AT WHAT COST?

xi - lost files

File 1# - Vanessa Loves Her Personal Space; Angelo Also Loves Vanessa's Personal Space
Vanessa
June

I hadn't expected him to be so...tactile.

I don't think he expected either, but the man couldn't keep his hands off me. I wasn't used to it, so I found it annoying at first, but then, the strange feelings that the touches he couldn't resist arouse, gave way to more complex ones.

I wasn't used to being touched with affection. My father was abusive, and my mother had long been disillusioned with the practice of showing physical manifestations of love. My brother and I had a great relationship, which was honest and transparent, but due to the age gap, the slant on our connection leaned more parental than sibling and apart from the odd hug, we tended to keep the touches light. Our main channel of communicating affection had always been through words.

Angelo was introducing a whole new playing field to me. It felt different to the way we would entice each other into the next sexual escapade. It had started with scalp massages. Once I started wearing weave, this became obsolete. Then it would be foot rubs, if we had a seldom moment of reprieve from work. This graduated to booty rubs, as he seemed to think that permanent place should be in his lap. And then he started feeling comfortable enough to sit entwined with his hand in my shirt.

Right now, we were in bed, and I had been trying to sleep. He took it upon himself to disturb this endeavour by playing with my face. He started popping my bottom lip with his finger, obviously wanting to illicit a reaction from me. I wasn't going for it, so I feigned sleep. It was only when he pinched my nose, that I gave into his ministrations.

"Yo, why are you in my skin, Angelo? I'm tired, I wanna sleep!" I wasn't one to pout and I wouldn't say I was doing so now. I had been dealing with a messed up sleeping pattern due to the working hours my bedmate liked to keep and the fatigue was staring to catch up with me.

"My bad, I'm just bored and I like messing with you. You act like you're gonna die because I touched you." He gave a little chuckle, mischief audible in his tone.

"No I do not, but you be pushing it. You would put your hands on my insides if you could." I realised my mistake as soon as I said it.

"I be putting something else in your insides so I'm good on that front." Hardy-har-har

I shook my head back and forth exaggeratedly with a sarcastic smile on my face to let him know that he was not nearly as funny as he though he was. He responded by finding my belly button with scary accuracy and messing with that. The sensation was odd and caused me to jolt a little bit.

"See, why did you buck like you was finna square up?" He was relaxed, not feeling the need to be as formal as he could sometimes be.

"Because why would you touch my belly button you weirdo?" I was only asking questions the audience wanted to know.

"I literally put my penis in your vagina almost every other day, but this is where you draw the line?" A shyness unbecoming of someone who had as much sex with him as I did came over me.

It didn't make sense, but I didn't want to become to attached to... this. The domestication and dare I say romance of our arrangement. We were playing house, and I liked it. When he touched me, it felt grounding. I could have been thinking about a million things but his rubbing of my belly or back would slow the pace. It was a control he had over me and I was scared of what that meant.