Crimson-1/?

Some nights when I really want him, I won't even tell him. I'll just wait for him to come home from work, wait for him to walk around downstairs hanging up his coat, putting his briefcase on the kitchen table, opening and closing the refrigerator. More often than not, a glass will clink on the countertop, thirsty as he fills it.

Dinner's not ready. He turns the light off in the kitchen. I know because the kitchen, like our bedroom, faces the back of the house. When he turns the light off, the backyard goes black. My eyes readjust.

If dinner was in the oven or on the table, he'd have called my name by now, but it's not, so he doesn't. He stops at the bottom of the stairs and flips through the mail on the table in the foyer. He's just stalling; I pay the bills.

He clears his throat and starts walking up the stairs.

For some reason, the moon is blood red tonight, even as it peers around a cloud, and that's what I'm looking at when I realize that he's standing in the doorway, leaning against the door frame, smiling at me when I notice him.

"I noticed it when I was driving home," he says.

"It's beautiful."

He sits his drink down and loosens his tie, tossing it on a chair, and then starts unbuttoning his sleeves. I'm still staring out the window when he's pulling the sheet from under my arms and settling on top of me, but the moon isn't nearly as beautiful as he's making me feel.

He kisses me, and my orbit begins.

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You can love someone for so many reasons and in so many ways and still feel that your ability to convey it is insufficient. Sometimes I wonder if it's that gap between what we feel and what we communicate that keeps our relationship so breathless. I could close that space between us, I suppose, if I really put my mind to it, but I don't think I want to. I like the sensation of traveling on that narrow path to get to him or watching him traverse that same tight space to get to me.

When he kisses me, I always feel like he's unraveling a bow on a Christmas present, like he's found the exact section you have to tug to make the entire ribbon fall away from the box. Once the box is open, the sides fall away, and I can't wait to feel him on top of me, to see him smile because I was inside the box.

Go on to Crimson 2