A Dark Fall [ORIGINAL & UNEDITED VERSION]

Thirty

He loves me.  He meant it.  It wasn't a mixed up jumble of words misspoken in the middle of hard frenzied sex. He loves me. Like I love him.

My body feels like it might be about to collapse into a heap and my mind wants to follow it down.   From nowhere I feel tears well up behind my eyes, and my heart swells to bursting point.   He loves me and I love him.    It's earth shattering.  

My next thought, which is cold and sobering – I just had unsafe sex.  

As his breathing slows he lifts his head up from the crook of my neck to meet my eyes.  The way his eyes sparkle with satisfaction and the way his mouth is tilted up into a small but uncertain smile makes my chest thrum with pressure.  He looks so beautiful post coital I always think.  Of course he always looks so beautiful, but after sex he looks heartstoppingly so.  Flushed cheeks, wet kissable mouth, mussed hair and a look in his eye so wicked that it makes me want to beg him to do every single debauched thing that might come through his head.

As he slowly pulls out of my body he touches his lips to mine, kissing me softly.   The wet stickiness of him seeps out of me along with him, evidencing our careless and illicit lovemaking.   He sits up and buttons up my dress, smoothing it down around my thighs, which I then close over. 

When he moves to stand I do the same, sitting up on the step and smoothing down my tousled sex- on-the-stairs hair.   As he pulls his jeans and boxers back on, and zips and buckles his belt, his eyes hold mine a little warily perhaps.  As I stand up on still trembling legs, I feel the warm wet tickling sensation of his semen run down the inside of my leg. It feels strangely erotic. 

We're both silent for a few long moments, with only the sound of our breathing and the ticking of my grandmothers old clock filling the sexed up air of my hallway.  The silence doesn't feel awkward or uncomfortable, just leaden and thick with the weight of his words.  Words that I always thought would be mine to say first.   As he stares at me it occurs to me that finally, in this moment I might know everything that he's thinking.

"You said you loved me." I whisper after what seems like hours of hot wordlessness.

Something flickers across his eyes but then his shoulders relax and he nods.  "Yes. I did."

I feel my breath catch in my throat and my mouth feels dry and papery.  I run my tongue along my lips to wet them.  "Why?"

He looks confused and then smiles and takes a step toward me. "Why what?  Why do I love you or why did I say it?" his eyes are twinkling with sex and amusement. 

A small soft breath leaves my throat.  I can't think.  Or move.   I want to cry from happiness.  I also desperately want to reach down and catch the warm droplet of his climax that is running down my leg before it lands on the carpet.  

"Why did you say it?"  My voice is barely there. 

"I said it because it's true. I love you.  I'm in love with you.  I wanted you to know that," He runs a hand through his perfect just fucked hair. "Maybe it wasn't the right time.  But I wanted you to know," he shrugs.   "All week I was thinking about how I should have said it last week, before you left, and how if I had then maybe you wouldn't have gone.  But I didn't want it to be the reason you stayed,"  He looks down again, running his tongue across his bottom lip.   When he looks back at me his eyes are gravely serious.   "But the way I feel about you Alex, how much I wanted to hear your voice and see you this week," he steps closer and shakes his head.   "I told myself I'd tell you the next chance I got. If I got one."   He reaches out and takes my hands.   "Baby I know I almost killed it.  But I don't know what Im doing here.  But what I do know is that nothing in in my life has ever felt as right or as good as you do."    His voice is so sincere that it takes my breath away. I open my mouth and close it again, and instead just stare at him in awe.