All The Light in The Room

I leave the lamp on, and the choice hits me all at once, like something that can’t be taken back.

My shirt is already on the floor. I remember pulling it over my head without thinking, easy in the moment, automatic. Standing here with nothing between me and the light feels different. The air finds everything. My breasts hang lower than I want them to. There is no correcting it in this light. They shift when I breathe. My stomach rests forward, soft, moving with me instead of holding still the way I always wish it would. My thighs press together and stay there, taking up the space they take up whether I agree with it or not. I feel all of it, a full awareness I usually cut off before it gets this far.

This is my body.

I know the pattern, and it isn’t cute or clever the way I sometimes pretend it is. It’s a reflex, almost muscle memory, the way I keep something moving so nothing ever settles long enough to be seen clearly. I stay in motion, I redirect, I adjust the lighting like I’m staging a scene instead of standing in it. I can feel the options lining up in my head, each one offering me a way through this that keeps me in control, my center locked away where no one can touch it, but still looks like I’m open.

Ask for the lights off. Leave something on. Keep it playful. Keep it fast. Keep it just messy enough to feel real, but not so real that it lingers. Don’t let anything sit. Don’t let it breathe. Don’t let it matter.

He’s close, close enough that I feel the heat of him before his hands ever touch me, and when I look at him he is already looking at me in a way that makes my chest tighten. His eyes move slowly and I feel every second of it like something physical landing on my skin. My shoulders pull in without asking me. My stomach tightens, a reflex that does nothing to change what he sees. My hands hover like they forgot their job.

I kiss him because I know how to do that. I can disappear into that. My mouth finds his and for a second I almost manage it. My hands move over him and then hesitate because I’m not directing this, and that throws me. When I pull back to breathe, everything I was avoiding rushes back in like water.

I start to unbutton my jeans, but fuck. It would be easy to just leave it here. This is enough. He shouldn’t want me.

He shouldn’t want this.

I pull them down anyway.

They drag slowly over my hips and thighs, and I want to reach down and cover myself immediately.

He is still looking.

It hits low in my stomach, unexpected. My body starts to fold in, to make itself smaller, before I catch it.

He steps closer.

His hand lands on my waist and slides over my stomach, and I feel everything I try not to feel. The softness. The way my body gives under his hand instead of holding firm. I want to guide him somewhere else, turn, make it easier to look at.

Shift his hand. Turn. Change this. He shouldn’t feel that like this.

His hand doesn’t move away. He presses in slightly, like he’s trying to feel more, not less.

When his mouth follows his gaze, when he presses his lips to my stomach, I can’t pretend it is an accident. I feel my body move under it. I feel the rise and fall of my breathing, the way everything shifts without my permission. I wait for myself to interrupt it, to laugh it off, to redirect.

But I don’t.

First his hands drop lower, then his mouth follows again. My thighs part before I can stop them, spreading under his touch. I'm aware of the space they occupy, but he leans into it like that's what he wants. Like this is the point.

My head is loud now. This is so much. He can see it everywhere on me. I should fix it. Should say something; do something.

I stay where I am.

My hands hang at my sides, useless, and my body feels louder than my thoughts, like it’s stepped forward and left me behind. Every place he touches registers. Every shift in my breathing stands out, sharper than it should. I’m aware of how present I am in a way I usually avoid.

When we move to the bed, nothing disappears. I don’t get the relief I usually get from changing positions. My body follows me there, still insistent, still impossible to ignore. My breasts shift when I lean forward. My stomach folds when I bend. My thighs press into the mattress as I climb over him, and I feel all of it, every point where my body meets his.

I hover over him, arms locked, holding my weight up, keeping most of me off him.

It takes effort. I feel it in my shoulders and in my arms.

Then I let go.

I lower myself, everything shifting, and let my weight settle against him, pressing and spreading across him. There’s no ignoring it. His hands move over me like he’s been waiting for this.

I feel his body respond under mine and the instinct to question it rises fast. It would be easier to shrink it, make it smaller, something I can hold in my hands.

He doesn’t mean it. This isn’t about me.

The thought passes through.

I stay where I am, fully against him, aware of my body in a way that almost overtakes me, and I let it happen instead of turning it into something smaller.

I let him feel all of me.

I let myself be wanted.

I don’t pull back.