Monday morning

And then Nicky came home, pleased that I’d last-minute tidied the house, and after ten days of weird solitude, and straight from my first wonderful day of the refereeing course, we met up at the all-you-can-eat curry place in Burley Park and stuffed our gullets. She was all golden glowing from Vipassana, had soft sweet meditation tales to tell: all I had talk of was my bent broken back and of watching too many movies. Oh, and cracking another abandoned bike combo lock; and my first returned essay; and my dad’s television woes. Then we went home and chatted some, drank a cup of tea, got into bed, and soon began the soft caressing of her long brown body and when awesome boobs are pressed up against you, and creamy smooth thighs clutch hairy man thigh, and kisses begin…there’s only one way that’s gonna go. I like the way Nicky makes love: 80% of the time it’s not long before I feel her magnet beams pulling me on top of her and I know for this one it don’t need no endless hours of foreplay – she wants it inside her – she loves the feel of it – she’s quite capable of reaching orgasm and fulfilment with but a modest amount of the soft gliding, the in and out, the skilful manipulation of angles, pressure, depths. Not one of these girls who will wank you off, suck you off, bring you to the very point of your own orgasm and ejaculation exhaustion – and then expect you to hard rock their world like they done seen in the movies. Those girls want too much.
    Nicky hits it and I know she’s hitting it and I think, well, an hour or so before she was saying, one thing I realised was it’s definitely not a good time to get pregnant right now, but I think I’ll hit it too: probably it’ll be okay. I let it go and upload myself into her. And then she says, I’m coming again – well that’s a first. Though later she tells me, no, it wasn’t that, it was just the longest orgasm I ever had, it just kept going and going in waves, I couldn’t believe it. And waves is what it felt like for me too.
    It’s good with women: the more they get to know you, the deeper their experience goes. Getting louder all the time, more into it, more loose. Her saying ‘longest orgasm ever’ is like me feeling I set a personal best, broke a record. Maybe mine, maybe some other guy’s. Sure, any mention of anything like that conjures images of other guys and me being me, and not liking images of other guys, I can’t say I one million percent dig that – but then, if I’m top of the tree I suppose I can reconcile it. That’s the way it goes I guess.
    All relaxed and sated it’s time for lights out and drift off into pleasant tired sleep. Except the night is weird and maybe it’s her Vipassana energy and maybe it’s the curry but neither of us can get off. I keep waking up to adjust my position, and then I’m dozing and have an awareness that I may or may not have just farted. But I’m sure I heard it, felt my arse-cheeks flapping, that it woke me up.
    Did I just fart?
    Yes.
    I’m sorry.
    It’s okay.
    Oh, I did it again.
    It’s okay.
    It smells of curry in this room, this bed: it really smells of curry. Some homecoming for the poor girl: ten days of Buddha bliss and now she’s lying next to some farting smelly man.
    God, it must be six a.m. When will I ever sleep?
    But it’s only midnight, two. And the farting goes on.
    Damn that curry. Damn all-you-can-eat. There’s no need for overstuffing anymore, bargain or not – the lying awake all night feeling my arse-cheeks truffle out whiffs and pongs just ain’t worth it.
    But we laugh. A woman who laughs at your endless trumps, loves your sex, almost always has the elusive intercourse orgasm and has it good – that’s pretty blessed. Not to mention the holy thousand other things besides (no probs with football and my other mad hobbies; lets you write about her; swallows; cooks; says cool things; isn’t barmy and mad; cares not about fancy fripperies and your income; appreciates your diy; wants to hit the road; and a whole lot more) – yeah, it’s time to look on the bright side. So what love? Nobody knows what that is anyway – and mostly it’s mad people that declare it: people who also bicker and hate and play stupid games of competition and one-up-manship and even hit and cheat and hurt. Love shmuv – I’d rather just be happy – and I’d much rather hear the one I’m with say, I feel happy with you than those three little words that really don’t mean anything anyway. You feel good, I’m glad: that’s what I want. You like me, like being with me – well, likewise. But to say you love? Then I have to say, what does that mean? And probably you don’t know. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you feel happy or good. It means you feel something, right? But what that feeling is…is it need? Want? Lust? I felt things before for people – felt incredible things – and those people turned out to be wrong for me. It’s all a big confusion.
    Honesty. That’s better than love. Nicky says, I thought about you a lot but I didn’t miss you, and I’m down with that. What matter whether she misses me or not? It adds nothing to her, nothing to me – better the other way around, in fact. Better, indeed, not to think of me at all, unless it relates to her – not when you’re on a Buddhist meditation retreat. Whole point is to be with yourself.
    I say, for my part, I missed you the first three or four days – but by day seven or eight I’d sort of forgotten about you, had to remind myself, oh yeah, there’s someone else lives here with me, they’ll be back soon – now what was their name? I thought that, saw it was real and that it interested me, and I thought about saying it when she got back – but then a voice said, you can’t, you’d better hold it in – and then I thought, but one really has to express these things if one is to deepen with another person, it’s just words – anyone who’d get upset to hear such dribble ain’t the one for me anyway, is far too hung up on modern world pretend romance pleasantries – and so after love-making during sweet before-sleep confessions I light-heartedly let it out and both parties giggled and gently nudged and I realised it really was nothing to think those things. Miss you? No need. But honestly express the things I feel and think and have them heard and accepted and giggled about with mature understanding this is the human experience ears? That’s treasure and gold right there. That’s the deepening of trust, sharing and togetherness, which is what it’s all about.
    I done hold back too much in my romantic life. I ain’t good husband or boyfriend material – in fact, I’m no doubt fairly rubbish husband and boyfriend material (I don’t think about the doing of things, like going out, like holding hands together and looking at stuff in windows, or coming home with lovely little frippery gifts just to please, I’m far too much into my own head and world and not sure I can get out) – but what I am is me. In fact, that’s all I am. Dig that, we’ll be okay. And not that I always dig it but…well, I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore. Just words, just birds, fluttering prettily in the sky, light and meaningless and transitory. The truth of the world is a man farting in bed and telling his heart while a woman laughs and their two naked bodies move closer every second to wrinkled old age and death: that’s what we’re all doing right now and probably we don’t even know it. But also what we’re doing is holding each other tight in the cold dark night while the world rages and buzzes outside our window, angel-headed children feeling the beauty of what it means to be alive and not alone, and sometimes remembering that, and sometimes appreciating it, and maybe that’s what love is too.