Cherry − 26 February, 2005

What I remember most distinctly is that I had no shades at all in my bedroom, and that, by virtue of bad timing or carelessness, we found ouselves naked beneath the midday sun. She was the first to slip out of her clothes. She left them piled delicately on the floor by the bed, mindful of their location should she need quick access to them. I peeled off shirt and jeans like I'd never need them again, and left them dangling from all manner of furniture.

She slid carefully onto the bed, moving lithely and with such deliberateness I thought my heart was going to burst. Laying back, she put her arms at her sides and moved her knees apart. She told me to come on. Awkwardly, I went to the bed, and moved over her. I buried my face in her neck, breathed in the smell of her hair (something that still freezes my heart when I come across it), and felt her skin, soft and giving, beneath my tentative hands.

It was nothing special. There were no candles, no dinner, no satin sheets or bear skin rugs. But there was something there, and I don't think it's the kind of thing many people talk about, or know how to talk about. It is something amazing to go your entire life living in your own skin, covered in layers and sheltered, physically and emotionally, from those around you, and suddenly be thrust into someone else, to have all the ego and social defenses ripped away, leaving only shaking skin against shaking skin. You are allowed no excuses. You are allowed no lies. Coupled as I was with the skinny, red haired girl, I was flayed apart, and all the world could look in and see who I was.

I didn't even care that there wasn't a sheet on the bed.