I feel your fingers trace a fluid line from the base of my back to the nape of me neck, where your lips take over and succeed in pulling my attention away from Tim O’Brien’s depiction of the things they carried.

            “Not fair! You know I have to finish this tonight!” I whine as I roll over to face you.

             “And you know that what isn’t fair is that you expect me to allow you to be studious while wearing something like that.”

I look down at the thin aubergine silk pooling in my lap. Boy has a point I never had to think about before. It never mattered what I was wearing while I read my required reading and editing my assignments, but now that you are here I guess it’s hardly fair. And you were so good today: running around the city with me, having dinner with my interrogating father, playing the game so flawlessly. Plus I know you’ll sleep till noon tomorrow giving me ample time to finish O’Brien’s story in the morning. So now it’s my turn to follow by your rules.

              “You’re right! How thoughtless of me. Here I’ll take it off. Will that help you concentrate better?”

              “Darlin’ that will help a lot of things, but I don’t think any of them involve this book I’m ‘reading’”

              “Well what are we to do?” I giggle as my hands slip under your t-shirt and skim across the defined peaks and valleys of your torso. My fingers move along your spin as your eyes twinkle and I smile knowing the choreography that is waiting in the wings. It’s the knowledge of happiness, of sweet comfort and perfect relaxation. There is nothing mundane or tired about what I know is coming next. You will smirk with the excitement of anticipation and brush the hair I didn’t care to notice off of my face. I will see your smirk and raise you a hard kiss, which you will counter with a swift movement of your left hand down my thigh. Every time, that will send a shiver to my toes and force me to pull you closer to me. Now you’ll you laugh as you kiss me like you mean it, and everything else will fade away.

              Soon enough life will come back into focus and our lives will continue. Not right away. Not when I wake up with your hand draped around my waist, or while we are eating breakfast and I am still inebriated with the fact that you don’t have anywhere else you have to be. But eventually, little by little reality will seep back in. You will have to leave here, to go back to the life you lead in another city. I will get back to my assignments and lonely nights spent in silk nightgowns. You will promise to come back, ensure me that this is it, I am the life you want to lead. I will believe you because I am in love with you, but I won’t let myself hold my breath. Maybe you will come back because you love me that much. Enough for me to never get any work done while wearing silk, enough to love me like no other. Maybe. But for now, it’s just breakfast after love elicited by a slip.

mj