Disclaimer: Characters herein are property of Chris Carter, 1013, 20th Century
Fox.
The quotation is from the poem "Coming to This," by Mark Strand, and is used without
permission.
COMING TO THIS
Kat Allison
It's certainly not strange for me to be awake at this time of night. It's just that his apartment is the one place I usually sleep well. He's out cold, jet-lagged. I'm sure he slept on the plane too. He can sleep anywhere, just like he can eat anything. Survivor skills. It was clear from the start that that was his talent, while my area of expertise was running the words, confabulating some bullshit to justify all the insanity. Making meaning out of straw. The Rumpelstiltskin of paranoia.
I no longer think I'm pulling my weight in the deal, though. I no longer think "meaning" has any particular use for us. But the words, useless or not, never let up in my head. None of them shaping into what I need to say to him. This can't go on You've wrecked my life I'm leaving you ... My mother's voice, distant, echoing. We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry of each other, and we have welcomed grief and called ruin the impossible habit to break ... Poems I squirreled away up there long ago and now can't quite recall and can't forget.
God, it's hot in here. His A/C is broken and it's a real Washington summer night, steamy and thick. The sheets are spilled onto the floor, mixing with his luggage and strewn clothes and a condom that didn't quite make it into the wastebasket.
The streetlight outlines his body, not that I need it to see him, I know that body by heart, better than my own. I can read him blindfolded. There's a new welted mark, up on the curve of his neck, that I put there a few hours ago. It'll fade. He heals well, he doesn't show many scars. But then you don't see many on me either. There's no CAT scan, no X-ray that would show the scars we've left on each other.
I look at the lines in the corners of his eyes, deeper now, and there's a little more fullness in the pouch beneath his jaw. He's getting older, my beautiful Alex. Jesus Christ, is it possible that we'll live to get old? That's the scariest thought I've had in years. I try to picture two old men ... what would be left between us, if you peeled away the sex and the work?
Marriage, my mother used to say, means knowing what to give up. Half a loaf is better than none, she'd say, rocking me, confiding. Way way back, before Sam went, before the divorce. Then I'm never getting married, I told her. I want the whole loaf or nothing. I used to think I had that kind of choice available to me. I used to believe a lot of stuff. We make our choices, she'd tell me, and then our choices make us. If I could go back and choose differently ... but the road rolls up behind you with every step you take. Alex tried to tell me that, but I never got it until it was too late.
I must have moved, because suddenly, silently, he's awake, zero to 100% in a heartbeat, as always. He sees me, orients, relaxes just a little. I run a hand up his thigh, and he pushes into it. He watches me steadily, not speaking, as I stroke his stiffening cock and lower my head and take him in my mouth. If there were words I could give him, give myself, that would make some meaning of all this ... but this is all I have left to give, and what we make between us is silence.