Memories Are Wonderful

The day James and I were supposed to have our first real date James got called away to reshoot some scenes in Los Angeles. He was there for a week before he showed up at my apartment at 7 at night, dressed in smart dark jeans and a button up shirt. His hands were overflowing with a bouquet of roses and lilies.

“I’m sorry I missed our date,” he apologized profusely as he entered my apartment.

I took the flowers from him and cut the stems before arranging them in a vase. They were so full it looked as though they only just fit.

“If you’re not busy tonight, I’d like to make it up to you.”

“Waiting a week wasn’t so bad, it was no big deal.”

“I’ve been waiting a lot longer than that.”

Although his arrival at my doorstep with flowers had played a little like some mainstream rom-com, the dinner was distinctly us. It felt reminiscent of before I left for England, so natural, as though we had finally found ourselves again. Perhaps it was the new steps we were taking towards a relationship. We were treading new ground, not reliving our old mistakes.

The place where we went to eat was a small Indian restaurant we had never tried. There was an effortlessly relaxed atmosphere around the place that seemed to take the pressure off of it being our first real date.

“How was L.A.?” It was a question I would have asked earlier had I not been preoccupied with perfecting every aspect of my appearance nervously.

“It was alright. We were working crazy hours. I wanted to come back sooner.”

“Well nothing much happened here so you didn’t miss anything.”

“I missed you.”

My laugh flushed over my wine glass as I took a sip before responding, “not what I meant.”

“I know.”

I took a deep breath as I looked across the table at him. This feeling was so foreign to me it obscured my elation. There were so many moments I could recall since I met James where I had longed to be more than friends and here we were. The reality that I never believed would be reality. The surrealism manifested in his perfect smile and the warmth of his hand as it covered min resting on the table cloth.

“Are you alright?” his tone echoed genuine concern.

It amused me to think that he could ever think I would not be okay like this, here, now. “I’m fine.”

“Is this weird for you?”

“A bit.”

“A wholly or partially bad weird?”

A smile came out knowing he wasn’t giving himself nearly enough credit. “Neither.”

He too smiled. My answer had satisfied him.

“It’s just weird to think that all the stupidity we’ve been through when all it took was you asking a simple question in a cab.”

The truth in my observation was a point of humour that made him laugh. How stupid could life be when two people could be so cowardly and blind? My stubbornness had so long refused to quit.

“Well not that much has changed, we always had a quirky friendship.”

“I don’t like that word. It’s just the word weird pretending to be something else.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with weird.”

“That’s because you’re exceedingly weird.”

“I can live with that.”

The food was amazing. It would surely become a regular now. The tone of the conversation comforting. I felt on a cloud as we went out for coffee afterwards and walked the night streets. In no time at all we ended up at my apartment, on the front steps, ideas roaming both of our minds. Sure it was only our first official date but we had known each other for nearly 2 years. Our friendship was more emotionally intimate than a lot of relationships. We had been there once before, and been mere breaths away from it more times than that.

On the steps he was looking at me with a hint of expectation. There was a hesitance there, he’d never come right out and say it but I thought I could tell what he was thinking.

“Want to come up?”

There wasn’t a second thought given. We walked quietly in the still hallways of the building. We entered my apartment without saying anything.

“You can have a seat on the couch, I’ll just be a minute.”

In my bedroom I let my hair fall down in its springy curls. Piles of clothes got pushed under my chair and into my closet. Music got put on softly.

In the living room James sat looking at the back of a book I was currently reading. My walk was more of a float towards him that I barely remember.

Very few words found there way out of either of us from that moment until we found ourselves in my small room. He lowered me back onto the fluffy duvet as softly as a feather floats to its resting place. The obvious strength of his bulky hands contrasted with their gentle movements as he pushed back my hair and looked at me. Anticipation consumed me. I expected to feel his lips or his hands but he just hovered over me for a moment. I wondered if it was normal to want to be with someone so much. But more, I wondered what was going through his mind of complexities. Sometimes I could tell he was giving me a watered down version of his thoughts and I could tell there were more intricate discourses at work in that mind of his.

I wondered how I paled in comparison to his other passions. Would I ever be as important to him as them? Would I be more? Less?

“I know we’ve done this before but I just want to make sure you don’t think we’re moving too fast.” He spoke finally.

“We’re moving to slow.”

Mischief took residence in his eyes, playfulness and excitement dancing on his lips.

The feeling of his lips was much more fulfilling than the memory of them. Their hunger was felt in every kiss and nibble. His roaming hands wasted no time in finding the hem of my shirt. His lips, my neck. Skirt zipper. The floral pattern sliding off towards my ankles. His clothes were less fussy coming off than mine. My slender fingers dextrously unbuttoned his shirt which rolled off of his shoulders and fell to the floor. For every time our bodies had to separate for some remedial task like the removal of clothing, they returned to each other with force and need; like two objects racing towards each other without the awareness or ability to stop themselves from colliding. We threw ourselves at each other without thought. His bare flesh was warm over his muscles, firm and soft and rough and smooth; perfect and perfect and perfect and…
…
perfect.

It’s often the way that when you’re having a fun time it goes by quickly but when you are nervous or anxious it goes by slowly. I was feeling an odd mixture of pleasure and nerves. The result was that time started off going slowly. Each beat of my heart feeling like multiple seconds until that moment that I had waited for where he finally entered me and from there time seemed to speed up to a ridiculously quick pace of maybe that was just him, or maybe I was crazy and didn’t know what I was talking about.

I figured when James collapsed beside me that he’s stay all night. He had so many times before and he didn’t disappoint. With his chest rising and falling I wormed my way close to him, my head finding a haven over his heart, which I could hear. The album I had put on had long since stopped and there was no noise in the apartment except us. And James started to him in my ear, my fingers dancing trails over his chest to the tune. My mind unable and unwilling to put words to what I was feelings. Choruses

My eyelids grew heavy in my contentment and comfort but I didn’t want to fall asleep, even knowing James would be there in the morning. However, I couldn’t help but drift off and the last hazy, dream-like memory I had before completely dozing off was hearing the humming cease and “I love you Daize,” breathed warmly in my ear.

For the second time in our entire relationship I woke up before James. I threw on some clothes, not having coffee in the house, to go to Starbucks.

I left a noted on the bathroom mirror just in case and stopped in the kitchen to smell the flowers in the vase.

The weather was sunny and beautiful, as if my mood was reflected in the skies. The line at Starbucks didn’t take long but whether that was because I was reliving the previous night in my thoughts or the line was actually short remains unknown to me.

Upon my return James was still asleep in bed so I stripped down to my delicates and placed his coffee on the table beside him before slipping back under the sheets and into the warmth. I wanted every morning to be this.