Unbidden - 1. Unbidden

You like me when I'm on you without warning.

You like me raw, rough, unbidden.

You like me straight after I’ve come back from a run, from a game, from a day in the fields, the sweat still streaming down my face, so that when my skin touches yours there is that second where our bodies are in free-fall, sliding, slowing, stiffening, sticking together.

You like me folding my arms around you. I like that too. But lately you don’t let me explore the way I like to, tracing the veins trailing down your neck down to the crevasse where your throat plunges into your chest. You don’t let me plough my thumbs across your curves into the little empty pool of your navel, halting there as my fingers reach down without thinking to read the parts of you I cannot see. No. You curl your fingers into my palms so fiercely your nails leave marks for days. My hands are pushed to your sides, all I can do is hold, and hold I do, because even as you push yourself against me I feel something pulling you away.

I cannot caress. I cannot touch. I cannot stroke or play or cuddle. Even when I lean in to kiss, you only let me brush against your cheek, the rasp of my stubble marking you like a stain as your skin flushes. All you want is the rhythm, the rhythm, the awful rocking rhythm, it’s an infernal gallop to a place that’s at once hell and heaven and no-one knows who is the horse or the rider.

It’s then when I sense her on you. Sometimes its a phantom scent of the strangest of things: ink and chalk; a teacher, did you say? But you’re so clever, you’ve got me; even as the thought begins to me paralyse you’ve guided me into that space where I might as well never feel anything ever again.

Harder, you say.

Faster, you cry.

Don’t let up.

Don’t stop.

I don’t want it like this, but I want you more, so I do what you say.

I close my eyes and imagine it’s slower, and softer, and still, so still, like the very first time, all those years ago... but now I have to latch on for dear life onto this thing we’ve become, this thing that’s bigger and uglier and can break apart into so many pieces at any moment.

It’s then when I find my hands travelling up again, up, up, up, until they’re again around your neck, and I know I could squeeze right now and all this rush would come to an end... there, just as the horror starts to gnaw at me you’re crying do it, do it, do it, and I know there’s no point but to yield to the rush because you’re already gone, arching and screaming and shuddering as my knees give in and I slump into a pool of sweat and drool on the damp cement floor, and then—and only then—am I the way you love me.