Convoluted Desire

There have been perfect moments in my marriage. I musn't forget. I musn't forget he is like no other. Not that that changes anything. Still it should. I am suspended, upended, waiting, always waiting for his attentions. When I'm alone, which seems to be often- a coarser soul might say the marriage will falter because we are apart so much; not true- I try to dissect what is is about him that makes him so elusive. I never come up with anything, other than that he is an entity unto himself. I play games sometimes to try to trick him into swooning love, hell-bent love. Pretend, I tell him, that you are kissing me like they do in the movies. Pretend, I tell him, that every time you see me you want to fall to your knees and kiss the hem of my skirt.
But for all my song and dance there are those unscripted moments. They are fleeting now, and few. He got a buzz haircut once and came home, transformed, boyish, burying his head in my lap with excitement. I also learned once, quite by accident, that he thinks it's boring to dance to the beat of slow songs.
But it is in darkness that we have had our best times. The middle of the night. Maybe we just need darkness to free ourselves into. His disembodied voice would tell me secrets, his secrets. He told me he didn't he didn't like his mother, that her love disgusted him. I held my breath then, afraid she and I might meld in his mind in the dark. But he said I was different, that there is a coldness in me that he finds reassuring. I wanted to correct him, tell him it was heat, that I am burning up for him, but I didn't dare. Then with dawn and him turning away to sleep, it seemes as if our confessions evaporated. On those mornings I would badger him, try to build on secrets told, but you can't force these things. That I never seem to learn.
I want. I want. I want. And when he bows toward me, and places me in the center of his thoughts, his affections, I feel sick with nerves, waiting for him to spring away again. I gnash my teeth and remind my self of the loves that have loved obviously and how deathly that is. I remind myself not to question Fate. I remind myself that nobody ever said marriage was natural. Pavlovian it is, and I, having grown up never knowing the habit, am probably sniffing at the wrong door looking for the biscuit.




"I bet he just can't cope. I imagine expectations were betrayed. Perhaps she did love him because he was clean and then she found his house was dirty. Or it could have been the lovemaking. Hard to be married so quickly, then make yourself believe that you know the man on top of you. But that's impossible too, isn't it."....Bex Brian