Everyday Stranger

Sleeping Together

As some of you know, I am an Insomniac. A chronic one. And when I sleep, I am often troubled by what I call Kafka Dreams-you know, the weird, existential ones where you are either a giant insect or for some reason hate your father, whom is only a mirror representation of yourself.

Ooh. I need therapy.

Seriously, though-sometimes, my greatest longing in my life is to sleep. Ordinary, effortless, perfect slumber, the kind where you lay yourself down and lull yourself to sleep without even trying. No sleeping tablets. No strange herbal lotions designed to make you dozy. Nothing like that.

Just sleep.

I had a lover once that I could sleep with (the other great love of my life, and the one I had just before my current Partner Unit). Of the parade of men I have had in my life, he is the only one that I could fall asleep with naturally, and stay asleep. He lived in another area that was quite a haul away, so when we were together we relished every moment of it.

I could fall asleep next to him with no problem. It’s not that he was boring, or not great to talk to-in fact we used to stay up until the early hours talking, trying to share everything in the short amounts of time we had together. When one of us would begin to drift off the other would pretend to be annoyed, but the truth is, we were just so damn glad to be together that it didn’t matter.

We would spend the evening making love, sometimes for up to three or four hours. I would be sated again and again, and the culmination would always be a long, breathless orgasm from him that I gave him permission for. Or sometimes we would have two cycles of making love, pausing in the middle to drink champagne and take a long, hot bath together.

After he would have a lovely, voluble orgasm, we would lay on the bed and talk, idly stroking the lengths of each other’s bodies. We never got tired of touching each other, and all areas were explored-the hollow behind the slightly bent knee. The tantalizing stretch of skin along the side that mars the edges of the breast and runs to a perfectly sloped hip. Planting little kisses across each other’s backs, onto the bottom, and below. Laughing, talking, and enjoying, laying on a bed in a room rich with the scent of sex and the sweet smell of sweat.

And then we would get drowsy, and I would lay down next to him, moving from being on top of him, below him, or from sitting in the hollow he made with his legs, his penis tucked along my back, still slightly wet from being inside of me. He would push me over to my side, wrapping one arm around me, loosely curving the length of my chest and coming around to cup the opposite breast. My thighs would be wet, leaking still from the two of us. I had to teach him to pull the other arm out and beneath my neck, so that he could perfectly encircle me with his arms.

And then I would arch my back and slide my bottom into the little hollow made by his legs, curved in the fetal position. I would feel him beside me, around me, near me. The heat of him echoed on the small of my back, his face by my neck, and the very presence of him so comfortingly near.

And then, wonder of wonders, I could sleep. Uninterrupted, heavenly, Kafka-free sleep. Deep, dark, tender sleep where the dreams didn’t haunt you in the morning and where every moment was spent having some kind of contact with him-my foot touching his. My arm curled against his back.

And in the morning, I would be awoken not by my neurosis calling me to wake up and address my stresses, but by his gentle finger teasing its way inside my thighs, to wake up my body before my mind, and brace me for a demanding morning round of sex.

I miss him madly sometimes, and I miss having the presence of mind and comfort to be able to curl up beside a man and fall asleep just from the consolation of his company. And some days (today included) when I had very little sleep the night before and woke up with a sleeping-pill hangover, I wish I could bottle up the essence of him, pour it on a pillow, and hug the pillow into slumber.

It’s not as good as the real thing, but it would have to do.

-H.

Posted by Everydaystranger at October 9, 2003 08:29 AM | TrackBack