Read Online Dancing in the Dark by Joan Barfoot - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joan Barfoot
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but he was patient.
This was pleasant. It really did feel fine, as I’d imagined, to feel the length of a body, warm all the way down, alongside mine.
I was nervous when he pulled the covers back and raised himself up on one elbow to stare at me; but I was proud, too, that my body did not have obvious flaws. His did not either, although I could see his bones. It was fine and hard and slim.
He never let his body go. Neither of us let ourselves get flabby.
The act itself wasn’t long enough for me to absorb all the things it meant. That here he was, this man, this real warm flesh, this piece of magic. I was too amazed to be very aware of the thing itself.
But we did it again and again. There was plenty of time. There were hours in that little bed. It remained a miracle, to have this body everywhere around me.
Afterward, when he collapsed, his face in my neck and the length of him a warm weight along the length of me, that was the time I liked best: when I could stroke his shoulders and his hair, tenderness and gentleness in my own hands, repaying his before. That was my time, afterward.
We slept curled together. Nothing could reach me, with his body wrapped behind mine, a long arm flung over my ribs, across my breasts.
It wasn’t the way one reads about, all that ecstasy in novels. I guess that was somehow what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that way at all. I thought it was probably better, in a way, to feel the warmth and tenderness, if not the passion.
He
felt the passion, I’m sure that was unmistakable. And it made me a bit uneasy. It seemed wrong for him to need me so much, to show so much desire, when the truth, apart from bodies, was the opposite.
I prefer to give than to receive; to need than to be needed; to want than to be wanted. The pressure of being given to, wanted, needed, is hard for me.
When I was a girl kissing pillows and mirrors, I thought, “Well, this is practice. It will be different with the real thing.”
Of course it was different. Pillows and mirrors do not kiss breasts or hold you in the night.
But I’d thought the difference would be something else: that in the act there would be a loss of self, a splitting of bonds. I thought when it happened I would soar beyond myself to some place unaware and free. That I might disappear completely. I’d imagined some transcendence that would be unimaginable and indescribable.
I was amazed by the kind of magic there was in that small bed with Harry; but also amazed that the other magic, apparently, was an illusion.
Because all the time, each time, before and while he was inside and afterward, there I was, my body and all my thoughts, alert to each sensation and every move, all the pantings and perspiration. Not for a moment was I lost.
Are there people who get lost? Or do the books lie, as they seem to have about so many other things?
But I was safe.
I was safe even in ways I hadn’t considered. I must have assumed that if outside rules did not apply in our two-person world, outside accidents would also not occur.
Harry was not so foolish. He must have been looking at it all quite differently from me, and it’s just as well, although ironic that it turned out to be unnecessary.
There were strange shufflings and cracklings, clumsy shiftings, but I didn’t catch on right away what he was doing. Afterward, there was a small damp milky balloon twisted shut with a knot, lying beside the bed.
It was repulsive, a white slug of a thing, and Harry caught my surprised grimace. “It’s a safe, honey,” he said, and leaning over me, picked it up. “So you don’t get pregnant. See all those little maybe-babies? Zillions of the little devils.”
Later he told me he didn’t like using them. “You don’t feel as much as you do without them.” So what did he feel? So much pumping and desire with them, how much without?
Such a puzzle to understand someone else’s body. Oh, I could
watch
his, he encouraged me to look at him and even
This was pleasant. It really did feel fine, as I’d imagined, to feel the length of a body, warm all the way down, alongside mine.
I was nervous when he pulled the covers back and raised himself up on one elbow to stare at me; but I was proud, too, that my body did not have obvious flaws. His did not either, although I could see his bones. It was fine and hard and slim.
He never let his body go. Neither of us let ourselves get flabby.
The act itself wasn’t long enough for me to absorb all the things it meant. That here he was, this man, this real warm flesh, this piece of magic. I was too amazed to be very aware of the thing itself.
But we did it again and again. There was plenty of time. There were hours in that little bed. It remained a miracle, to have this body everywhere around me.
Afterward, when he collapsed, his face in my neck and the length of him a warm weight along the length of me, that was the time I liked best: when I could stroke his shoulders and his hair, tenderness and gentleness in my own hands, repaying his before. That was my time, afterward.
We slept curled together. Nothing could reach me, with his body wrapped behind mine, a long arm flung over my ribs, across my breasts.
It wasn’t the way one reads about, all that ecstasy in novels. I guess that was somehow what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that way at all. I thought it was probably better, in a way, to feel the warmth and tenderness, if not the passion.
He
felt the passion, I’m sure that was unmistakable. And it made me a bit uneasy. It seemed wrong for him to need me so much, to show so much desire, when the truth, apart from bodies, was the opposite.
I prefer to give than to receive; to need than to be needed; to want than to be wanted. The pressure of being given to, wanted, needed, is hard for me.
When I was a girl kissing pillows and mirrors, I thought, “Well, this is practice. It will be different with the real thing.”
Of course it was different. Pillows and mirrors do not kiss breasts or hold you in the night.
But I’d thought the difference would be something else: that in the act there would be a loss of self, a splitting of bonds. I thought when it happened I would soar beyond myself to some place unaware and free. That I might disappear completely. I’d imagined some transcendence that would be unimaginable and indescribable.
I was amazed by the kind of magic there was in that small bed with Harry; but also amazed that the other magic, apparently, was an illusion.
Because all the time, each time, before and while he was inside and afterward, there I was, my body and all my thoughts, alert to each sensation and every move, all the pantings and perspiration. Not for a moment was I lost.
Are there people who get lost? Or do the books lie, as they seem to have about so many other things?
But I was safe.
I was safe even in ways I hadn’t considered. I must have assumed that if outside rules did not apply in our two-person world, outside accidents would also not occur.
Harry was not so foolish. He must have been looking at it all quite differently from me, and it’s just as well, although ironic that it turned out to be unnecessary.
There were strange shufflings and cracklings, clumsy shiftings, but I didn’t catch on right away what he was doing. Afterward, there was a small damp milky balloon twisted shut with a knot, lying beside the bed.
It was repulsive, a white slug of a thing, and Harry caught my surprised grimace. “It’s a safe, honey,” he said, and leaning over me, picked it up. “So you don’t get pregnant. See all those little maybe-babies? Zillions of the little devils.”
Later he told me he didn’t like using them. “You don’t feel as much as you do without them.” So what did he feel? So much pumping and desire with them, how much without?
Such a puzzle to understand someone else’s body. Oh, I could
watch
his, he encouraged me to look at him and even
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