How to Love

How to Love

Robin Burroughs

Copyright: Robin Burroughs, 2023

Cover Art and Design: Sara Carrick

All persons and situations portrayed in this e-book are products of the author's imagination and are in no way intended to represent real persons or events.

Contents

For Sarah,

Who always believed in me.

1

Denial

Beyond All Reason

Usually so quiet during sex, I barely recognize the guttural, sometimes desperate, plaintive sounds coming out of me.

Only he can do this to me. With other men I need quiet, to concentrate on a fantasy to come. With other men I need to dream up something to excite me. Usually, him.

Now he's beside me and I can't believe the charge of electricity running through me. My breasts tighten. My nipples harden. My cunt throbs. I'm finally where I've always needed to be. Nothing exists but his breath on my body. Here he says what I want, "I love you." Here he kisses me softly on my lips and face. I'm even able to imagine my cat walking on my hair is his caress. Until I slip off the couch with a painful thud. Hi, Reality. Hi, cramped, pruned fingers.

The beauty of a dream lover. He never burps, or lands on your hair. He doesn't care if you fart. And there's less mess. It sure makes the cats curious, though. So hard for them to get comfortable on a writhing body. It does spoil the illusion a bit when they march across me, but only for a moment. Then he's back. My perfect lover. Resting his head on my arm. Letting me stroke his golden skin.

Alone, in the basement of my Leaside duplex, I examine myself. Not bad. Not great, but not terrible. Good breasts. Round, ample, symmetrical. Definitely lower than I remember them. When did that happen? Ok legs. Too thick around the middle.

The masturbation is getting ridiculous. I'm losing sleep to it. I wonder what a therapist would say, but don't really want to know. Probably that pruned fingers and cramped hands are what happen when an obsessive-compulsive takes up masturbation in earnest. The only thing I know at this point is that I don't care if it's healthy. I only know I need him.

I haven't even seen him in maybe ten years. If this is what thinking about seeing him does to me, then I am really in trouble. But then, I always have been where he's concerned.

Lucid again, I realize I have to get at least few hours of sleep before work. I slip into bed beside my husband, still aching and damp with desire.

Exhibit A

I reach out, only to find he's not at the paper anymore. I have to dig on the internet until I find an old site for his comic sales.

My heart leaps when I get a half-French email reply. He is in Quebec, vacationing. But a day later he says we can get together. That seems fast. He seems keen to see me. Now I'm nervous.

We opt for nostalgia and decide to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Royal Ontario Musem, but I see only him. Once taken as a school trip, this time we want to remind ourselves of what we saw back then. How we felt years ago. Plus, we think it's going to be free.

But the ROM is not above a bait and switch. They lure you in with a free 'Wednesdays after 6pm' offer. Then charge for the only exhibit anyone is actually there to see. It's still worth it to me.

I try to keep my distance. He's like a deer I don't want to spook. I can't get too close. But he brushes near me like he used to, and I grab onto a display cabinet to keep from melting into him. He smells of lust and longing. He smells like home. I have to hold myself still. Don't lean in. Not already. Back off. Wait.