"One, Or Two"

It is several hours past midnight. I stare through the windshield of my car but can barely see the road in front of me. I watch the beams of light coming from my headlamps cut through the night and then fade into the fog.

The mist or fog or whatever it is seems to wrap around my car and makes the night almost entirely silent. I don’t hear a thing around me, just the hum of my motor and the rhythmic turning of my tires on the road.

I can hear my breath too. If I concentrate, I can hear my soft, slow heartbeat as well. Then, I think about you, and both my breath and my heartbeat get a bit faster. I turn on the radio so I can’t hear them anymore.

I left you perhaps thirty minutes ago. You were sleeping. I slipped out of the bed and dressed as silent as possible downstairs, and then I grabbed by keys and my bag and my shoes and walked out of the house, turning the doorknob so slowly so it wouldn’t squeak and awaken you.

I couldn’t believe the fog that had settled, but I was glad for it – I felt that it wrapped me in a blanket and kept me safe. Safe from what? I don’t know.

I don’t know why I left you sleeping there. I don’t know why I left. Maybe I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I didn’t want to face being with you when we were both awake.

I recall a thousand different details of what happened before I left the house, before I left the bed, before you fell asleep next to me while I pretended to sleep but did not.

I remember the way you kissed me, not soft with your lips moving in circles around my mouth, but somewhat hard and fast and thrusting, as if you were hungry after not having eaten for a while.

I remember the way the skin of your bare chest felt against my palm, strange in some ways as I had not touched it before, but familiar too, as it was as I had imagined it to feel. Only not; there was less hair than I thought there would be. It was smooth.

I remember the way your palm felt against my skin, moving rhythmically up and down my back – or was it on my hip? My arm? Now I am doubting my own memories.

But I do recall, with perfect clarity, how, when I lie next to you, both on our backs with our legs outstretched but perfectly side by side, our shoulders and forearms and hips and thighs touching, you moved your hand.

My hand was pressed against the sheet.

You cupped your hand on top of mine.

You pressed your hand into mine.

I, after a second, or two, lifted my fingers up.

You opened your fingers to take in mine.

Our hands locked together, for one minute, or two.

We didn’t turn to look at each other or kiss or talk. It was just my hand, the back of my hand, cupped inside the palm of your hand, and our fingers intertwined.

For a minute, or two.

I don’t know why I left.