I take the same route to and from work everyday. Pretty much like everyone else. My condo has a back gate that leads through the open air carpark of some office building, and right to my bus stop. By nine, the carpark is usually mostly empty apart from several thick-leaved trees planted throughout the space.
The street lights are usually on, casting spots of dim deep yellow on my path. I'm never afraid walking through it alone. In fact I quite enjoy it.
I'm happy to come home late most nights because that means my boyfriend will already be there. His face lights up when he sees me even though it's only been a day. Almost like a puppy. People say it's because he thinks me an enigma. I say I'd rather not find out.
He's almost relieved when I walk through the door because he believes one day I just might not. I might not answer my phone for a while and end up leaving a message on his machine a week later saying I just needed to get away, or that I've met someone else. These are real possibilities.
He says, "hi, honey" and walks toward me with affection. I don't like coming home to an empty apartment because I too am afraid of what I might do. Left alone to my own perversion. Some days I get turned on just kissing him. But I realise that's mostly when we're in public: in front of our doorman, at a bar, in line at the pharmacy. Usually we're not too far from home and can make a bee line to the bedroom. The last time I asked him to meet me in the bathroom of our neighbourhood bar I ended up waiting there for ten minutes. It may not sound long but standing there with your proverbial dick in your hands for ten minutes in a foul, graffiti-stained toilet can taste like rejection. And unfortunately in a woman's case, desperation. When I came out he was talking to our friends. "I just don't feel comfortable doing that" he said, "people will ask where we were and that's so embarrassing." I had half the mind to go back in and finish myself off, but I figured women don't do that, do they?
I have an above average sexual appetite. I also find myself fantasising about strangers all the time. A brief conversation with a delivery man can turn into a frivolous, illicit quickie in the office pantry —in my mind. In my mind I've undressed many women, always starting from the slow fall of a strap from a shoulder, and ending with tangled bare legs in some dark corner of a club. Sometimes I get so lost in these fantasy scenarios I forget where I am. I've had dreams of these —woken up to the nocturnal remnants of a dirty tryst, still overwhelmed with lust. I'm afraid my boyfriend hears me when I dream, and sits there chewing his fingernails, unsure how to respond.
Tonight I come home and his kiss lingers. Safe and secluded in the comfort of our own privacy I turn him on. Everywhere else I am a deviant. He leads me to the shower to wash off my last yoga class, and takes me to bed. Our sex is good. We know each others' bodies, our sensitivities and strengths. He always makes sure I am satisfied —or at least to the extent of his knowledge.
