Pure Blue

I lie in bed waiting for him to get out of the shower, my wrists crossed above my head, one knee drawn up and out to the side with the other leg straight down like a flamingo sometimes stands. The comforter is pulled mostly over me with only my hands and the one naked knee poking out. I probably look like the victim of some heinous crime, but it's warm under here, and I'm only thinking.

Not enough. These words make rounds through my brain like a subway train, keeping me hypnotized for weeks – no, months. Sometimes I think they've gone away, but then they once more become relevant and swing through on their infinite, nauseating loop. No matter what I do, where I move to, will anything ever be enough? And if this isn't enough – if it isn't satisfying me – what keeps me here?

When he finally emerges from the bathroom, I've changed positions.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Writing,” I answer.

He pulls on boxers and shorts, and I stare up and out the window above me at the slats of pure blue sky showing through the blinds. Compared to home, the sky here is always blue. Even if the morning rains, I can always count on a clear afternoon. Something about the infinite depth of the sky is also hypnotizing.

“I feel somehow unsatisfied,” I tell him. He doesn't hear me, so I say it again more loudly, less self-reflective. He tells me to get on birth control. I tell him I've looked into it. He stares at the computer.

Done with the blue sky, I roll over in bed, pulling the comforter up and around me so it is once again covering my head, this time like a cocoon. He lets out a loud laugh.

“What?” I ask, probably muffled by the down feathers above me.

“You're silly,” he says as he pulls the comforter off and climbs into bed behind me, wrapping one arm around my waist and drawing me close to him, the short beard on his chin pleasantly scratching against the base of my exposed neck. He kisses me there a few times, something I've told him I love, and I'm sure he realizes how disarming it is.

“You don't have to do anything.” I'm feeling resentful.

“Maybe I want to,” he murmurs, moving his hand to my thigh.

He does all the things I enjoy, some at my direction, but it isn't enough. He tries with his hands and his mouth, but he isn't persistent or relentless like my previous lover. He's too selfish. Even though every part of my body wants to, is tensing for it, I can't climax, and he gives up.

When he comes back from washing his hands, I say, “I think I know what you're doing wrong.”

“Oh yeah? What?” I tell him, and he says, “I can do that.”

“Right now?”

“No!” he scoffs.

I look at him a moment, then push myself from the bed. “I'm going to shower.”

I close the door behind me with what feels to me like a sense of finality. The water is still warm from his shower, which is a blessing. I can get right in. As it cascades over my still tingling breasts, I let my mind drift. For the first time I miss home. I place my hands against the wall in front of me and lean forward, head bowed, and allow myself to cry, but no tears come to my eyes as the now hot water beats at the back of my neck. I gasp in breath, and it leaves me in shudders, taking with it all those feelings of nostalgia. My friends, my family, my coffee shop, my sushi restaurant, my old room, my exlover's hands and mouth...

Maybe there are no tears because of the deep, devout knowledge that I did the right thing. Most people I know, and probably most that I will never know, could never pack up their lives in a week and move across the country to a place they've only visited once, and in with a man they barely know with nothing but two bags of clothes, a notebook, a journal, and an iPod. Maybe I'm simplifying, but that's the gist of it. No books, and no promises. But for me, it was the only decision I could make. So perhaps that explains the lack of tears more than dehydration.

I stay in the shower for I know not how long. After I finally turn the water off, I lean back against the damp wall and stand with my head tipped back, eyes closed, and drip dry for a bit. Then I get a towel, wipe myself down, brush my wet hair straight back, and contemplate staying there or leaving. Even if I stay, I can't stay forever, so I wrap the towel around my torso and think perhaps I should go for a walk – alone.

When I open the door, he isn't sitting in the computer chair any more. I vaguely wonder where he went, but I'm glad he isn't there. As I sit back down on the bed, still wearing only the towel, I hear rummaging sounds coming from the kitchen. After a while he comes back and sits down again at the computer. He doesn't ask me what I'm doing this time. It's obvious.

I'm writing.