Intimacy

When we are engaged in sex, we are conscious of certain sensual details. The feeling of hair sweeping across our cheeks, scratching against our eyelashes. The warmth of a hand on our waist, the stickiness of it pulling away from our warm body to reposition itself elsewhere. The push of your lover's exhale from their chest against yours followed instantly by his or her breath. I believe these sensual details to be at the heart of physical intimacy.

When I describe sex, it seems as if I often recount the story of two shadows making love. The positions of bodies, the start-stop of intercourse, the movements, rhythms and syncopations of two silhouettes disconnected from their other senses. If these descriptions are to inform the reader at all as to the actual events, than they are by their very nature less intimate than the experience itself. I suppose this is at it should be.

I write this because I think it is a metaphor for what my husband tried to describe for me after our dinner party concluded. He said he felt as though we were playing our parts, but there was no true intimacy amongst any of us. I agree. I think the nature of casual aquaintences congealing into sexual activity is less than just the warm kisses of my husband on my ankles when he rubs my feet. I think we reached for something bold, but instead found an experience that might have been on par with an adult film. At the time it was quite absorbing, but afterwards, there was no intensity of his submission to enjoy. Furthermore, my husband has been quite himself since the evening ended. This was very unlike our past experiences in which my nurturing was his opiate.