Set the World to Mute

I’ve always liked the mornings. I realize most people my age don’t, and I understand that, but there’s something about being in the world before it’s quite woken up that speaks to me. To be able to look out the window and find the air fresh and the streets empty is magical. The world looks like I imagine it would without people, in some post-apocalyptic dystopia, perhaps, or after the humans find another planet to live on.

Today, Wednesday, the morning is extra special.

I’m standing in the hallway of their home on the verge of a new day for the first time, and the nervousness is killing me. It should have stopped by now, I reckon, I know he likes me, but somehow there is still that little doubt lingering in the back of my mind, saying ‘he’s had enough now, you have to leave.’

Still, I have to go inside.

For once, the radio isn’t on. The house is completely silent; no Sophie playing, no Emma laughing, no noise coming from the workshop. Silence. Still, the house invites me in, embraces me as I close the door behind me and hang my coat up. I’m wearing a plain white tee today, and cut off jeans shorts, all frilly in the ends.

I peak around as I enter the livingroom, but there is no one there. I was half expecting Ben to be up, but really, I know nothing about his sleeping habits - maybe he’s the kind of person who likes to sleep in, and spend hours upon hours lounging in the bed. It would be fine is he was.

I bite my lip as I tip-toe through the apartment, terrified to wake one for the girls, or Ben for that matter. Him not being up gives me the opportunity to ready my nerves further, and I venture into the bathroom for a nervous pee. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I smile. I realize I like this nervousness, in danger of sounding like a cliché, it’s making me feel alive. The constant flutter in my chest reminds me I’m a living and breathing organism, and I can’t help but wonder – whatever did I feel before feeling this? It hasn’t been long, but still, I can’ t remember. How boring my life was.

I brush up my blush with some make-up from my bag, and correct my bun. I look good, I tell myself, and I smile at the girl in the mirror. Time to find Ben.

I knock his door discreetly before entering. The room is lit up by the window, but the white shades are almost drawn, and the light is dim. It’s tidy in there, no clothes cluttering the floor, and no papers or magazines or anything to mess up the scenery. In fact, if anything, it seems a bit impersonal, with its white shades and its hardwood floor and its white sheets. There are no personal effects in the room that I can spot, apart from a picture frame on his night stand. I can’t make out the picture. All the drawings Emma and Sophie make always end up in the kitchen, and Ben doesn’t seem like the type to decorate his personal space too much.

Personal space. I bite my lip as I venture further into the room. Am I breaking some sort of unwritten agreement here? Is this too much?

Ben is obviously sleeping, his heavy breathing tells me that much. He’s tangled up in the white sheets, shirtless, much to my inner girl’s excitement. He really looks good to be an old man. I smile in spite of myself and my nerves, and gently sit down on the bed next to his sleeping frame. “Hey,” I whisper, sliding my finger up his arm. He’s warmer than I’d expected, heat is virtually radiating off his skin as I touch it. “Wakey wakey, Ben.”

A little laugh escapes my nose as she stirs. Sighs, still mostly asleep. Moves his weight, and then, flutters his eyes open. It takes a couple of seconds for him to realize where he is, and who I am, but when he does, he smiles. A brief little brush of the lips. He touches my cheek in a greeting, before his hand drops to my upper thigh, and his eyes slide shut.

“Are you tired?” I ask, in a low tone, moving closer.

He nods.

“Are you tired and oh-so-sleepy?”

He nods again, and this time a lazy smile plays on his lips.

“Are you so tired and so sleepy I should leave again?”

I smile and act like I’m about to get up, but his fingers lock around my wrist surprisingly fast for a sleepy person, before I have the time to move. He tugs me closer, and makes me meet his lips in a long deep kiss, never opening his eyes. I laugh against his lips as he moves me about, wrapping his arm around my waist, pulling me into bed with him.

I smile as I nestle into his body, my hips moving a little extra against his, getting comfortable in the big bed. He brushes a few stray strands of hair from the back of my neck, nestling his lips against the sensitive flesh. I giggle as he smooches my skin, feeling the smile on his lips, and I can’t keep my body from writhing from the tingles he sends down my spine with his warm breath. He places a firm hand on my hip, as if telling me to keep still - he’s trying to sleep, and my pulse starts to rise from the whole situation, and the heat coming off of him. His hand finds the front of my shirt, and pulls it up slightly to stroke my skin lazily. I lie completely still, trying to keep my breathing under control as he goes from playing with the soft areas around my navel to exploring the more dangerous areas on my lower abdomen, right at the hem of my shorts to the beginning of my ribs.

I let him have five minutes of waking up before I move again, five minutes that feel like forever with my pulse ringing in my ears. He doesn’t object when I shift and turn to face him in the bed, my hand finding his torso. I notice he has a fine brush of manly hair spread across his impressive chest, and trace my fingers in patterns across his collar bones, standing a bit too painfully out from his skin. When my eyes find his face again, he’s looking at me. His grey-green eyes are smiling, and it’s infectious.

“Hey there,” I mumble, and his smile widens slightly, “you awake now?”

He replies by pulling my body into his and engages us in the most intense kiss so far. I revel in it as his hand finds its way underneath my shirt to feel my back, then slides down to grab my ass lightly, a quick scoop to feel me up before he returns to my hips, gripping the bone. I let out a silent moan as he moves to my neck, tongue and teeth playing with mu skin as my fingers knot in his hair, letting him know I want him there. He inches closer, and I open my legs to him, giving him the opportunity to shift his weight to lie over me, his pelvis weighing me down into the bed, his arms taking the weight of his upper torso.

“This escalated quickly,” my mind lazily drones as his mouth finds mine in a greedy kiss, his right hand exploring more and more skin beneath my shirt. I return the favor, feeling the muscles in his back and shoulders work beneath my palms. I can’t contain my breath as his mouth moves to my ear, and for a second my body tenses up completely from sheer joy and pleasure, as his breath sends tingles all the way down to my tippy toes. “Very, very quickly,” my mind comments as I feel a familiar tingle starting in my ankles, working its way up my legs.

Still, time keeps moving outside the bedroom.

“Ben?” I manage to breathe into his shoulder. “Ben….” He moans and pulls back. His eyes are slightly hazy, but he’s still there, and he strokes his thumb across my bottom lip, almost as if drawing a question mark.

“I… Fuck,” I breathe, running a hand through my tangled hair. “It’s just… It’s almost time for daycare.”

I laugh as his eyebrows raise, then sink, and he rests his forehead against my shoulder.

After a couple of seconds, he’s laughs as well.