Gloria Hayes wants you to know that there is more than one way to make love.
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A single sunbeam steals across the floor and tickles my eyelids. I open them slowly, luxuriously, feeling first all the familiar sensations that are you. The leg thrown across mine at the ankle with the sheet tangled in your toes. The intense warmth you generate where ever our bodies are touching, that has always existed, right from the first moment.
I close my eyes again and smell you, the clean masculinity that completes my own femininity, and the coarse hair that scratches my cheek as you nuzzle my face in your sleep. I breathe deeply as you exhale, drawing in the breath that was down next to your heart just moments ago, and hold it in my chest, next to my own heart. One breath, one heartbeat, one life. Ours.
I remember the times I have held your head as you cried with me.
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You adjust in your sleep and habit causes you to reach for me and pull me over to you, my head on your chest. I lie still, so as not to wake you, just as I did last night when you finally fell asleep with your head cradled in the small of my back. The strong, muscled arms which have strained and toiled and provided sustenance for the family we have raised are gentle now, tender, as you pull me as close to you as possible, and kiss the top of my head. I feel myself melt, knowing I am safe and protected by a love second only to God’s love for me.
I tilt my head back so I can clearly see your face, the features I have loved since they were smooth and wrinkle free, now covered in creases; I trace the laugh lines with my eyes and know that I, too, share the same laugh lines, just as we shared the laughter through the years. They are good lines, for when we look at each other we see the joy of the life we have shared.
There is less of your jet black hair than ever, and I know every gray hair I reach up to touch. I remember the times I have held your head as you cried with me, the many, many times I have stroked it as together we struggled through the hard times, and I still feel a thrill when the memory runs through my mind just how handsome you were, with that black hair and mustache, now graying too. But you are still my handsome dashing hero; I can see you no other way.
But it is when my eyes wander lovingly to rest upon your closed eyelids that I am satisfied. Home like a hero from a far off war, who has wandered miles and miles to find his way back home, worn out from walking, the journey over, as he stands at the door. Like your eyelids, the door is closed, but it doesn’t matter; he can feel the love inside, permeating him before he even enters. The familiar voices, the welcoming arms, the tears of joy, the longings of yesterdays and the dreams of tomorrows, they are all there, on the inside, waiting.
Then you open your eyes to look at me, and I am home. I slowly, stiffly rise and start to the kitchen to make coffee. I know just how to make yours: one sugar, two cream. I am slower than ever, having to let my joints get warmed up. But I smile to myself in the empty kitchen, remembering how, as the morning came in bringing bright sunlight into my eyes – I made love to you as you slept.
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Copyright 2011, Gloria Hayes. All rights reserved
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Photo by bravenewtraveler/Flickr
Great article …. thank you for sharing part of your life with us.
just beautiful Gloria.you always have a way with words.i’m blessed to know you.love ya,fankie
This is beautiful..& you are truly blessed. May each morning be as beautiful & each moment of your lives love-laden.
Thank you very much for the compliment and the blessing, Neha,and I hope the same for you!
Thank you Frankie, you’re a sweetie
Lovely. Thank you.