I would lie awake all night. Eyes glued open. Nothing but the darkness of the ceiling to see.
The darkness behind my eyelids was warm. Soft. Comforting. The brush of Rachel’s pinkie against mine didn’t startle me. Because I had been moving toward her, too. Seeking hers as she had been seeking mine. Just the same. At the same time. A reflection. A perfect reflection of her.
“This is…nice,” I murmured.
Rachel hadn’t guided me to say that. I heard the echo of those words nonetheless in the easing of her breath. Heard it in the stillness of her little pinkie against mine, callused, rough, stained from ink. Heard it in the soft rustle of sheets as she scooted just a little closer.
I did the same. I liked the idea that this was what husbands did with their wives. I liked the simplicity of it all. How ordinary it was. Liked that I could paint in the years we’d spent apart with nights just like these. I’d learned a brush stroke that night. And I could fill the empty canvas of Rachel and me with it. In darkness. In quiet.
“What do we do now?” I whispered.
“We sleep.”
Rachel wounded her arms round me. I enveloped her, drew her close. We breathed against one another. But my breaths, as first like gentle waves were gaining in height, building in speed, as Rachel’s proximity caused a surge of energy through my body. I tightened my grip on her. Rachel’s fingers curled against the skin of my back like there was something to grab ahold of.
“Fuck it,” she said, abruptly tugging her arms away from me to undo the buttons of her pyjama top. “We’re married. We’re not dead.”
It was a good thing, too. I was as hard as a rock.
“What do we do now, dirty girl?” I asked with a smile as Rachel caught herself in the arms of her shirt.
Her eyes found mine. They sparked deliciously.
“You know exactly what to do now…sir.”