ALEX – BE EVERYTHING BE ENOUGH

Dragging my suitcase through the door, I was about to yell out for Nic. The darkness reminded me that she has surgery in the morning. I find her fast asleep. After I smooth the covers over her and caress her hair, I move into the bathroom quietly. I yawn, thinking I might as well call it day too. Digging around one of the drawers, I find a new tube of toothpaste. A goofy smirk spreads at the image in the mirror. Maybe Nic won’t mind if I wake her up to let her know I am home.

I quickly shower. Toweling off, I toss the toothpaste box into the little trash can. My hand stops mid-air. Slowly, I pull the towel around me, staring on the little plastic applicators. My heart constricts tight. I gawp like a fish. She’d been alone the last few weeks while I’d been working non-stop. No wonder her texts had been short, not just in response to my own curtness. Almost a year of trying. This grief of no event, no end. I climb naked onto the bed, wrapping myself around her, the barrier of her underwear between us. The barrier of three weeks apart. No, not apart. Silent. Silent because I wanted to be frozen in time, be expectant, still, hopeful.

The heat is surging, rising, and pounding up to my head. I shiver against Nicole’s cool, creamy skin. I loosen my grip, pretending that is the distancing necessary not to hurt her. The amygdala, the amygdala crawls and slithers in me. Sneaking in. My fingers curl. I yank her panties down; she jerks slightly, stretches lyrically. Then my mouth cups her, my tongue darts in and out of her, my lips sucking and biting her clit. A shriek bursts from her lips and Nicole jerks up. Her legs kick my head so hard, half of me nearly fall over the edge of the bed. The top of my head is burning fast and furious, unscrewing, prepared to launch the explosion. The white hot heat takes over my vision. All I see is blinding, white, glare. I’m between her legs; my hands push down hard and spread the long smooth muscles of her thighs wide. Slumber laced cries ring from a distance in my ears. Narrow rubber traction, but I plow further. Legs thrashing at the sides of my legs. I hear my name.

ALEX.

My breath, burning, struggling, hardly making it back into my lungs.

ALex.

Her voice, my name, together a colossal wave about to break over me.

alEXXX.

I hunch my shoulders and duck my head. My insides swirling and tumbling as I go over and the room tip and veer away and I lurch brutally forward and into her.

allllex.

Her whole body clenches me.

ALllllexxx.

Everything, everything, everything. All of me, rushing in for her.

I want to be enough.