IV. The Hug – Thom Gunn
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
The year House turned 47, Cuddy invited us to her house for a home-cooked meal. Normally, House likes to pretend that he had no birthday. He just popped out of Zeus's head, teeth and all. Saved him from the mess of afterbirth and lines at Macy's on Mother's Day, he said. But really, he just doesn't like being celebrated for something so arbitrary and without merit. Beating another level of FFX, though, that was cause for joy and merry-making. So I was surprised that Cuddy even knew it was House's birthday, let alone cared enough to invite us over to her home. But I wasn't surprised when House accepted for both of us. After all, he'd stolen her garbage the last time she'd taken one of us to dinner, and he still talked about the contents of her underwear drawer whenever she managed to rope him into attending a staff meeting. Now she was practically inviting him to invade her privacy. How could he resist?
It was actually a pleasant evening. Something has changed between House and Cuddy since her cancer scare and the only time he was deliberately an ass was when she wished him a happy birthday and gave him his clinic schedule for the next week. She grilled us steaks, giving us time to snoop around in her living room and laugh at the quantity of Disney DVDs in her collection. We watched Animal House as we ate, and though I know House and I have a history with this movie (we watched it the first night I crashed at his place, when my first wife kicked me out, and then took a road trip, looking for Otis Day but finding Tom Waits instead), I was surprisingly jealous as he and Cuddy traded in-jokes. It's easy to forget that they have known each other for so long. It's easy to forget that I'm not really his only friend.
After the movie, we drank dirty Martinis and played poker. We needed more people for a real game, but it didn't matter to any of us. It was just enough to be drinking and laughing and not worrying that House would open his mouth and ruin it all. Eventually, the long day caught up with Cuddy, as did the inner-administrator. I hadn't had a lot to drink, but it was enough that I shouldn't have driven. House and I could have easily called a cab, but there was something so…close about the evening, so warm and intimate, that I felt it would have been ruined by some stranger carting us to our separate homes. Cuddy pointed to the spare bedroom and the shower. House was nowhere near ready to go to sleep, so I left him in the living room watching Biker Build-off and went to bed, glad that he seemed to be happy but wishing I wasn't alone.
I woke up to something warm and moist against the back of my neck. House's breath. And it was House's body that was curled around mine, his arms around my waist, his chin against my shoulder, his legs against my legs. I knew he was awake. I knew from the tension in his skin. I knew from the pattern of his breath. And God, did I want to turn around, but I knew that this wasn't about sex. To make it about that would cheapen it. He was safe (was he?). He was happy (with me?). He was full of food and booze and life, and he was telling me he was still mine. I could have turned around, but I figured that he knew I was awake anyway, and this was the safest way to return the sentiment. Or maybe I was too terrified to disturb his thieving embrace.