Glowing
April, 2001
“Wait outside until I call you in.”
His face is screaming, “Dear God, please don’t tell me you have a husband to hide,” but he’d never say it out loud. He’ll do anything to forget about the fact that I used to have one of those things.
After a kiss that reassures me I’m about to get pounced on, I scurry inside the cottage to light the three thousand candles I set up a few hours ago. Then, hurriedly picking my thong out of my butt while simultaneously applying lip gloss, I give the place one final look-over. Satisfied that everything’s exactly how I envisioned it would be, I yell, “OKAY, LEO! YOU CAN COME IN NOW!”
Not knowing what to expect, he cautiously peeks his head inside. As his whole body enters the shimmering retreat I spent hours constructing, I can visibly see the strain of the last three years of his life (courtesy of me) melt away from his body.
“Wow, Chrissy. This is…incredible.”
And then out of nowhere, nerves hit me. He hasn’t seen my naked body in almost two years! Granted, it’s undergone extensive yoga remodeling, but still…what if it’s not as great as he remembers it to be? Maybe I should’ve consulted with Slutty Co-worker about my plans for tonight. You know…gotten some sex advice, some new moves…something. Hmmmmm, I vaguely remember her talking about sucking on a couple of altoids while giving a guy a blow job, and she said he really liked it…or were they tic-tac’s? I wonder if it matters! Jesus, should Leo wear a condom? I mean, I’m not worried about getting pregnant because I got that depo provera shot the minute we got back together, but do we need to have some kind of “talk” about the sexual relationships we might have had between ours and now? Obviously, I’ve had none, so he’s definitely not going to catch anything from me. But, what if he has? Aw, who am I kidding? My nerves aren’t about getting gonorrhea, Leo always plays it safe. I’m anxious that maybe he screwed around when I didn’t! Dammit, I knew I should’ve forced myself to sleep with that tatted up defense attorney, Mark Wisely, or that Cal Berkeley Quarterback (whose name I totally can’t remember) so I’d have something in my back pocket. I mean, if Leo’s been with other women, I’m going to have to lie about being with other guys! Welp, so much for my vow to be totally and completely honest. But I have no choice! He can’t have the sex leg-up on me, can he? Would I be okay with that? HELLS NO! Son of a bitch, I don’t think I can be with Leo if he’s been with someone else. It’s not in my DNA!
“Baby, you okay?”
But I really, really, really need to have sex, and I need to have it with him. Aside from death and yoga, it’s all I’ve thought about for almost two years. The last time we were together was in this very cottage, and it was as sensual as the first time we were together at his rundown apartment in Moraga. Every time I had sex with Leo it was sensual. But it won’t be sensual with him anymore if I know he’s been with another woman. That mental block will get in the way of any pleasure I’ll ever be able to feel with him. Yep, it’s official. We’re through.
“Chrissy, talk to me. What’s going on in your head?”
“Wine! Want some? I feel like I need a glass.” Or four.
Reaching into the drawer that houses the bottle opener, visions of the night I brought Leo home from The Round Up flash through my mind. Well, the good ones before Kurt started pounding on the door, anyway. I want to feel like I did that night again. But, it’ll never happen if I know he’s face-planted another girl against her kitchen wall and seduced the shit out of her. I NEED WINE, NOW!
“Chrissy, please come back over here. This is the first time we’ve been alone in a long time. I just wanna sit with you for a minute and enjoy that this is really happening.”
Carrying our glasses to the couch and sucking mine entirely down on the way, I settle in next to Leo’s better-than-I-remember-body. He was always in great shape, but the embraces we’ve shared since we got back together tell me there was a helluva lot of working out going on while he lived in New York. His neck is thicker, his forearms are wider and…what the hell is going on under that shirt? Seven little buttons on that thing are all that’s separating me from total paradise. Will I be able to get a peek before my thoughts of him ram-charging another woman from behind get the best of me? Doubtful. Oh, Jesus! I need a distraction!
“Guess what? Kendall called me today and told me she can’t wait to play that snipe hunting thing with you again. You made quite an impression on that little girl.”
He moves even closer to me, and the smell of him is like ten thousand needle pricks of heroin hitting my body at once.
“I’m glad. I can’t wait to see her again too, but I don’t wanna talk about her right now. I wanna talk about you. No, scratch that. I don’t wanna talk at all.”
The lips. They’re strong and hungry and they’re on me. They’re exactly where I’d want them to be if I wasn’t stewing about them being on someone else.
“Leo, I’m sorry! I can’t!”
Pulling away with his hands in the air like he’s afraid he hurt me, “Whoa, what’s going on, Chrissy?”
“Don’t you wanna know if I’ve been with anyone else while we were apart?”
“Okay, one…you should know the thought of that makes me psychotic, so I’m not sure why you’d bring it up. And, two…I know you haven’t.”
There’s that un-cocky confidence that hypnotized me the night we met.
“How do you know that?”
“How could you be with someone else?”
“What do you…but, how could…hold on, can you explain so I can stop having my own psychotic thoughts?”
“Chrissy, you being with another guy makes about as much sense as me being with another girl. It makes no sense. I’m sure you tried, just like I did, to date and put yourself out there, but it’s not how you and I operate to sleep with someone we’re not in love with.”
“But you told me in New York we were done! You made me believe I had to move on! Jesus, Leo, you made me believe you already had! You might as well have said, ‘Go have sex with other guys, Chrissy, because you’ll never have it with me ever again!’”
“Yeah, and in my mind we were done, but in my heart, it just wasn’t happening.”
I’m looking at him like I ain’t buying what he’s selling.
“Baby, for the last year and a half you’ve been stuck in the middle of my heart, leaving no room for anyone else. And you should know I can’t have sex with a woman when my heart isn’t in it. Haven’t I proven that to you?”
I think back to April, 1998 when he rejected my pleas to come to his apartment. He thought I was engaged at the time and knowing he could never have my whole heart if I was, he couldn’t give me his. So, he rejected me…and my sex.
“Sex with some girl would’ve only tainted what we had together. I’ve never been ready to do that. So, no Chrissy, I don’t think there’s any way you’d be sitting here with me right now if you slept with someone else. I don’t think there’s any way you would’ve tainted what we had.”
“Everything you’re saying makes sense, but you’re a guy, Leo! Isn’t it impossible to, you know…go that long?”
Just asking that question makes me chug my re-filled wine glass in one gulp.
“Damn near! Especially with thoughts of you and what we did together running through my mind. Made me quite the master of my domain, if you know what I mean.”
Who knew being told your ex-boyfriend jerked off to thoughts of you for over a year and a half could be so romantic! And you know what? I guess that’s why the motor on my vibrator fried out…TWICE!
After a sharing a gentle laugh at what he just said, he takes my hand and places it over his heart like he’s done so many tender times before.
“Feel that? That was made for you. Sometimes I think God watched you on earth for the first six years of your life and was like, ‘Crap, there’s still no one who’s perfect for her’ so He made me.”
“Sure would’ve made my life a lot easier if you were born in Freakmont six years earlier and went to my same high school.”
“Probably would’ve made my life easier too. But, so what if the hand you were dealt required you to trade in a couple of old cards for new ones. All that matters is that you had the courage to do it.”
“So you’re not mad at me for anything that happened?”
“I’m mad that some things had to happen the way they did. But no, I’m not mad at you. If I was, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
With my hand still glued to his heart, he says “It’s wild, but sometimes it feels like I loved you long before I even met you.”
Nodding my head in agreement, I confess, “No one I know could possibly understand us.”
“Does that make us crazy?”
“I think it makes us lucky.”
After a gentle kiss that reassures me he’s not mad at all, Leo takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom and without a word he undresses me. The only light is coming from the electric moon outside and the only sound is that of the roaring creek below the open window. That is until he explores my naked body with his eyes, takes a deep breath in and says, “My God, you are so beautiful.”
Reaching out for him, I speak modestly. “I bet everything you look at through those green eyes is beautiful.”
“That’s absolutely not the case.” Taking my hands, “I see very few beautiful things. That’s what makes you so special to me, Chrissy.”
After tranquilly assisting with the removal of his clothes, we kiss and settle onto the bed in one intertwined motion, with him softly landing on top. My fingers trace up and down the length of his back, his hands cradle my neck. Our kisses are sometimes halted by long gazes at each other, acknowledging this almost didn’t happen.
If forced to make the choice, I would gladly take the long gazes into Leo’s eyes over sex with him. They’re what tell me he loves me so much. But…thank GOD I don’t have to make the choice! It’s been one year, eight months and, glancing at the clock as he kisses my neck, three hours since the last time I’ve been with him. Not usually one to bypass the thrill of foreplay, with every ticking second, I get more and more restless.
“Leo, please. I miss you so much. I don’t think I can…”
And he can’t either because there it is. Holy mother of mercy! I NEVER should’ve deprived myself of this feeling for this long. I should’ve fought harder to be with him sooner! I should’ve done whatever it took to have…this. I don’t care what type of woman you are (minus lesbo’s), the feeling of a muscular man laying on top of you who is able to enter your body without his hands ever leaving your side and his eyes never leaving your gaze, is the single most electrifying sensation EVER. Momentarily lost in the pleasure, I close my eyes and roll my head back. Not ready to lose the control he has over me, he gently bites my lower lip and kisses it back to where he wants it as he says, “Look at me, baby.” I do, but I can’t see him. I can’t see anything. I’m completely blinded by what he’s doing to me and my love for him.