I can feel myself floating upward through layers of thick clouds and thinning air, moisture clinging to the ends of my hair and the tips of my eyelashes like dew clings to leaves in the morning just before the sun comes up. When the sky is full of possibilities and the day hasn't yet taken on the direction it will take. I'm hovering over the bed; I can't feel my limbs nor am I able to speak. There's a sense of transformation that fills the air like the lingering fragrant scent of magnolias in summer. It's a feeling I recognize and yet it's utterly foreign to me.
I'm looking down and I see us laying in bed a tangle of arms and legs as we cling to one another trying our damnest to merge into one being. And I'm happy...No, happy isn't the right word. I've been happy before. I know what that feels like. It's, it's...ice cream and roses. It's angel kisses and meeting friends for a night out. It's romance novels and one night stands. It's first loves and old crushes. Happiness is transitory; it's fleeting. It comes and goes on a whim. It stays only for a moment then disappears with the swiftness of a bird in flight. It gives you a taste of that other thing then takes it away, leaving you with a hollow sense of longing that cannot be filled or fully comprehended.
This is different. This is the other thing; it's sunrises and sunsets. It' s the mystery of the moon at midnight on a clear night set brilliantly against a blanket of stars. It's the ground under my feet and the sky above my head. It's the coming together of mind, body and soul as two lives becoming one. It's being held in an embrace and feeling at home. It's saying I love you and meaning it with every fiber of your being. It's hearing I love you and every cell in your body knowing and feeling the truth of it. Its luxuriating in the good times and making it work through the bad. It's not about happily ever after; it's about after.
I see them, us and I see him, my husband laying there in his physical beauty. His mental allure, his emotional cracks laid bare before me like the plans of a castle. Ancient in its construct and yet solid, able to withstand the relentless bombardments of time. And I'm stunned into silence every time by his flawed perfection. He's human and like all human has his moments of glaring inconsistency. And yet I fit into him like a piece of a puzzle not known missing until it's put in the right place. And he fits me the same way.
It's like we've been searching for one another all our lives we've had other loves, other experiences that have touched us. In some ways shaped up, but were never really enough for us. We've done and said things that have hurt other people and ourselves. We've done and said things that were completely out of character. All in an effort to find something. And then we did. One day out of the blue he walks into my store and life changed in that instant. At first it was as all attractions are purely physical. That face, those glasses, the way his jeans hit every curve of that magnificent back side of his. That leather jacket that made him look so butch it hurt but in a way that made you just want to get naked and worship his cock. Then he spoke and his voice hit the very core of me. It was all I could do to think straight and get him the comic books he needed for his class.
Even though I knew that was it, something told me that it wasn't. Something told me there was more to it than just him customer me patron. What my mind refused to accept my heart knew. And from there, we're here.
And I'm descending back into my body. And I feel the soothing warmth of his body. His breath comes in gentle steady rhythmic pulses on my neck. His strong nearly hairless arms enfold me, protecting me, blanketing me, holding me to his chest, while being held. I'm entranced by the ring on his left hand. I'm held captive by the glittering gold band as I relax into him, reconnecting with him becoming part of him again.
I know it all sounds like overly romantic drivel coming from a newlywed, but I love him more than I ever thought possible. I love him beyond all logic and reason. I love him in ways never before conceived. There's this sense of tremendous painful joy in loving him, in being loved by him.
I used to think I'd in some way, some miraculous way, end up with Brian at the end of it all. Because he's all I knew, all I wanted to know. But that's what was. Being here now in Ben's arms is what is.
"If I loved thee more, my heart would burst and bleed out rivers of emotion that would flood the world. I pray I never love thee less..."