Manic – Moments with Sir

I slip out of the bed carefully, hoping not to wake Sir or Devin.  In the dark I can’t see either of their faces, but I hear no change in breathing, no rustle of movement.  I pad, barefoot, across the room.  The fan above creaks, sending a steady current of cold air across my bare skin.

The door opens silently and I close it again behind me.

I grip both rails of the staircase, nervous in the blackness of missing a step and breaking my neck, still mindful of how I place each foot lest the house creak and the subtle shift of energy somehow, metaphysically, stir Sir from sleep.  Or, more likely, wake the dog, who would wake everyone else with his anxiety over my absence.

I wait until I am in the kitchen before I turn on a light, afraid for any glow to make its way upstairs, around the corner, and under the door, thus giving me away.

My eyes are too wide, I can feel it, as if I’m still trying to see through the darkness.  I pace into the living room, moving without a destination, just… moving.  My hands flutter in front of me, my forearms pumping up and down as I walk to the patio door.  I pause there, considering.  The porch light is out.  I have a new one.  I could install it.  The ladder is upstairs.  I could get it.  I could put in the new light bulb.  It’s too dark to see.  But I could do it by touch.  I need the light bulb.  And the ladder.  And a screwdriver, to remove the glass…

I jerk abruptly to a halt.  Devin is standing at the foot of the stairs, his expression is wary.  “Hey…” he says, softly.

“Jeeezuz!  You scared me!  I’m going to change the porch light.  I need the ladder.  And the screwdriver, and I’m going to put in that new bulb with the thing, the light thing, the sensor thing for light so it goes on when its not light.”

His eyes have widened slightly, and he nods faintly along with the cadence of my speech.  “Okay.  Are you going to put a shirt on?”

I glance down at my bare breasts.  “Oh, I should, probably, but it’s dark outside, nobody is going to see anyway, so I’m probably fine, who cares, unless the light comes on when I screw in the new light, I’m not sure if the switch is on or off since it has never worked since we moved in.  But it’s like midnight, anyway, so it’s not like anyone is really going to be looking and I’ll just come back inside anyway, it’s fine.  And so what, society is stupid about breasts anyway.  Guys can go shirtless why shouldn’t women be able to do the same thing?  They’re just sexualizing our bodies to control and own us and it’s just patriarchal bullshit, you know?”

He’s nodding more rapidly now, his chin making tiny jerking movements.  “I… can I help you with the ladder?”

“Yeah, no, really I can get it, I just don’t want to turn on the lights because Sir is sleeping.  Why aren’t you sleeping?  Did I wake you up?  I was trying not to wake anybody up.  I left all the lights off when I came downstairs.  I was worried I’d break my neck on the stairs, but I didn’t, and that would have been bad because I don’t have a shirt on and you know, paramedics, they don’t need to be seeing that, right?  Fuck! My mouth!”

I work my jaw, trying to shake away the sensation of my lips against my teeth which is abruptly overwhelming.  I pull at my lips with my fingers and realize I’m rocking my upper body, the need to move still overwhelming.

“Why don’t you come in here,” Devin gestures towards the kitchen, light spilling through the doorway.  “I’ll get you some water, it might help.”

This sounds like a good idea.  My mouth is bothering me.  I follow Devin into the kitchen, suddenly incredibly happy, and I burst into a loud, wordless song.  “Do-do do-do-do-do, mah na mah na, do-do do-do-do-do…”  I add a wild dance step as I come into the kitchen and grab Devin’s hands to join me.

His expression is pained and I grin at him.  “Don’t worry, it’s okay!  Everything is fine!”

He separates our hands gently and reaches past me to get a glass from the cupboard.  I reach out and trace a finger down his bare chest.  “You are so sexy!”  I put my other hand around the back of his neck as he tries to pull away.  “Sir is SO lucky he gets to have sex with you!”

Devin bites his lower lip and grimaces, peeling my hand from his neck.  “I’m going to get you water.  Magnesium might help your mouth, is it still bothering you?”

I nod enthusiastically.  “It’s still bothering you!” I echo and grin at him again as he goes to another cupboard for the magnesium powder.  “Still bothering… still bothering… still bothering… still bothering…” I whisper the words, marveling at the feel of them in my mouth.  I realize I’m rocking again.  The rhythm of the words makes a satisfying synchrony with the rhythm of my movement.

Devin is mixing the magnesium powder into the water and I feel myself go suddenly still.  “You don’t have to stay up with me.  It’s late.”

He glances at me, his expression still wary, and I feel suddenly protective.  “Go ahead to bed, I won’t tell Sir, I promise,” and promptly cross myself, then laugh loudly.  “I was totally trying to cross my heart, not do that thing!  I’m not even Catholic!  Did I do it right?  What’s the order of that anyway?”

“It’s okay,” he says softly, handing me the glass of water.  I’m not sure if he means the crossing or keeping him up, and then I try those words in my mouth.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…”  I start rocking again.  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…”  So satisfying.

There’s a soft sound, and I turn.  Sir is standing in the kitchen door, he’s wearing only boxers, his hair is sleep mussed.

“SIR!” I shout in jubilation, flinging my arms wide.  The water sloshes over my hand and streams down my arm.  I shriek at the cold, then giggle, trying to set the glass down on the counter, but I’m shaking too hard with laughter.

From the corner of my eye I see Devin give Sir a wide-eyed look, his lips moving silently.  I spin on them both and Devin’s mouth snaps shut, his eyes back on me.  “Sir!” I exclaim loudly.  “Don’t be mad at him!”

“I’m not,” Sir says quietly.  Taking the, now half-empty, glass from the counter.  He murmurs something to Devin and Devin sidles to the doorway then scrambles up the stairs.  I listen to his footsteps for a moment.

“Don’t punish him!  He was being nice, he was helping with me with the ladder.”

“I won’t punish him.”  He refills the glass and adds more magnesium powder.

“He’s very sexy.”

“Yes.”  He goes to the cabinet and removes two more bottles, one powder, the other pills.

“We should fuck!  Do you want to fuck?  Have you ever smoked pot?  I never did.  Oh my god, BEES are the BEST! Do you know I learned about this tobacco plant in the desert?”

He has mixed a spoonful of the other powder into the water and added a squirt of flavoring to mask it.  He puts a straw into the glass then leans against the counter beside me, holding the glass up for me.

I take it, but he keeps his hand on it, steadying.  I find the straw with my mouth and suck down half of the glass.  “Oh, my God!” I gasp when I am finally forced to stop drinking and take in air.  “I’m so thirsty!”  I take another long, gulping run at the glass and finish it before stopping again to breathe.  Sir nods and refills it.

This time he pulls the straw out and hands me two pills.  I palm them and toss them into my mouth, then snatch the glass from him again, downing it in four, giant gulps, then pause, taking gasping breaths.

He is beside me again, one arm circling my body, pressing me firmly against his chest.

“Are you going to spank me?”

He looks at me for a moment.  “Would it help?”

Suddenly it feels as if I am in a vortex, a swirling vacuum sucking all of my thoughts out through a tiny, distant point.  I search through my mind, filled with the vortex image, then I look into his face with desperate sincerity.   “I don’t know!”  I look inward for another moment.  “I think I’m having a bad night.  A bad day.  A terrible, horrible, very bad day.  We should move to Australia!  The kangaroos, koo koo kachoo, Kalamazoo with the choo choo to Mizoo… Mizoola…Mazola!”

“Okay,” he says softly.  “Okay.”  He shifts his body behind mine, then turns us both to face the counter.  He pushes me forward gently and I let my forearms rest against the Formica and wonder if he’s going to spank me.  If he’s going to grab a wooden spoon from the utensil canister, if he’s going to step away from me far enough to do it.  His body is pressed against mine, and now his arms are looped under mine, his hands hooked over my shoulders, his forearms pressing firmly against my chest, his hands, heavy on my shoulders, his chest, heavy, against my back…  Heavy…

I blink, feeling my breath, slow, steady, into my lungs then back out again.  Sir’s body is a warm pressure penetrating deep into my muscles.  I blink again.  I’m sleepy.  My head begins to droop.

“Are you ready for bed?”  His voice is thick honey oozing through my brain.  I nod slowly.

“Yes, Sir.”

Sir steps away from me for a moment, and the loss of his weight and warmth makes me feel empty, like a husk, then his arm is over my shoulders, heavy, as if I am helping hold him up as we walk toward the stairs.

In the bedroom, Devin has already turned on the diffuser to the lowest setting, the room faintly tinged with lavender and sage, the turquoise-trimmed blue weighted blanket is stretched over my part of the bed, and a salt lamp casts the only light in the room, a muted, pinkish-orange.

Sir guides me to the bed and I crawl under the soothing weight of the blanket.

As Sir and Devin move about the room, shut off the lights, and crawl into the bed, I feel myself already drifting in a hollow inner darkness.

Through a mist of near-sleep, I feel Sir’s arm slide around my waist.