The Time Between (Day 5 of 9)

Days between ‘day 5 and three months later’ were spent talking, circling each other, gauging each others reactions. Curve balls thrown and caught on both sides. Learning how to be with each other in a different mind set. Everything we had followed to date was changing and morphing into a new regime for us to live inside and a terrifying range of emotions raged through me. I have never felt so raw or scared or elated or happy and these feelings rolled over me in equal waves of gut wrenching fear and unbridled pleasure.

In short, I was a mess and Tom was exhausted. But, we were connected.

Through all of those days Tom was consistent, solid, firm. There were many moments where he could have forcefully railroaded me, he didn’t, he climbed down and found a safe middle ground where we could meet. He knew his was the biggest journey, he would be coming to me. I was stuck fast in my self made bunker, but I was holding my arms up to be pulled out. It was the most steps I’ve taken in opening up to anyone since my too long marriage and subsequent divorce.

The idea of having this beautiful man in my life permanently, thrilled me and terrified me in equal measure and I was running on adrenaline fuelled anxiety for the majority of the time and euphoric ecstasy the rest of it!

He read me well, he coaxed and cajoled and claimed me. He used our bodies to take me where I needed to be. He calmed me and eventually I lay down beside him and climbed in to us. We never spoke about love. That is a mountain of pain still to be climbed and will remain inside the steel trap for the foreseeable future. We are living with no labels to define us.

So tonight, I’m sitting on the sofa in the bedroom, scratching words onto a page in the middle of the night of day 9. I’m writing furiously, scribbling in my journal. Emptying my head. Writing soothes me, it orders my thoughts and the words flow unceasingly.

I write stories, shorts, plots, scripts and my journal. Until Tom sits down beside me, stills my hand and lifts me into his arms and holds me.

‘Can I read it Gem?’ He asks softly, holding my journal.

‘They’re just words. Random image words, feelings, they don’t really say anything. It’s just how I see us, things…’ I don’t answer his question.

‘Can I read it Baby?’ He’s holding the journal open in his hands but his eyes are on mine. He’s searching and asking for permission for me to let him in.

‘It’s not the steel trap thoughts you know, it’s not a window…’ Today had been one of those days where the demons were flying, I’m exhausted and have no thought processes left to explain.

‘Gem?’ He pushes me and raises the journal in a question.

I nod.

He read the pages and pages of scattered thoughts and finally after what seemed like the longest hour ever, he gave me the journal back.

‘Wow. That is… just wow. Why didn’t you tell me you write poetry?’ He’s smiling and I have no idea why. I have no idea what I’ve written and therefore no idea what he’s read.

I cocked my head and raised an eyebrow, ‘Poetry? Me? I don’t write poetry… they are just random thoughts thrown down so I don’t lose the word or a feeling or a phrase. You don’t read them as a poem.’

I was smiling, distracted, his fingers were travelling and brushing my thighs, tracing circles on the sensitive skin at the top. I felt his lips brush my neck and his smile against my skin.

‘You may not think so, but damn baby, they turned me on.’

He found my lips with his and the heat grew instantly hotter.

The ‘poem’ Tom had been reading?

Slow pace,
Shards of pleasure,
delicious flesh tasted
Pinning me, taking me,
inch by inch
Control taken, passion flares
quenching thirst, denying hunger
denial, denial, denial
ecstasy rising, reaching, searching,
fingers driving, abandon climbing
soft low keening, needing, arching
sharp stings, full strokes
throbbing heat
exploding, shattering, spreading,
creeping, skin blooms, heat spreads
submission calling
empty head. 

He was all of those things and more.

He bound us together and I’m calmer now. Content. Happy.