Lovers

From the minute I arrived, things felt different.

Good different.

I mean, of course, I went through the usual routine following my grand entrance into his apartment--namely, panting in his front hall from the hike upstairs, pulling food stuffs out of my bag in clown car fashion, all while rambling on about nothing in particular. I wouldn't want to disappoint, after all.

But then he kissed me.

Not one of those crazy Jefferson kisses that involve his manic tongue lapping at every corner of my mouth, but a smiling peck. Familiar. Sweet. Just to shut me up.

And shut me up it did.

All of my tense muscles sighed a little bit at the gesture and I instantly relaxed.

We parted ways; he wandered into the kitchen to deposit my offerings on the counter while I made a beeline for the wooden dining table in the living room to abandon my bag.

I didn't stand awkwardly in the hallway, scuffing the bottoms of my shoes on his floor, pausing until he told me where I could put my things. I didn't wait for him to take them from me and invite me deeper into his home.

I just reacted.

I never do that...

As crazy as it sounds, this place, this world, feels a little bit more mine each time I'm here.

Passing that fruit stand on my walk up from the subway, I like to imagine that the greying Hispanic guy restocking plantains, the one with the moustache, vaguely recognizes me from my last trip past his store, when he bid me good night.

Excusing myself as I tip-toe around the mass of neighborhood kids piled on the stoop of his building, pushing the call button and murmuring, "It's me," I marvel at the fact that I actually said that and that he actually buzzed me in.

Inside, admiring the paintings that have been put up since I last was here, the new coffee table, seeing curtains up on one window, knowing there was a sheet of crazy seventies wallpaper there two weeks earlier--that sort of thing makes me smile.

I feel comfortable with him, completely and totally.

Comfortable in his bed and his arms, on his couch and on his kitchen floor. I'm totally comfortable in this place we've landed in together.

We aren't Elizabeth and Will Darcy.

We aren't soul mates.

I'm pretty sure he can, and will, find someone far more suited to his tastes. Someone who hears about his insane love for 70s rock music and doesn't think--"Oh, like the BeeGees, right?"

We're lovers.

I told him that just typing out that word made me think of torrid trysts and tea-stained satin gloves, the tell-tale stychomathia of great dialogue by Oscar Wilde.

It's a bit of a romanticized concept, but, hell yes, world: Call me Lady Chatterly--I have a lover.

Knowledge of his existence is kept to a privileged few in my world, and even that is hardly pure truth. By and large, he's my little secret.

No one knows that instead of meeting up with Colby to go see some band I've never heard of in some club I'd likely feel out-of-place in, I'm having my clothes peeled off in this man's foyer.

No one knows that he's purring in my ear, having unzipped my pencil skirt to find nothing underneath.

No one knows that he loves the feel of my skin, silky and soft. No one knows that I love the way his skin slides over mine, rosy and pink where mine is the lightest coffee cream. I love watching us.

No one knows that in almost six hours, we've only left his bed twice.

No one knows that we haven't been more than three inches apart. That he's been buried deep inside me and smiling into my kisses for the better part of our time together.

No one knows that my first taste of bourbon was taken from his lips while curled up in his arms.

No one knows that we laugh about Bret Michaels and hot tranny messes in the darkness that creeps into his bedroom from the sleeping world outside.

No one knows how big my grin was when, following another sip of Maker's Mark, the ice cubes clinking as he set his glass down on the nightstand next to that Saul Bellow novel, he asked, "So, we're lovers, right?"

No one knows that in response to something so simultaneously hot and adorable, I replied, "Hell yeah, we are."

No one knows that our kiss behind his front door was the highlight of my night. That I took the stairs back down to the city streets with a bit more bounce for having it there to linger on my lips.

No one knows that I rode the subway home with his come in my hair, his bruising grip still palpable on my thighs, feeling my heartbeat in every inch of my body.

Well, now you guys know...

Don't tell.