The Bed
She slept with me on the very first night. Admittedly, she kept her pants on. But it felt natural, and she slept the whole night through. Occasionally she’d let out the odd murmur and nestle further into me. We’ve been like that ever since. Though on some nights she tosses and turns, and on others she’ll wake with a start.
It’s been three years now. So I guess you could call us serious. It’s me, after all, that she comes home to. Though there are times when she’ll pack her bags and leave. I’ll watch sadly as she slips her passport into her suitcase and I hear the front door slam. I never know where she’s going then, or when she’ll be back. But she always returns. Sometimes bronzed, other times with matted hair.
Festivals and sunshine, I guess that’s how she gets her kicks. I try not to get jealous of the life she leads without me. Just like I don’t ask questions when she comes home late at night, wired and stares at the ceiling, now and then getting up for a cigarette or to pace around the room. I let her be then, providing all the comfort I can and hoping that at some point she’ll pass out.
She cheats on me too, you know. But there’s no deception in the doing so. I suppose we have an open relationship. Though there was that one chap she fooled around with for a year. That bothered me. I missed her on those nights.
I can’t complain though. I’ve had a few myself - her cousin, the Austrian couple after her father’s 60th and then that random Aussie chick. But she knew about that. In fact she organised the set-up, covering the whole month she was away. Still, if she knew the things that girl did, she’d never look at me the same way again.
The only time she got angry was with that friend of her flatmates. Something or other about permission.
But I’ll forgive her, and she’ll forgive me everything when she curls up late at night, reading intensely – sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. And how I love it when she opens the windows wide in the summer and dozes lazily all day. Or, oh for those stolen afternoons when she’ll sneak in and snuggle up for an hour or two, drifting in and out of sleep. Maybe even watching a film. Heck, I’ll even take the nights when she’s snotty, or wearing those bloody stupid pyjamas. But her Instagram addiction? Nah. That sh*t will rot her brain.
HER: Ah, bed.