Val was sleeping with her head
resting in the very corner of my shoulder and neck. I watched her breathing and
wondered if she was dreaming or not, and what about. Her breath fluttered
across my skin in little breezes and I revelled in its coolness. It was the
first night either of us had slept that week, the mixture of an unexpected heat
wave and a poky, small windowed room taking its toll. Instead we had spent the
time fucking, sweating, talking about things I'd never meant to bring up and
constructing hand held fans from flip-flops and paperbacks. Even I had to admit
that it had been blissful.
It hadn't changed me. I was still lying awake, thinking of irregular Spanish verbs and remembering a Borges story. It was enough for me to be near her, to want her. I knew I didn't have to love her, that I wouldn't. But I also knew, could feel from her sighs against my neck, that she wanted me to. She wanted more than I could give her, and even though I should maybe have felt fraudulent, I didn't. I never understood why it wasn't enough to have the moment, to have a million moments of wanting, without making it complicated, without me having to feign something I wasn't ready for. I had changed Val, and I hadn't wanted to. She had melted since I met her, taken me into her world and told me her secrets. I had not reciprocated, and despite this she was trusting enough to assume I felt the same.
I felt her move in her sleep, her fingers moving to graze the bottom of my breast. I smiled at the way she enjoyed my body in her sleep, secure in the fact that I would be here in the morning. I let my hands brush her back, feeling the rivulets of sweat gathering in the small of it. Involuntarily I shuddered, excited by the feel of her skin and her smell. I closed my eyes, breathing in the stale heat of the room. It closed in on me, and I opened my eyes, gasping. I relaxed as I saw the mass of empty space to the side of me. There was still room for me to escape to.
“I feel safe with you,” Val had whispered before she fell asleep. I had smiled and shushed her and kissed the tip of her nose, a gesture that always seemed to calm her. That was when she had snuggled into the side of me, holding me as if I might disappear. It was nearly time for me to leave, I knew, before she felt as if I had mislead her, before she felt the full force of betrayal. It was the same old pattern, the same midnight flit. I didn't use them, I still insist on that. They got what they wanted from me for the most part, just not for as long as they wanted it. It was easy for me, it always had been. I had that aloofness that women always thought came from being lonely, but that actually came from being alone.
I didn't want that co-dependence. I didn't want a wife, or a life partner. I didn't even want a fuck buddy. In fact, even I wasn't completely sure what it was I wanted, I just knew that I liked the falling, the chase, the midnight revelations of things they'd never told anyone before. It was like my drug, the whispers and the kisses. Like any drug, I needed a new fix after a while. I looked down at Val's face, a film of sweat covering her pale skin, and I knew that I should do it now, the same way I had with all the others. I was always fair. It was always six weeks, long enough to get the juice and short enough for them to not get too hung up on it once it was over.
I knew I was a heartbreaker. I knew from the way exes looked at me when we met on the street, the way the ones with whom I had stayed friends spoke to me in guarded sentences because they no longer trusted what I did with information. I was sorry about it, but I still didn't know how to stop it. Now I wondered how I was going to do it. Should I slip out from under her, knowing that she was a deep enough sleeper to not notice until I was long gone? Something stuck in my throat as I thought about it. For the first time, I felt a pull to her, as if there was a tiny silken thread suspended between her and I.
When I thought about it, I'd made no promises. I had no reason to stick to my rules outside of the force of habit. I enjoyed the way her body felt against mine, the way she gave up some of her strength to let me in. She hadn't needed me when she met me, and she had come to let herself. There was something powerful in knowing I had changed her. I wondered if, for the first time I could maybe return the favour. I wriggled slightly, until my head rested in the top of hers. I cupped her jaw with my hand, stroking the side of her cheek slightly. I closed my eyes, ignoring the feeling of closing in, enjoying instead the velvety grey darkness. I let myself sleep, knowing that I would still be there in the morning.