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The Best of Men
It's late. My mates have gone ... somewhere. I don't really care that they're not near me. I'm not feeling bereft because I am left here with you. It's a few hours past sunset and as we walk we talk of nothing - excitedly and slightly out of breath, almost as though we were the ones to invent the mathematical concept of zero. Each step of our trek as we wend round bends is another second spent feeling unabashedly content.
We pause as we reach your porch, and I find that my thoughts are both happy and really rather nervous. See, I've got a sudden purpose forged from slowly grown desire. The heat is hurtling higher, but I've always been lots of smoke and very little fire. Each time I try the high wire I always fall. My act's a sham. I'm in the exam hall, but I've not studied for this test. I can't attempt a question lest the correct answer be a firmly underlined rejection. But before I can quiet the anxiety inside of me, you slide your sights to me to meet my greenish eyes and opine to me, "It's been a fine night." And you invite me in.
We close in with twin, gin-thin, thick-with-sin grins and begin the skin to sweat-slick skin contact. We've formed a compact of consent, neither one objects so let's just relish in the subjectivity of the activity. We're playing a very ancient game. One which is almost always entertaining, but no two time are exactly the same. Not quite.
For instance, tonight it's like no one ever thought to write Homer's words on pages, and his verse never made it through the ages. It's like Achilles never even went to Troy. He and his bully boys just stayed at home and never drove Aeneas to sow the seeds of Rome. Which means the stage is clear for me to declare myself ho aristos ton achaion. "The very best of men."
That's how I feel. Here. At 4am. In your bed, with your breath on my chest, and your head at rest in this nest formed by the bend between my humerus and my radius and ulna. Wondrous, and luxuriantly vulnerable.
One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward
