Intimacy

We're pack animals.

When I was a teenager, there were several household rules I broke.
But there was one my mother knew I broke, but turned a blind eye to.

When everyone had gone to bed, the dogs would come up the stairs. They didn't like being downstairs on their own.

And I, alone of the household, would leave my door slightly ajar.

And just I was drifting off, I would feel first one thump at the bottom of the bed.
Then a couple of minutes later, another.
Which was why I had left the door open.

I didn't see why the little guys should have to sleep downstairs alone.

By the time I woke up, Leo would be next me on the pillow, Kip further down, in the arc my sleeping form created.
I got used to it.

I learned whilst young to hate sleeping alone.

I've been a bit of a slut in my time, I guess. Though not really the way people might assume. Looking back, it's a definite minority of the people I've had intercourse with, I've done it in a bed. Club toilets, pub toilets, shop doorways, carparks, fields, cars, etc.
I can count the women I've had intercourse with and also gone to sleep with, on my fingers.

But on the other hand, I've slept, in the purely sleeping sense, with a similar figure.
I've slept with a number of women, just for the sake of intimacy.

Because sometimes, that's what you want.

Sometimes, I've said 'I just want us to be close and cuddle. I don't want sex.'

Being single has it's pros and cons. On the whole, for me, it has more pros than cons.

On the one hand, you aren't guaranteed sex on a regular basis- certainly nowhere near what you'd want, and you have to put time and energy into going and getting it. But once you've got it, you have plenty of scope for variety.

Your time is your own, you have no one else's problems to worry about, and it's not as if you're lacking in company.

You don't have all the irritations and bother that a relationship provides. Your life truly is your own.

But.
And it's a huge but.

There's the nights to get through.

And for me, that's the main negative point to being single. It really makes a difference. I stay up till almost one every night, basically to avoid going to bed. And when I do go, I find going to sleep hard. I often get up after an hour, make a drink and go for a fag, simply because I can't sleep. I think I probably average four and a half hours a night, during the week.

Yet if there's someone else in the bed, I'd be asleep in minutes. I always am.
I've still not quite got used to this sleeping alone business.
When D lived her, I used to sleep with my door open, just to know she was there. I still do, but now I know she isn't.

It's actually been about four months now since I last actually spent the night with a woman.
And whilst most of you would think it's the sex I miss, it isn't, really. In fact, I don't much think about it. I don't even bother watching porn these days, it just doesn't seem to interest me.

And yet as the spring has to started to warm up a huge desire for intimacy seems to have overtaken me. I found myself at work today standing behind Dizzy, with both hands on her shoulders, stroking the skin underneath her top. I even bent down and whispered something work related to her, but as I did so, our cheeks touched.

I pulled myself back, because I don't see Dizzy in a sexual way, not at all, in spite of our office banter. But somehow or other I seemed to have been overcome by a powerful urge just to embrace her and run my hands down her back.



Hmmm.
Anyway.

I thought you might be interested to hear the little fantasy I've started to rely on as the only way I can get to sleep these days.

You'll be- shocked.
Though not in the way you think.

I have an image of her. HER. THE ONE.

I get into bed, and move over to what would be my side (the left hand side of the bed, with my back to the wall). I imagine her, lying on the opposite pillow, facing me. I whisper her name, as a child whispers it's mothers name. I reach out for her and pull her close. I can feel her skin against mine, it sticks slightly, so that if either of you pulled away suddenly, you'd feel a slight tug. I can feel her breath against my face, hair drapes into my eyes, but I don't care. I'd rather feel her hair in my eyes, than not feel her at all. Her breasts push against me, moving in and out as she breathes slowly. I run my fingers along her back and squeeze her round the waist.

I'm looking into her eyes. She loves me, I can see it. She KNOWS me. There are no barriers, there is complete trust. I am safe in her arms.

Tenderness. Closeness. Intimacy.

I pull her closer, and fall back, her splayed across me. Her head nestles between my neck and my shoulder.
As I doze off, I stroke her back and say her name.

I say it again and again as I drift off.

Never once does sex come into the vision. It's as if that would spoil this particular fantasy, cheapen it. I don't think it's clear in this fantasy, whether it's meant to be a post-coital situation or not. And perhaps I don't really like to think about it.

Am I Pygmalion perhaps?
Would I really want this to be true?
Could I pay the price now, in my current life?

God knows.
It helps me sleep anyway.