Yesterday I Got So Scared, I Shivered Like A Child, Yesterday Away From You, It Froze Me Deep Inside
--"In Between Days (cover)", Ben Folds Five
After the first time we fooled around and you had fallen asleep already, I stayed up. Not because I wasn't tired (because I was). Not because I didn't want to settle right in next to you and just fall asleep with my arms around you (because I did). The reason I stayed up on that cold night just days before Christmas was that I felt my mind racing with thoughts other than I was tired or that I wanted to be next to you. I was thinking about how new this whole experience was. I was thinking about how I didn't even know we had been playing a game with one another and that, somehow, inexplicably, the rules had changed completely.
There I was, laying on the bed in the guest bedroom, your parents just a couple of doors down the hall, wondering exactly what it was I had just done. I remember holding you every step of the way as my mind raced with thoughts that every little touch, every little whisper, every little knowing glance was inappropriate. But every step of the way something inside of me kept telling me that a few minutes more, a few inches more down your arm would be alright. It would be alright because there were lines that wouldn't be crossed. I would stop us from crossing them. You would stop us from crossing them. But as the minutes ticked by on the alarm clock with the big green numbers in that guest room, the line kept getting redrawn. I know that's what inevitably happens in situations like that now. However, at the time, with your whole body so warm and soft feeling next to mine, it felt like we were exploring new territory; that no one else before had ever fallen victim to their passions against their better judgment. I felt like needing you like I needed you then was akin to messing with uncontrollable laws of nature that I didn't quite understand. And every time we kissed like we kissed on that cold night it felt like I was on the brink of losing myself and the universe at the next wrong move or word.
It went beyond nervousness.
It went beyond concern.
It went to the idea that being that close to someone was sinful--Adam and Eve sinful. Forget the idea that I was there caressing someone I had come to care about in other ways, pushing things to whatever that next step was for us. Seeing just how young, how fresh you looked with your too-cute-for-words dimples and your long dancer's legs; it felt plain wrong to be so covetous; like I wasn't worth being there with you. The two hours or so we went at it before you snuck back to your room felt like one hundred twenty minutes caught between heaven and hell. I never knew a person could be so tortured and tantalized at the same time. It was just touching. It was just kissing. It was just everything I wanted at that moment.
When you fell asleep for the last twenty minutes we were in that bed together I thought about things. Mindlessly stroking my hand up and down your arm, the fine down barely noticeable on my fingertips, I thought about how going into that trip that even that much was more than I could have hoped for. There you were, eyes closed, allowing me to basically hold you while you slept. That was a level of trust that I never knew I was capable of or anyone, for that matter, was capable of. You trusted me with your protection, your safety without ever having to ask me. Not the protection of your life--though that was implied--no, you trusted me with something far more important. You trusted the protection of your well-being, your emotional life with me. Contrary to me, after we had kissed each other good night and after I had said to you, "Good night, Breannie mine, with her eyes so bright, tears so silvery, and my kisses still wet upon her cheeks," you went to sleep instantly. Your body didn't hesitate. It was as if you'd been sleeping next to me for years and not for the second night ever. Yes, it might have been the exhaustion--meeting me at the party, talking non-stop, introducing me to your family, showing me around the house, going to dinner, &c... does really take it out of a person--but it felt more than that. It felt like you knew right away in a manner that I didn't that we could trust each other just like that. Talking the talking is one thing--we'd been talking, what, eighteen months by then?--but to see that trust in action was another beast entirely. It's different to see all your blueprints and schemes in an actual true-to-life model. I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you managed to trust me so implicitly with you there and everything your body had to offer.
Maybe your youth had a part to play in it. Young hearts are often leading their owners around by the leash. Maybe your body had no choice but to acquiesce to your heart's edict I was a good guy. But what if I hadn't have been? What if I'd use the chill in the air and the heat of the moment to take liberties you weren't prepared to grant? What if I hadn't agreed with you about the whole stopping above the waist business? What if I had wanted more? What then? While you slept I contemplated what it meant that you had left yourself so vulnerable. I could have done anything. I could have done the worst. You had no idea what I might or might not have been capable of at that moment in time. All you had to go on was a voice on a phone, some practiced flattery, and the word of a person who was destined to be your soul mate (or so he claimed). Your naivete, callous as it may sound, might have pushed you into something you might not have done had we attempted something so brazen a few years later. After all, at fourteen(-and-a-half), you might not have had the litany of ex-boyfriends to compare me to. You might not have known that all men don't act as restrained as I did when placed in that situation.
Maybe the location gave you courage. We were in your house and your parents were only one well-timed scream away. Perhaps that gave you the fortitude to allow me to keep you there without any idea of what might happen. We were playing by your rules because we were playing on your board and with your pieces. If it had been the other way around, if the first time I had tasted the salt on your skin had been back in California I think I might have been the one falling asleep in your embrace and you might have been the one taken for a loop at the unfamiliarity of it all. It could have been falling asleep in a bed you must have slept in dozens of dozens of times (guest room or not) afforded the comfort necessary to relaxation. It could have been habit took over and your body just forgot entirely there was another person in there with you. That might have explained the ease with which you took to your slumber.
Or there's the theory that you had wanted more to happen. I mean--you've always said that the whole couple of days I was there that you wished something more could have happened. I always took it to mean something metaphorical, that you wanted some affirmation about where the two of us stood. I always took it to mean you wanted something of a big gesture, a big conversation, a big event to put our friendship into terms that were undeniable one way or the other. Leaving yourself there might have been your idea all along and that it was my pussing out that hadn't been part of your plan. Providence knows it wouldn't have been the first time you'd manipulated me into doubting myself into inaction. Maybe the lack of any actual consummation was more of a disappointment than you had let on and not what you had had planned the whole time.
I don't know--if it had been me in your position I would have been a tad more wary.
I'm glad you weren't wary, though.
I'll never forget that night--the words, the feel, the tastes, and the cold. I'll never forget laying beneath that thin blanket of yours thinking how far I'd come just to get there. It's like I had given up a small piece of myself to you that day and I still haven't gotten it back. I didn't figure out all the answers that night in much the same way I still haven't quite gotten all the answers between us right even to this day. I still come to you sometimes without any clue as to how you'll react. But I learned something very important there--my hand around your waist, my nose pretending to smell the scent of your hair, my legs tucked neatly into yours. I learned that, even while I had my doubts about us, about you, about where all of it was leading, you had fallen straight to sleep.
You never distrusted me for a second and that allowed me to eventually relax that night. Inevitably, I fell asleep just before you had gotten up to go back to your room. You told me that it was about ten or so minutes after I started snoring that you went back, but I think that was just the story you practiced for your mother much later on. In truth, I think I remember holding you for much longer than ten minutes. Like I said, inevitably I fell asleep to you thanks to the feeling of your complete faith in me. For all I know we could have slept for hours and I wouldn't have been the wiser.
You allayed a lot of my fears that night as we fought back the cold together, like we've been doing ever since.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
After the first time we fooled around and you had fallen asleep already, I stayed up. Not because I wasn't tired (because I was). Not because I didn't want to settle right in next to you and just fall asleep with my arms around you (because I did). The reason I stayed up on that cold night just days before Christmas was that I felt my mind racing with thoughts other than I was tired or that I wanted to be next to you. I was thinking about how new this whole experience was. I was thinking about how I didn't even know we had been playing a game with one another and that, somehow, inexplicably, the rules had changed completely.There I was, laying on the bed in the guest bedroom, your parents just a couple of doors down the hall, wondering exactly what it was I had just done. I remember holding you every step of the way as my mind raced with thoughts that every little touch, every little whisper, every little knowing glance was inappropriate. But every step of the way something inside of me kept telling me that a few minutes more, a few inches more down your arm would be alright. It would be alright because there were lines that wouldn't be crossed. I would stop us from crossing them. You would stop us from crossing them. But as the minutes ticked by on the alarm clock with the big green numbers in that guest room, the line kept getting redrawn. I know that's what inevitably happens in situations like that now. However, at the time, with your whole body so warm and soft feeling next to mine, it felt like we were exploring new territory; that no one else before had ever fallen victim to their passions against their better judgment. I felt like needing you like I needed you then was akin to messing with uncontrollable laws of nature that I didn't quite understand. And every time we kissed like we kissed on that cold night it felt like I was on the brink of losing myself and the universe at the next wrong move or word.
It went beyond nervousness.
It went beyond concern.
It went to the idea that being that close to someone was sinful--Adam and Eve sinful. Forget the idea that I was there caressing someone I had come to care about in other ways, pushing things to whatever that next step was for us. Seeing just how young, how fresh you looked with your too-cute-for-words dimples and your long dancer's legs; it felt plain wrong to be so covetous; like I wasn't worth being there with you. The two hours or so we went at it before you snuck back to your room felt like one hundred twenty minutes caught between heaven and hell. I never knew a person could be so tortured and tantalized at the same time. It was just touching. It was just kissing. It was just everything I wanted at that moment.
When you fell asleep for the last twenty minutes we were in that bed together I thought about things. Mindlessly stroking my hand up and down your arm, the fine down barely noticeable on my fingertips, I thought about how going into that trip that even that much was more than I could have hoped for. There you were, eyes closed, allowing me to basically hold you while you slept. That was a level of trust that I never knew I was capable of or anyone, for that matter, was capable of. You trusted me with your protection, your safety without ever having to ask me. Not the protection of your life--though that was implied--no, you trusted me with something far more important. You trusted the protection of your well-being, your emotional life with me. Contrary to me, after we had kissed each other good night and after I had said to you, "Good night, Breannie mine, with her eyes so bright, tears so silvery, and my kisses still wet upon her cheeks," you went to sleep instantly. Your body didn't hesitate. It was as if you'd been sleeping next to me for years and not for the second night ever. Yes, it might have been the exhaustion--meeting me at the party, talking non-stop, introducing me to your family, showing me around the house, going to dinner, &c... does really take it out of a person--but it felt more than that. It felt like you knew right away in a manner that I didn't that we could trust each other just like that. Talking the talking is one thing--we'd been talking, what, eighteen months by then?--but to see that trust in action was another beast entirely. It's different to see all your blueprints and schemes in an actual true-to-life model. I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you managed to trust me so implicitly with you there and everything your body had to offer.
Maybe your youth had a part to play in it. Young hearts are often leading their owners around by the leash. Maybe your body had no choice but to acquiesce to your heart's edict I was a good guy. But what if I hadn't have been? What if I'd use the chill in the air and the heat of the moment to take liberties you weren't prepared to grant? What if I hadn't agreed with you about the whole stopping above the waist business? What if I had wanted more? What then? While you slept I contemplated what it meant that you had left yourself so vulnerable. I could have done anything. I could have done the worst. You had no idea what I might or might not have been capable of at that moment in time. All you had to go on was a voice on a phone, some practiced flattery, and the word of a person who was destined to be your soul mate (or so he claimed). Your naivete, callous as it may sound, might have pushed you into something you might not have done had we attempted something so brazen a few years later. After all, at fourteen(-and-a-half), you might not have had the litany of ex-boyfriends to compare me to. You might not have known that all men don't act as restrained as I did when placed in that situation.
Maybe the location gave you courage. We were in your house and your parents were only one well-timed scream away. Perhaps that gave you the fortitude to allow me to keep you there without any idea of what might happen. We were playing by your rules because we were playing on your board and with your pieces. If it had been the other way around, if the first time I had tasted the salt on your skin had been back in California I think I might have been the one falling asleep in your embrace and you might have been the one taken for a loop at the unfamiliarity of it all. It could have been falling asleep in a bed you must have slept in dozens of dozens of times (guest room or not) afforded the comfort necessary to relaxation. It could have been habit took over and your body just forgot entirely there was another person in there with you. That might have explained the ease with which you took to your slumber.
Or there's the theory that you had wanted more to happen. I mean--you've always said that the whole couple of days I was there that you wished something more could have happened. I always took it to mean something metaphorical, that you wanted some affirmation about where the two of us stood. I always took it to mean you wanted something of a big gesture, a big conversation, a big event to put our friendship into terms that were undeniable one way or the other. Leaving yourself there might have been your idea all along and that it was my pussing out that hadn't been part of your plan. Providence knows it wouldn't have been the first time you'd manipulated me into doubting myself into inaction. Maybe the lack of any actual consummation was more of a disappointment than you had let on and not what you had had planned the whole time.
I don't know--if it had been me in your position I would have been a tad more wary.
I'm glad you weren't wary, though.
I'll never forget that night--the words, the feel, the tastes, and the cold. I'll never forget laying beneath that thin blanket of yours thinking how far I'd come just to get there. It's like I had given up a small piece of myself to you that day and I still haven't gotten it back. I didn't figure out all the answers that night in much the same way I still haven't quite gotten all the answers between us right even to this day. I still come to you sometimes without any clue as to how you'll react. But I learned something very important there--my hand around your waist, my nose pretending to smell the scent of your hair, my legs tucked neatly into yours. I learned that, even while I had my doubts about us, about you, about where all of it was leading, you had fallen straight to sleep.
You never distrusted me for a second and that allowed me to eventually relax that night. Inevitably, I fell asleep just before you had gotten up to go back to your room. You told me that it was about ten or so minutes after I started snoring that you went back, but I think that was just the story you practiced for your mother much later on. In truth, I think I remember holding you for much longer than ten minutes. Like I said, inevitably I fell asleep to you thanks to the feeling of your complete faith in me. For all I know we could have slept for hours and I wouldn't have been the wiser.
You allayed a lot of my fears that night as we fought back the cold together, like we've been doing ever since.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Ben Folds Five, Breanne, camping, closeness, comfort
posted by mojo shivers @ 1:11 AM
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