This Is Our Time

You are seated on the smaller sofa, your legs tented, book balanced there, your back to me and bathed in the warm-toned evening light of the reading lamp. It's rained this afternoon, and the sun has long since set. Glimmers of the lamp are held in the large droplets on the window and a single red-orange leaf clings held to the screen.

You're wearing your favorite cotton pajama pants and a laundry-softened zippered sweatshirt and though I can see the horizontal lines that run across the back of your neck you could just as easily be 28 or 43 or any of the years that once were. You're involved in your reading and you smiled when I turned the corner from the upstairs but didn't stir, thinking I was busying myself in the dining room behind you.

I walk towards you and you close the book on your hand and look at me over your shoulder, extending your arm in a curve that I know is meant for me and I walk over and nestle myself there, barely on the edge of the sofa, my face buried deeply between the hood of your sweatshirt and your neck. I drown in the scent of you that never, not ever, fails to make my breath catch a bit.

Your scent. It is the smell of my laundry, and of the soap from your bath. Of the gel you've put on your hair which we both laugh about from time to time because since chemo so many year's back there's only been just enough silvery gray fuzz for me to run my hand against. There's the smell of our home, and of cooking, and of home which has been your home for many years and mine just a few now. And then there's the base of the scent which is just you, inexplicably akin to the smell of fresh air whether you've just stepped from the shower or been out in the heat moving rocks and mowing. I breathe you in deeply and nudge my forehead deeper into you.

Your arm wraps around my waist and pulls me towards your face. I'm still smiling a bit when your lips part my own and your tongue touches the top of my lip gently but with enough conviction that I know that this is more than a diversion from your reading, that we will make love which I have been wanting for days since you have been traveling. I feel the same slight ache and throb that you've ellicted expertly since our first time and my tongue searches for yours.

While you kiss me, you continue to pull me toward you, now on top of you almost, and your right hand finds my right breast, the flat of your index finger grazing the top of my nipple just enough that it responds to you and then, pulling my shirt over my head, your hands are one each side of my waist and your lips meet to pull at my nipple and envelop my breast.

I lean my forehead on the top of your head now and let you explore. Your hands fit at the smallest part of my waist and guide the weight of me against you, and as I exhale there I feel that you are hard against my leg, the softness of your pajama pants and dark blue Jockeys alone between you and I. My hands run down your back, inside your t-shirt. I feel lucky. I want you badly now.

I stand and you smile as I push my panties down my legs, and you stand and unzip the sweatshirt, and pull your t-shirt off. This part always seems so clumsy, like such an interruption of where we were and what is to come, but it's necessary, and we've repeated the motions parallel to each other so many times. You suggest the bedroom and I agree and we take a few moments to go up there, to the quiet dark room. I take a sip of water from the glass I picked up along the way and offer it to you and you drink from my cup. Small intimacies go along with the large.

I slide into the light blue sheets and you remove the Jockeys and are still hard as you slide into the bed next to me. We lay on our sides and face each other but within moments it's clear that you are eager, and your fingers part me between my legs. Your forefinger brushes me for the first time and the flush of warmth that I feel is still like nothing else that I had ever experienced before you. You easily find a rhythm, and your hands are older and experienced and unlike so many of the men that I had been with before you know that right there is too much but just to the side, firm, even, back and forth...that this will make me open to you and wet, so wet. I moan softly and that is enough for you to know. I roll on my back and you are there, on top me and the tip of you is there teasing me. You know that this drives me a bit crazy with frustration and desire and I know that you want the feel of wetness and warmth surrounding your penis but you pause there.

And then it's too much and with a thrust you are deep inside me and you make a low sound. I remember years ago when we are only friends and there were lonely nights and secretly, full of shame, I would lay alone after an empty orgasm and wonder what your own sounds of pleasure would sound like. But now you are here. You thrust and each time you push yourself into me you lift yourself just a bit, just those extra few inches to push the base of your penis hard against my clit and me. It is so, so good.

We are both eager for release and I know this, feel it, and it's so much more than ok. There will be time for the rest later or after we sleep, in the morning. I push you away ever so slightly and we know each other, so you rest back on your knees as I turn over and get onto my own.

Your hands are on my bottom and then I feel your penis in your hand, searching for me and then you are there and this, this position, when you enter me from behind, it is almost too much to bear and as you thrust against me I - almost involuntarily - push myself back against you. The spot inside me that you stroke and touch with every motion makes every part of me feel at once throbbing and weak. I am on the edge of coming, before you even, but you'll need more time. I move away from you a bit and again you know this rhythm, and we settle back down to the basic, wonderful place where you are on top of me.

You are with me now and at the same time not. Your hand pinches my breast wonderfully and your strokes grown more rhythmic and I know now that you are close. I brush against my clit and the fullness of you with my own fingers rubbing myself is too much. My eyes are closed and my back arches and everything is sound and light and I close around you. Rick. God. Rick. Rick. This is all you need.

Your strength, and the strength of your orgasm, belies your age and our age difference. One hand next to my waste and the other above my head you support yourself and thrust hard, very hard and moan. I feel you swell and you make another low, guttural sound as you come. You've come hard and since your surgery, the ejaculate that you thought you would miss so much is replaced by duration. Your voice gets higher and you continued to thrust in me several more times, hard, and my hands dig into your shoulder blades. There is nothing, nothing, more or better than this, than you as you come hard into me and we are done.

You lay atop me and I can feel the dampness of exertion on your chest. I brush your nipples, which you love and hate, and you shiver a little bit then kiss me on the lips, your own lips slightly parted. You are still inside me.

After a few minutes you pull out and roll to the side. I am still on my back, and you face me, on your side and talk about how your week has been and the long drive first from New York and then to Boston. I worry about you, I always do, regardless of your competence, but I know that you need your teaching to be you and to be here with me. Your voice is low and wonderful, the same voice I used to save on my voicemail just to hear before we were together, in different times.

You're tired, and I'm tired too, and you turn over and lay on your back. I still have moments, as I find a spot nestled in the crook of your arm, where I know that the love of your life, K., so often did the same. She will always be, and she was my friend, and I loved her too in an entirely different way. I wonder sometimes what runs through your mind but I know it is different and you compartmentalize like men do, and it's all ok. Everything has its place, and I have mine, and I am in your arms and though you may leave me sooner than I'd like I will never, not ever, let you go.