…The Morning After
My eyes are closed. I can feel every inch of my skin with an awareness unknown to me until then. My body feels warm and alive as though a bright light is emanating from it – They must have put something in my drink! Nonetheless, I keep my eyes firmly closed. I know I’m lying on a bed, there is a pillow under my head but something seems wrong, I have too many arms…
Like a surge of electricity, the memories of the night before rush through me. I remember: the intervention, the Union Jack, the snog fest, the fantastic four surrounding me, the inevitable doom.
Those arms are not mine.
I feel with my fingers, frightened yet strangely at peace. I grab hold of an arm the size of my leg, with pulsating biceps, the skin is soft, arousing. There is another arm on my left, a smaller one – the skin feels different. And I feel yet another one caressing my leg. So there are four of us in this bed!
I’m a bit old fashioned. I’m one of those who believe that sex is how two people in love communicate. It’s a magical moment when two become one (much like the Spice Girls sang it). The soapiness of it all, force-fed by Disney films, never stopped me from believing in the imminent arrival of Prince Charming in my life. Prince Charming turned out to be a troll; a troll who stomped on my heart before devouring it. Sex had lost its point; Sex had lost its appeal. I simply refused to take part. I simply stopped by diving into books, where pain is just a word that can be swept away by flicking a page. My body became nothing more than a container walking my thoughts out and about.
And yet, here I am, lying naked, intertwined with other containers, containers I don’t know the name of. And I’ve never felt so alive, so completely in tune with the universe. It wasn’t gross or porn like. It was poetry made into music. Four chords accord themselves into a perfect unison. Each touch a note, each caress a symphony. I let go and together we created paradise.
My eyes are still closed; it feels as though I’m floating. There is no thumping in my head; there is no aching in my limbs. I’m renewed.
Reality will soon set back in. One of them will wake up, realise his mistake, put on his pants and walk out. The room will then lose its glow and the grime will take over. I relish the last minutes I have left, my eyes sealed shut to let all my senses take this moment in: the smell, the touch, the stillness of the silence.
Suddenly like morning dew, a finger touches my lip, a kiss brushes my thigh, a whisper of breath warms my neck. I shiver; joy overwhelms me like a summer wind flowing through my entire body. And the room glows brighter, my skin is on fire, the world is nothing but beauty. It feels as though I’m ascending…
We have breakfast all together; we laugh the way truly blissful people laugh, sincerely with a glimpse of gratitude. We know what we’ve shared was special, divine even. That it was one of the moments in life where everything lines up, planets and stars and everything is the way it should be.
I knew when that lock clicked and that my friends dragged me out that I wouldn’t come back home the same.
I believe again.
