You know what I’m talking about (probably. maybe) Some of us have been there. More of us have wanted to be there, but haven’t either found the right lover, or haven’t found the courage to plunge in, eyes wide open and tearing.   Body trembling, words nearly useless, thinking “This is it, we can’t go any further, I can’t take any more. Even pleasure can kill, if one gets too much if it, can’t it?” Then the flood of release, and the flood of emotion, endorphins causing near deafness and destruction of anything other than greedy pleasure, streaked with wetness and perfumed with the aromas that only good solid sexual work can cause.  Explosions followed by lust settling and emotions swelling.

Silence, isolated twitching of spent muscles. Him handing me a Kleenex, as a gesture of kindness. “Here, I’ll take it when you’re done.” Damp in so many places, I’m not sure where to use it.

Lying together, still breathing hard. Sighs and smiles. Tonight, touching in more places than during the Act itself, he sleeps, still connected. I lie awake, the strange blue light of his alarm clock adding a nearly House of Horror tint to the Beautiful Scene. We fit together like two pieces of the same object. I push closer to him (is it possible?) and he snakes an arm around my body, holds a breast in his hand, and sighs again. I am not sure he is even awake.  Toys to be cleaned. A vibrator on the floor, plugged into the wall, tossed after it’s job was done. A… toy somewhere in the bed. On his side? I think that’s where he let it drop, after some unspeakable act was performed with it (well, several unspeakably beautiful, orgasmic, satisfying acts, then discarded.)   A damp throw under us, which probably won’t be moved until morning. He’s hard to move once he is out.  Those things can wait.

I reach for my glass of water, mouth dry. He wakes up, turns me towards him,  twists my body, remembering, and kisses my mouth. He tastes like me.  “That was….” I start. He mumbles, pets my arm or is it my thigh and re-positions himself back into our little puzzle of bodies, fit perfectly together. His arm is heavy pulls me down and I submit once again.  I sink back into the indentation my body made when we finally fell.  All I hear now is his rhythmic breathing, the sounds of the White Noise machine in the hall, and the humidifier, to give us a blanket of shhhh to block out or mute the inevitable sounds that come with pleasure and climax and shock and intense sensation and love.

This one is quiet. Tonight is almost silent.  Often there’s laughing, not the sometimes nervous giggling that starts the Scene, but real, true, relief driven laughter at our plight. Has anyone ever felt this good before? So relieved? Had this fantastic feeling of absolute satiety?   I doubt it, but I know they have. But, sometimes we laugh.  I never cry, not after, sob during an extended climax, or while wanting one so badly I can’t stand it, maybe, but never tears after. Not if I Come.

Sometimes, while he sleeps, I am too amped to sleep, or even lie with him. I clean the implements, pee, rinse myself, drink water, take a pill, retrieve a tube of ointment for the often inevitable abrasions on his Manhood. I kneel before his sleeping body, and reverently anoint him, in the light from the closet, so it won’t hurt when he awakes. This ritual soothes me further, even if he doesn’t realize I do it.

Sometimes he stays awake, he holds me, brings me water, or cookies, insists I partake. Sustenance of on kind after sustenance of another. Sometimes I shake. My muscles worked beyond endurance. He holds me and coos. “It’s OK, It’s OK.” I am OK. I’ve never been better. If my teeth chatter, he worries. I’m fine. It’s the way my body handles intense emotion and intense sensation. And positively intense release. One of us will grab the blankets and sheet and cover the other. The warmth of one comforting the other.

But, tonight, he lies behind me, both on our sides, breathing together, bodies wrapped and comfortable,  tasks can wait. Eventually, I’ll get up and tend to them, or wait until morning. Tonight, I bask in the Aftermath, the Afterglow, and he sleeps. He looks childlike when he’s asleep. Innocent. Almost blissful. No actually blissful. I can’t see him, my back is pressed up against his hard body, but I know. I’ve seen him in the Aftermath enough to know without looking.

His heavy arm on my body, his speechless, flesh-command stilling, warming, cooling, drying me, I lie sighing.

Tonight we lie. Together. In the dark.