I was in bed.  The rain was pattering lightly on the window.  One eye, opening to a tiny slit, looked up at a gray day outside.  The rain and the gray day was fine with me–the tiny slit closed.  I was in bed with him.  We had fallen asleep and his shifting had woken me up.  His head was now on the space below my belly button.  He lifted his head to brush his face lightly against it.  “Do you know how soft this is?”  he murmured against me.  “Here, give me your hand.”  He took my hand from my side and placed it there.  “Feel that.”  It was soft–I was faintly surprised.  I had never felt it before in this way.  It felt soft, like a baby’s cheek, like a hide of rabbit skin.

His hand traced from my belly button to my mound.  He buried his face and breathed in.  I could feel his smile against my skin.  My own eyes were too lazy to open; they stayed closed against the rain, against his smile.  But I returned his smile with my own–it slowly curled up on my close-eyed laziness.

Morrissey’s “Suedehead” played on the stereo this lazy Sunday:  “Why do you come here, when you know it makes things hard for me when you know?  Oh, why do you come?”

We had fallen asleep after coupling.  When I woke, I was surprised that he had fallen asleep–inside me.  He was next to me, sleeping face facing mine, breathing deeply in dreamland, his hand cupping my breast.  Then he had shifted and had fallen out.  What an odd sensation–that feeling, like a limp glove, or maybe a sock puppet, slipping out of me and flopping onto the bed.  Thump.

Then in his drowsiness, he had rolled away from me and became aware of me.  His matted head lifted, checked his surroundings, rolled back towards me and ended up where he was at the moment–face planted against my treasure trail.  He was trying to get a response from me, but it was no good.  It was lazy Sunday and I wasn’t budging.  It was getting darker in his bedroom and I was in no mood to be disturbed.

“Do you know I could pick you out of a line-up?  You know, like the police line-up?”  No response.  Lazy Sunday.  He pushed apart my thighs and nipped at my lips with his own.  “This.”  Nip.  “I know this by heart, by memory.”  Nip, tug.  “I know you so well, I could pick you out of a police line-up.”  This got my attention.  One sleepy eye opened and looked down at him.  He was like a little boy in a candy shop, matted head smiling up at me from the hooha counter.  A hand came up from its resting place on my hip and pointed at his selection.  “This–” he parted me slightly, “you have a split lip here.  The inner lips split into another set.”

I’ve never had anyone be so intimate with me.  I’ve never had anyone say something like that.  Boys before him had gotten in and out like they were on a commando raid.  Not this guy–he set up camp and was happy to get to know the terrain.

Both of my lazy eyes shot open, I rose up on my elbows and looked down at him, fully.  “What?” was all I could muster.  The pointing finger traced me lightly, tracing what he had just described.  “This.  This is different.”  From my treasure trail to the soft skin above the mound, then fingers gently parting me and tracing the inner lips, one split into an extra fold.  “This is you.  Nothing else like it.  No one else like you.  Different.”  He breathed me in fully.  “You smell…tangy.  You smell like…T-mint.”

Oh geez, a nickname.  We’ve reached the point in our relationship where we were intimate enough for body part nicknames.  That got an eye roll from me, but also a full body stretch and a full, lazy smile.  My arms stretched above my head and then propped it up so I could look down at him properly.  I didn’t want to interrupt this “different” attention with some clumsy comeback.  I just let him appreciate me on full display without my usual self-consciousness.  The bedspread fell away from my breasts when I stretched and it was pushed fully to one side of us.  I noticed my black lace panties and bra–the set I had ordered from that fancy VS catalog to impress him.  He never noticed them.  They were taken off me quickly during our coupling and forgotten in the bedclothes.  My skin, naked and exposed to the darkening room, tingled with the sound of the rain and his touch.  He was playfully fluffing me like a pillow and had laid his head down on my softness saying, “I could stay here all day.  Let’s order takeout.”

As I contemplated that, I came to an agreement:  it sounded good to me.  Lazy Sunday.  Morrissey.  Bed.  Chinese takeout.  Rain.  Darkness.  Sleep.