Funny Feelings (74)
In the end, his king-sized bed sings its siren’s call to my own fatigue and I relent, toeing off my shoes and collapsing into it even before he does. We slumber deeply, this time only our pinkies finding each other across the expanse of the bed. Until my alarm blares through the house and I have to drag myself out of the sheets, hurling my body across acres of mattress and into his shower before I head out to have my hair and makeup done.
I have to scrounge for him, buried in the pillows and a marshmallow comforter, before I plant a kiss against Meyer’s beard. He smoothes a palm up my arm, thumb pushing into the crook of my elbow as he pulls me back down, cracking open an eye.
“Mm. My body wash smells good on you,” he says huskily, half his smile obscured in a fluffy down cushion. I cover his sleep rumpled face in a smattering of kisses.
“I have to go. I’ll be back for the car to pick us up from here at five, though.”
“Hmmkay. I love you.”
I’ll be sad when the somersault my stomach performs every time I hear that fades one day.
“I love you too.”
I’m sitting in the salon chair, a dazed smile molded to my face, mind wandering to what it would be like to live this way. I weave a fantasy from the mundane, the simple ordinaries. From waking up in the same bed every day, in our own cloud. To cooking side by side in the kitchen, Meyer circumspectly trying to tidy up behind me as I go. To playing board games around the coffee table, Hazel snacking on her favorite lemon cookies, me with my mug of wine, Meyer with his beer.
I think about Spring, the annual field trip Hazel’s class takes to a farm just outside of town. How maybe this year I’ll have enough power to convince Meyer to let us take home a few of the downy chicks. His yard is big enough for a few hens, I’m sure of it. We could build them a perfect coop over in the corner. Make a silly sign for it and call it the Chick Inn.
I want to take her up to Abel’s farm this Fall, too. Go fishing in the pond that they stock while we eat apple donuts.
I imagine Meyer and I together, on a plane, in various cities throughout the country. Him waiting for me at the sides of the stages in every place we go.
My phone vibrates on the counter in front of me and I lean over abruptly to get it, my stylist laughing as she’s forced to chase me with the iron.
Meyer: I get it now. Why people say they’re so happy they can’t stand it, or something’s so great it’s disgusting. I feel like I might need to be tranquilized.
My feet flutter kick against the footrest as a terrible squeal-sigh pinwheels through me.
Me: I was just thinking the same.
When I walk through his front door later, to him in a pale gray tux, the lapels a navy velvet blue, my dress draped over the couch and waiting for me, it’s too much to resist.
“Okay, we can’t fuck up this,” I gesture to my face and hair even as I’m sliding down his zipper. He smiles and laughs before he spins around a dining chair and falls into it, slacks pooling at his ankles. I strip off my pants all the way as he shirks his jacket. He eyes me hungrily as he loosens his tie, braces his hands on his thighs and watches me quickly undress. He doesn’t bother with removing my underwear, just mutters a low curse when he sees the lingerie and reaches for me, hooks them to the side as I straddle his lap and sink down onto him.
It’s torturous, the not kissing. Not tugging into each other’s hair, simply watching each other’s expressions, watching where our bodies meet and slide. Trying to come undone while staying so very put together adds a sharp edge to it that rapidly gets difficult to skate. My feet won’t reach the ground, so he’s forced to bear the brunt of the work as he pumps and pistons me against him, working out a hypnotic rhythm. His chin dips as he slows, lifting me with a wicked, leisurely curl. “Touch yourself.” He quietly commands. And so I do, while he gazes at me intently. There’s heat in it, and wonder, and agony, and love. A tear leaks out of my eye when I find my release, his lashes fan against his flushed cheeks when he does immediately after.
I make a note to remember how many times I feel beautiful with him tonight. Not only when he tells me that I am, repeatedly, but all the other moments in between. From fucking on that dining chair, to him zipping me into my silvery dress, sweeping the curtain of my hair over a shoulder and kissing the nape of my neck before we leave hand in hand.
When we smile easily and pose for photographs. Some together, others with Kara and Shauna. When we slip up the carpeted stairs inside the venue to our balcony seats where we watch Shauna’s movie; me snort-laughing, Meyer letting out the occasional chuckle through his nose and shaking his head.
There’s the moment he surprises a delighted shriek out of me when he hops gingerly onto the banister on our way out, sliding sideways with his arms in the air, feet kicked out for balance.
When we speed walk down the remaining stairs and out the doors, back to the car where we take turns pouring champagne directly into each other’s mouths, spilling it and licking over the spots that grow sticky on our skin.
Later, in the bath together, with his chest pressed to my back and his beard scraping against the crook of my neck, forearms shifting across my middle while I grip the edges of the tub in ecstasy, his ministrations hidden beneath the bubbles. Afterwards, when he makes us pizza-dillas with pepperoni and mozzarella in tortillas. While I sit on the island in his tie and a fluffy robe, telling him stories about when Marissa and I first moved to L.A., him contributing his own ramen-noodle-day tales, in turn.