Sweet often asks me if he can read the stories I write about him. I always say no.“Why?” he asks.
“It’s too revealing,” I tell him.
“We’re naked in bed together!” he counters. “What could be more revealing that that?”
“It would reveal how I feel about you,” I say.
“You can tell me how you feel about me.”
“No, I can’t.”
Why, I wonder, do I have so few trepidations about tearing off my clothes and hopping into bed with this man, but the idea of revealing myself emotionally to him fills me with fear? If sex is indeed “emotion in motion,” as Mae West claimed, shouldn’t I be able to tell, not just show?
On three separate occasions, Sweet has said to me, “There are a thousand ways to say I love you.”
Was that an I love you?
He despises the casual use of terms of endearment. We’re on the same page there—when some random dude calls me “sweety” I kick him in the face. Using them frivolously lessens the impact of using them when you really mean it. Lately, Sweet’s taken to calling me, my love. “It’s wonderful to hear your voice, my love.”
Was that an I love you?
And why am I so hung up on this anyway? It’s all fear. It’s all that silly dread of being more attached to a partner than he is to you. I have nothing to fear with Sweet. So why am I acting like such a loser? It’s middle school all over again!
Of course, he’s probably asking himself the very same questions. We all get hung up on this question of love. Sweet’s probably wondering what it meant that my last three orgasms exploded with his name. They’d all been generic before—that basic oh yeah, oh god, maudit calisse de crisse de tabernak! routine—but I practised while he was on holiday. I practised orgasming his name.
“I’m surprised that last one didn’t draw a crowd,” I said to him. “I expected to see my neighbours peeking in the window.”
“They might not know your name,” Sweet blushed, “but they’ll sure as hell know mine.”
And we’re both left wondering, was that an I love you?