Clean

 

I’m looking at Holly over the sunny expanse of the kitchen table, eating french toast, and I’m thinking.

I’m thinking about what I want.

It ain’t fucking.  I fucked her on damn near every surface in the living room last night.

Holly’s been working for a week solid on a new solo show that hangs this week.  After our fun, we stayed up until three in the morning putting mounting hardware into the frames, sanding, adding hanging wires.  We had a grand old time doing it, including a midnight showing of Flashdance.  (Y’all.  Y’all just have no idea how BAD that movie is.  It is gloriously, enjoyably bad).   We did it so long I got a little dent in my thumb from twisting in the tiny eyebolts that still showed hours later.

A big part of what’s real about my dominance comes from connecting with what I want.  Not what I think I should want.  Not what I want in general.

What I want right now, now, right this very minute.

“Have you got one clean towel?”

“I think I have at least one,” Holly says.  (You know it’s an emergency if Holly doesn’t have a full linen closet of clean towels.  She is an awesomely  organized individual, so even in the run up to a solo show she knows where her towel is).

As we walk into her bedroom she hands it to me and I lay it vertically on her bed.

“Have you got a washcloth?” I ask.

She runs off to get it.  I call after her. “It should be damp.  And warm.”

I strip down to my shorts and lie down on the bed, making sure that my feet are on the towel.

“Wash me,” I say.  ”Start at my feet.”

It is. So. Wonderful.

My body feels lax and lean as she slowly works the damp washcloth up from my toes.  She starts working her way up my torso.  ”Oh,” she says.  ”I shouldn’t touch there.”

“No, it’s okay,” I say.  ”I have some numb spots.  And some tingle.  But what you’re doing feels good.  Don’t stop.”

She circles my breasts with the warm washcloth and I groan with pleasure.  So good.

She comes closer and I catch her by the hair, kissing her deeply.

She stops and begins to clean my face and someone cares, someone gives a shit about me and I can feel it.  I can feel it!  I mean, I know that there are a handful (wait, no a bit more than that now that I count it) that care about me, but most of the time I feel like my overwhelming and exhausting alertness puts a pane of glass between me and that feeling of being enveloped in their care.

She washes my face and my ears and my lips.  It is enough because it is everything.