.

The police had heard that someone had slept with me and it was a crime- who had told them this?- and seeing you, a half-nude man, an illicit lover making his getaway, they picked you up. But you weren't a criminal! I want to repeat it.

Somebody had slept with me. How had that been construed as wrong? Had something else happened to someone else and the police gotten their facts confused?

The police were annoyed because the red-orange underpants weren't the ones you had worn when you were with me. Those had been black. The police had been hoping to find evidence on them, your semen still there.

Laughing, you explained you'd changed your underwear, put the black pair in the laundry because today was laundry day. The police didn't like that you were trying to outsmart them and succeeding.

They said they couldn't understand how you'd had a chance to go home to do laundry and then not bothered getting dressed again. "Would you mind clarifying a few points? We aren't questioning your truthfulness but maybe we're missing something."

They thought you were lying and were humoring you, like a cat toying with its prey, their attitude contemptuous. But you weren't bothered.

They thought your attitude mocking and in a way it was. You considered the whole scene ridiculous.

Your body looked beautiful, lean, long, your torso a light pure form that stood out in the dim, dull interior of the police car. That place and the police themselves were all seriousness, work, and you were all happiness.

When you told me later what had happened, I could imagine the atmosphere, the muscles of your abdomen rippling, your skin glowing. I liked to think of your body. The police found it an affront.

The color of your underpants offended them. Lol. This was supposed to be a serious interrogation, yet your mood was buoyant, you weren't afraid.

Being with you made me unafraid, not of adultery, not of your penis, not of our wet, crazy, happiness, not of the mess we made, not of the wet mess you made on the bed and on me. I loved running my hands over my body, fingers stretched curved, palms pushing downward, feeling what you'd left on my flesh and in deep. My finger pulled out with a silent "pock" sound.

You looked free in a way the police resented. Were they envious of your night with me? Was that why they hoped to arrest you for it?

So much clear wet cream, leaving the sheets sodden, soaking deep. I liked it! There's so much I could tell you about how I felt but it would take too much time, too many words and still only touch the surface.

And at the top of your underpants the shape of your penis stood up tall, reaching above the waistline to your abdomen. The long shaft and the head, like an arrow-head, showed through the tight orange cotton wrapping it. A funny cute shape the police didn't find cute or funny.

You were still excited or excited again after our night together. The police looked annoyed as if your erection were directly challenging their authority. And it really was. They didn't want you to get away with what you'd done, but you would.

So funny, as if our joy together was a crime! Both you and I know differently!

I was still surprised by your powerful giving. The experience we'd had was gigantic, the kind beyond imagining, also in its consequences. You changed my body. My vagina felt as it never had before. Had it also changed our lives?

The morning air felt brisk, bracing.

Mitchell told me about someone at work who'd almost fallen out a window in an office during his trip. He'd been sitting on the sill and something gave way. Mitchell had to reach out and grab him.

"He was more in than out."

Mitchell said the incident was serious, anyway would have been if he hadn't acted fast.

"That broken window frame shouldn't have been there. It's too dangerous," he said, criticizing those in charge of maintaining the building.

I wondered if this was some kind of omen, decided to dismiss the thought. A good day was beginning. Experiences fall away like dreams, leaving you free, strengthened, excited to live.

I was still so excited by you. In the morning light Mitchell could have seen the brightness in my eyes.

When you read this, can you make the cream come out, can you show me how much?