O pull on the rein and haul me in back to the start
Rebirthed in ecstasy with cherubim and seraphim
When I was falling soaring so rhythmically
Falling soaring falling for you so completely
The concept of intimacy is one frightening bitch.
Who do you let near?
When do you let boundaries tumble?
How do you do it so you don't freak yourself out?
What does real intimacy look like?
Can these demonstrations be explored without freaking others out?
Why? How? What? When? Who?
I suppose I could say that in my life, I have developed a pretty well entrenched sense of boundaries. I keep people out for a long time. Not wanting to get hurt, I keep them outside the pre-determined line. Upon proving themselves, I then deign to grant them entry.
This is how the process usually works; there are, naturally, few with whom I have become emotionally intimate. With these people, I have been able to, more or less, establish the ground rules on which our relationships have been developed.
True, this sounds cold. To an extent, maybe it is cold…and impersonal…and overly analytical.
Yet it's my truth.
I've never been comfortable sharing the softer part of myself with others. It's easier to be in control of myself, of others…or at least be in control of the access that others have to the parts of me that matter.
This system has worked with everyone that I have met in my life.
Everyone: family, friends, and even lovers.
Everyone, that is, except Edward.
In pushing entrance to my closed little world, he demanded a level of closeness that I had never dealt with before in my life. He'd brush, stroke, grasp, clutch, embrace; it freaked me the hell out.
I loved it.
I hated it.
It terrified the living shit out of me.
I had to deal with the idea of learning about intimacy. The real, emotional intimacy shared between two people on equal terms…at least, on more equal terms than I had previously allowed.
And like with so many parts of my life with Edward, I stumbled, I freaked out, I retreated, I surged forward.
Mostly though, I reveled.
With him in my life, the semester passed in a blur. It was a swirl of Edward popping in, changing how I viewed my life, and, as a result, altering my perception of not only myself but my reality as well.
I didn't date in high school. I didn't have the time; didn't make the time; and was too scared of the damage that the townie boys could do to me.
But I wanted to date.
I wanted someone to want me for, well, me. This I got from Edward.
We didn't date, we weren't dating or really anything else for that matter, but he became a steady presence in my life. I became his friend; he became the dearest and most precious part of my life.
Whenever he'd knock at my door or come bounding across the cafeteria, I'd drop everything I was doing to play with him.
It was late morning on an unusually sunny Saturday in March, I was sitting in the campus cafeteria munching on waffles with strawberries and whipped cream and drinking my Diet Coke while trying to get caught up on my French reading. Stupid Colette was kicking my ass and my excursions with Edward weren't helping me focus at all. I had a paper to write discussing the feminine within the context of La Maison de Claudine, but I'd yet to finish the first half of the novel, let alone delve into story-wide thematic arcs.
And so I read on, consulting my dictionary often, praying that I was comprehending the text that I should have tackled a couple of weeks ago. Somewhere between reading, "Moi, je serai marin!" and "Moi, je serai marin, et dans mes voyages…" I began to lose my focus. I started mashing what was left of my cold waffles and strawberries together into an unappealing glob while scraping the scant remnants of whipped cream that had spilled onto the plate with my fork and licking at the fork to clean it.
I was zoning out, probably earning some suspicious glances from others sitting near me for the wafflemash crime I was committing, but that didn't matter. I simply liked the idea of not thinking; it was appealing. I didn't think about what I deserved, what I should be doing, where I might be headed, or anything else life altering. I thought a little about how I might enjoy the sunshine but then remembered that I had run out of sunscreen and hadn't yet made it to the local Walgreen's to pick up my tube of SPF 75. Unfortunately, that limited my options unless I wanted to get a lovely little sunburn.
Committed to spending my sunny day in my room finishing up my Colette, I cleared off my tray, packed up my book, and headed back to my room. As I was crossing University Avenue, I heard someone yelling my name from off in the distance. Well, I heard a familiar sounding voice hollering for a Bella. Not wanting to assume that it was me and turn around looking like an eager puppy waiting for her ball, I kept on my course.
I got to the front of the building, realized that I hadn't grabbed my keys before I left the cafeteria, and then I sat downs on the bench outside my building and began to dig through my backpack because, of course, the keys had settled to the wasteland on the bottom of the bag.
Sorting through change and lip-gloss and pens and myriad other detritus, I was surprised to suddenly sense someone sitting next to me.
"You, lady, are a difficult one to wrangle." Edward laughed.
For him, though, I knew this to be the polar opposite. I wanted to spend as much time as was humanly possible near him, around him, with him. He had no real difficulty, ever, wrangling me.
Desperate? Perhaps it was.
Yet it was my truth.
"What's the plan?" He asked.
You are my plan, I nearly said.
"Just finished my work for the week," I lied. "What are you up to today?"
He shrugged, looked around at the buildings in the vicinity, and, after nearly an entire minute had passed, contributed, "Not too much. Though I'd grab a friend and play some games."
My brain went wild. "Ooooh! Grab me! Please, grab me!" My subconscious pleaded, begged, demanded.
"So, wanna?"
Fuck. Yes, I do!
"What games are you thinking about playing?" Play the game Edward Loves Bella. I could get down with that game. That game I could play forever.
"How 'bout we grab some ice cream and then play some Nine Ball?"
"What's that?" I inquired.
"Schwaaaa? You don't know Nine Ball?" He was clearly appalled.
I shrugged, not wanting to make eye contact. I hated not knowing how to do stuff. I felt lacking, that I was missing some vital piece of belonging. I felt that I had failed.
"So do you wanna learn?" He asked.
I looked up at him, not sure if I wanted to be subjected to this kind of humiliation.
I was going to suck. I knew this. Pending suckage was a certainty.
But I was going to get to spend time with him. a large block of one-on-one time. The thought of having this opportunity filled me with a sense of hope, a feeling of wholeness that I knew I couldn't conceivably turn it down.
Eve if I would inevitably embarrass myself.
Because I would.
If I got to be with him, I'd sacrifice even the few shreds of dignity I desperately clung to for the opportunity to be.
To be with him.
"All right, Miss Bliss. Ready to go in half an hour?" I nodded in response and he bounded away, ready to plan my downfall.
I just kept on nodding and tried to figure out how I'd manage this imminent fiasco. Visions of injuring myself, unmanning him with errant stick maneuvers, and being on the receiving end of patronizing giggles ran through my head.
Trying to block out the doom I was expecting, I instead tried to focus on what I would wear that afternoon. I grabbed my new pair of Levis, the pair that thankfully hid the ravages that the typical 'freshman fifteen and then some' had dealt me. Trying to figure out what top I'd wear, I shrugged out of the Clinton/Gore tee I was sporting and sighed when I looked at my tits.
I may have gained weight, but none of it had landed north of my ribcage or south of my shoulders. Why couldn't I be one of those girls who gets boobs when she gets fat?
It's an injustice.
Damn you, genetics.
I finally settled on a simple blue babydoll that my friend Alice promised "would do wonders for the girls."
Throwing on my pink Chucks, I grabbed my wallet and headed to his room.
Then I glanced at the watch I had on my wrist.
Twenty minutes to go before we were supposed to meet.
Shit.
Not cool, Bella. Not cool.
I skulked back to my room, ready to twiddle my thumbs until the appointed hour.
Sighing, I felt the ball of anticipation and excitement build from faint tendrils in my stomach and slowly, steadily spread through my body to my fingertips. It seemed as if I were The Beast during his transformation: all light and energy and desperation shooting forth from everywhere.
It was miserable.
It was wonderful.
It was only twenty fucking minutes!
I paced, I drew, I paced, I shredded and twisted paper and I finally heard a knock at my door.
The knock startled me off of the chair I had perched upon when I had decided to occupy myself with coloring books in order to tamp down the mania. I landed solidly on my butt, falling solidly onto a melée of paper, crayons, and the remnants of my craft box.
Picking myself up off the floor, leaving the mess behind, my hands shook as I approached the door.
I breathed a few deep breaths, jumped up and down a couple of times as I stood behind the door, all as a means to expel some of this nervous-excited energy that was leaping from every pore.
Opening, the door, I tilted my head to the side, smiled, and said hello. As I did this, I just basked in his beauty, in his abundant energy, and felt ecstatic to be alive. He returned my greeting, stepped forward, and clasped me in his embrace.
He reached his arms around my waist, pulled me into him until we were touching from shoulder to toe and it felt as though I was breathing him in. My nose fit in the crook of his neck and I smelled his clean, slightly soapy, scent. I could have stood there, eyes closed, for all time.
I nearly whimpered.
I almost cried.
And as the tears threatened, he upped his game. He pulled me closer, not uncomfortably so, but he brought me securely, safely, reassuringly into him. I grasped the fabric on the back of his shirt, wanting to reach underneath to feel the strength of him underneath the tee shirt, but I hesitated to return the embrace; I didn't know what my place was.
Would I appear too eager?
Would I seem needy?
How do I cling to him without showing him everything that I had inside my heart that I wasn't ready to share?
I slowly smoothed the fabric from my fingers and returned the hug, trying to mirror the strength, the fondness, the intimacy of his embrace. As I did, he quietly sighed, exhaling into the sensitive crook of my neck.
Tingles of sensation exploded from that tiny corner of my neck. Goosebumps popped all over my arms and I just wanted him to do it again and again and again. I had no clue what was going on, but I did know that I loved it.
Quietly, he asked, "Are you ready to go?"
As disoriented as I was, I nearly missed the question, but I caught it, if barely. "Yeah," I sighed, unwilling to break contact.
He slowly detached from my clutches, reached for my hand, and, even though I still was dazzled, we headed off for the student center.
He picked a pool table in the back of the hall, one fairly secluded from the dartboards and video games, yet close to the jukebox. The corner we landed in was dimly lit with two wall sconces providing us with the bare minimum of yellow light necessary to make our path and see the tables. The pool table was well worn, with slightly scuffed felt and about a dozen well used blue chalk cubes scattered along the edge of the table.
Putting me in charge of picking 'kick ass tunes,' he went in search of the balls and a couple of cue sticks that would do the job for our game. I glanced around the room, noting the well used video games ranging from pinball to Pac Man to Bust A Move to some space invader-y alien shoot-em-up adventure that looked unreasonably complicated. Across from the video games was the cashier who had access to the alcohol and the balls for pool as well as the darts for the dartboard. He was standing over by the dreadlocked student worker when I turned to the old-fashioned jukebox in the corner of the room.
The red and white fluorescent glow of the jukebox beckoned me hoping to find at least a couple of albums that fell into the 'kick ass' category, I flipped through the pages of music. Ace of Base, Joan Osborne, Celine Dion, Metallica, Pearl Jam, REM, Bon Jovi all made appearances in the music troves at the Student Center. Amidst the crapola tunes, I found some gems, finally settling on some Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, REM, and Pearl Jam. Finishing my selections, Edward returned to the table just as I turned away from the music.
The haunting strains of Comfortably Numb began filling the hall as I walked the short distance to where he stood, eyes closed, listening to Gilmour sing and Waters play. I knew he was a sucker for the Floyd and I loved watching him appreciate music. He was at peace, calm and reflective; a direct contrast to his usual freneticism. Usually he was Tigger, come to life, bounding to and fro, exhausting me with his boundless energy and enthusiasm. In the presence of great music, all of the restless energy was redirected onto the music and a certain serenity crossed his visage.
It was a glorious thing to watch.
Walking up to him, I basked in his assured calmness for a couple of minutes and, not wanting the moment to get too deep, I poked him in the side and snickered as I bounced away to safety.
"Troublemaker."
I shrugged, with a smirk decorating my lips, "I guess I had to start sometime."
He winked and asked, "Ready?"
I nodded and he tossed me a cue stick.
"You wanna break?"
"Sure." Walking to the pool table, I glanced at the diamond of balls in front of me. He'd briefed me on the rules of the game and so I generally had a clue what I should be doing. Taking aim, I managed to make contact with the cue ball and a little of the aged felt right before I slammed into the cue ball. The white ball hopped a couple of times and smashed ineffectually into the pyramid of balls, sending a couple of the outliers away from the cluster, but not with any great distance.
I tilted my head to the side, glared at the uncooperative orbs, shrugged, and then heard his snicker. "Excuse me?"
He paused and had the courtesy to look at least a little embarrassed. "My turn," he noted. He bent slightly at the hip, his legs spread slightly apart, and took aim at the balls with the stick. While he was doing this, I watched his ass as he shifted his weight, ever so slightly, from hip to hip in time with Alive, which wailed from the jukebox.
I didn't know that I could like Vedder more than I already did. As Eddie inspired my Eddie to move and sway to the rhythm of his guitar, I was awed.
I watched as he moved again, his bottom flexing as he shifted his legs to take his shot and again as he stood to turn to me.
"Did you see how I did that?"
I sure the hell did. I simply nodded as I brushed my thumb across my mouth to make sure I wasn't drooling.
Pretty sure he was taking pity on me, it was again my turn to go. I sidled up to the weathered wood and felt and tried to figure out where next to take aim. I sought out the 1 ball, which still needed to go in and I found it, precariously close to a pocket. Stalking the edge of the table, I located the cue ball and tried to figure out how I could make the two entities collide productively.
As I was thinking, I heard a voice ask from the jukebox if I needed any help. I made a noncommittal sound and went back to my balls. They looked back at me mockingly so I closed my eyes and took my shot.
I biffed, leaving a barely visible divot in the felt and heard a small, repressed snicker to my side. "Shut it, bucko," I warned. "I told you I suck at this."
"Just ask if you want help. That's all. See, had you hit the ball at this angle," he demonstrated using his cue, "the trajectory would have propelled the ball to the edge here and the subsequent force would have led the cue ball to strike the 1 ball hard enough to get into the pocket here."
Oh crap. I hate physics. I get it, I've taken it, but Physics just fucking sucks. Yet here I was watching him animatedly discuss the relative trajectory of pool balls, befuddled by his passion for the properties that govern successful play of this game.
I turned the table over to him and vowed to actually figure out what the hell to do next. I watched as he set his long, saxophonist's fingers, ushered the cue stick between them and adjusted his grip on the shaft of the stick. I watched the determination in his face amble through to he play of muscles in his forearm as he set the stick, adjusted the angle, and then thrust the cue forward to collide with the white ball.
Holy Christ, he was sexy.
He managed to drop the first five balls in succession before scratching out. Determined to hit something, anything on this turn, I walked to the table and perused my options. Four balls and the cue ball remained on the table. In theory, I understood how to get the next ball in, it would only take a little maneuvering. So I spread my legs, and began to place the cue in the angle that would work. Drawing the stick back to take aim, I felt someone stand between my spread legs and grab my waist.
"Ok, I thought I'd lend a hand," he commented.
My brain shut down.
Placing his hand securely on my stomach as I tried not to think of the extra fullness there, he pulled me toward him. He moved his left hand from my stomach to adjust the way that my fingers were tented for the cue and then guided it back to my abdomen. He took his right hand and used it to guide the cue in the most appropriate direction.
"Ok," he whispered in my ear. "I think you've got it." He held me tight and supported my movements as I made my stroke. "Keep it steady, be smooth, and don't forget who's boss."
Jesus. He was going to kill me.
His breath on my neck was shooting forth ripples of sensation everywhere. I felt electric, alive, and didn't give a tinker's damn what was going on with the pool game. I prayed for him to keep breathing on me, I wanted him to lick my neck, I needed him to bite my ear. I ached for something, a feeling I'd never thought of before, a sensation that kept me glued to him and overrode any concerns that I had about my less than perfect weight.
I played my turn. I think I got a couple of balls in before I misfired again. There's only so much a body can take before any attempts at composure are spent.
He stayed with me through all of my turns, holding me close, encouraging me, and driving me batshit crazy murmuring directions and instructions and stupid Edward-isms all the while.
It was finally his turn at the table and I saw three balls left in play. As he released his hold on me, I stumbled slightly and was rewarded when he secured me by grasping my sides. When he was convinced I could stand erect successfully, he withdrew and played his turn.
We played a few more rounds. I'm not entirely sure how many rounds we ended up completing. Every time I played, he would either guide my actions from behind while explaining the related physics or he would coach from across the table, engaged and supportive and wonderful.
When he took his turns. I simply watched him. I watched him move and laugh and think and analyze. He'd move his head to the side as he contemplated the more difficult shots, the tendons in his neck flexing as he swallowed and tensed while making his assessment. I stared as the vein in his forehead protruded ever so slightly as he determined which move to make. He'd glance my way from time to time in the midst of his play, a confident smirk on his lips, and I did my best to play down my obsession with watching him.
My obsession with him.
I tried to appear cool, that I was watching him so intently so as to mimic his moves, his approach to the game.
I was really trying to drink up every moment that I had with him, knowing that these times together would be fleeting; nothing this sweet ever could last. I hadn't earned it; I didn't deserve it.
And we played on and on, chatting about nothingness and everything.
I told him about me. I was honest, I was candid, I was brutal.
And he listened.
And he was interested.
And I was terrified.
Bored with pool, we moved on to ice cream and chitchat on the outdoor terrace of the student center. Sitting on the edge of the pier, we took off our shoes and dangled our feet in the frigid water, leaning against each other and rambling on and on as we lapped at our orange custard chocolate chip.
He said, "Tell me a story."
He wanted to hear my story. No one really ever wanted to hear my story; maybe I never let anyone want to hear it.
Yet he did.
So I told him what I could. I told him what I wasn't embarrassed to share and made up the rest. I needed to be interesting, so I created bits and pieces of my history to fill in the gaps. I molded the picture of myself into someone I wanted to be; that I was sure he would want.
As the ducks floated near our dancing feet, we simply were. I could be silent with him; I was never really silent, especially when I was unsure or scared or approaching the unknown. I was barreling head first into all three. Yet something in me let me have quiet of moments as my head rested softly on his shoulder and his head atop mine.
It was perfect.
I let myself have a few minutes of perfection knowing that somehow, someway, I was going to tarnish it.
Maybe I already had.
The sun began setting and we both headed back to the residence hall. He led me back to my room and he grabbed my around the waist, hauling me toward him into yet another hug.
This man had touched me more in one day than I had ever been touched before in my life. I didn't know what to do with all of this closeness, with this intimacy. My brain was overloaded, my body was overwhelmed.
I was so in love with him.
"You're the best," he confessed as he squeezed me with comforting strength.
I couldn't speak, but nodded slowly.
Kissing me in the middle of the forehead, he bounded off toward his end of the hall.
When I finally collected myself enough to gain entry to my room, images of this day ran through my mind. This day had changed my heart, had altered my mind. This silly, stupid, wonderful day had just become the single most important moment of my life.
I slowly made my way to my bed and as I walked, it became more and more difficult to breathe. I was so happy. I was so blindingly, paralytically ecstatic. I knew that it would disappear like grains of sand.
That happiness didn't belong to me.
How could it?
As my breathing became more and more labored, my thoughts became equally frantic. I wanted him, I needed him, I loved him.
I would destroy this. I would break myself. I was convinced that I didn't have the capacity to build or maintain this love, to earn his love.
And it shattered me.
My pretenses of strength, of resiliency collapsed under the conviction of my deficiencies.
Sobs coursed through my body in waves; I fell onto the bed in the fetal position clutching my pillow to my chest as I wailed, wetting the pillow with my grief and my fear. I tried to center myself, to pull myself out of my misery, to let myself have this perfect day.
Eventually I did, but the day was still slightly tarnished.
Even with the slight mar on its finish, it was still the best day.
I wish today was just like every other day
'Cause today has been the best day
Everything I ever dreamed