Page 45 of Sleep

I wasn’t a hugger.

I wasn’t like this. Not at all.

Yet I shifted across the bed and let my arm fall gently around his waist, my fingers slowly coming to rest against the cool sheet.

A hand tangled with mine. It was reassuring, comforting at a time when I doubted everything.

Everything was wrong. Every rule was being broken. My breath hitched, and the muscles in my neck tensed.

I was a master at building walls. It didn’t matter if they were invisible. I knew they were there, but I couldn’t have kept this one up if my life had depended on it.

Letting go of his hand briefly, I tucked the cool fabric over my shoulder and got my feet under the covers. I could smell him, soft, clean soap. Another human being, too close yet not close enough.

My arm snaked back to where it belonged, meeting his fingers in the process.

“Not a hugger.” He was smiling, I could tell.

“Nope.” Just two humans casually leaning against each other, sharing warmth. “Try to rest. I’m right here.”

His fingers squeezed mine.

It was late. Far too late. Resting my forehead against his neck, I allowed myself to relax, to accept this little bit of comfort, company. A pipe dream.

It would end in disaster. These things always did.

17. Jonathan

Ihad no idea when I’d finally drifted off, but we’d talked. Just small talk fitting the mood—two souls under a duvet. My always-cold feet found themselves tucked up against warm legs. It wasn’t particularly comfortable: for someone like me, who had never, in my fifty-one years, shared a bed with another human being, it was an entirely new experience.

I had to admit that out loud, full of shame. I’d had sexual encounters, but none involved any kind of sharing of bed space. Nor had it ever involved sleep. It always ended with me leaving, feeling incredibly ashamed about what I’d done.

I wasn’t normal. Sex was normal. Desire was normal. Wanting to engage in sexual activity with other human beings was perfectly acceptable. I just didn’t feel comfortable with it at all. It was odd and awful and embarrassing, but the truth was, I wasn’t a confident sexual partner because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or who I was supposed to be.

“I have…completed the act. And yes, of course, it was enjoyable. An orgasm always is, but the lead-up and…”

“The aftermath,” they’d filled in, speaking against my shoulder. I liked having them this close. I’d tucked their arm closer to my chest, my palm growing damp from holding theirs. I didn’t care. All I cared about was them not leaving. They’d promised they wouldn’t, and I believed them.

“Sometimes the aftermath is better than the actual act,” they’d said. “When you just lie and hold each other. That feeling of being so incredibly close to someone else—it’s my favourite feeling in the whole world.”

I should have admitted that in principle I had no idea what they were talking about. But I nodded, because I think I had an inkling. It was something like what we had here, warm, a little sweaty, close, and being held by another person.

It was wonderful.

Which was why I woke up with my chest screaming in pain, my breath barely able to squeeze air up from my lungs as I cried out in fear. Their skin was no longer against mine—not that I was in any state to remember the night before, how I’d fallen asleep. It was just the usual catastrophic anxiety paralysing me.

I knew it was irrational panic, the extreme way my body reacted to my lack of sleep and being yanked out of its rest through nothing but adrenaline. I was overtired. I was not dying. I am not dying.

My feet thumped to the floor as I tried to get myself up into a sitting position, my arms tightly wound around my chest.

Head between my knees, I tried to breathe, counting out loud through stifled huffs of air. There were techniques, things I could do to calm myself down. A cool cloth on my neck. I usually stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on my face, but I was so disorientated I didn’t even know which way the bathroom was. The London lights twinkling hurt my eyes to the point I felt spaced out, dizzy, that horrible nausea mixing with faintness, every part of my body tightening in agony.

“Hey.”

Arms came around me, hands holding on to me, too much movement behind me making the mattress bounce. I was on a ship going down. I was no good with ships. I was no good with travelling.

A shushing sound in my ear as the waves crashed over me, and then legs on either side, arms around my chest, a human lifesaver, lips being pressed to my shoulder.

I liked that…or I thought I did.

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