The Dove Keeper (Frerard)

Two

            I woke up in the middle of the night. It wasn't as dark in the apartment as I was used to in Paris; there we had no lights and were in a small building that was surrounded by larger ones that blocked out the sky. Now the night-time sky and streetlights flooded into our apartment, through the large balcony window, and over our bodies in the middle of the room on the double mattress. It was startling. I woke up from a sudden jolt; that falling feeling that comes just before a deep sleep. I had been walking and walking in my dream, along cobblestones in Paris, and gross dirty sidewalks surrounding the airports, and then I had fallen. I was surprised my sudden movement didn't walk Gerard up as well, but he was on the far side of the bed, face down, his mouth half open on a pillow. Over the time spent together in Paris I grew used to his sleeping patterns and his changes in breathing, and I knew that he was in a deep sleep right now. The arm that I was touching was like a dead weight, and as I placed my ear close to his mouth, I heard his small raspy snore. He was out of it. In the starlight, I could see his eyes move back and forth in a dream of his own.

            Usually after sudden falling jolts like this, it was easy for me to get back to sleep, but the unfamiliar place, the jetlag, and all the excitement from before (and possibly the coffee) were interfering with this process. I laid on my back and tried to relax and close my eyes, but everything seemed too bright. I got up and went to the bathroom for something to do and then I walked back into the middle of the living room. As I left before, I didn't really pay much attention to the window and the fact that I was naked - I was leaving anyway. Now as I emerged from the bathroom, the window and the streetlights greeted me and I left nothing to the imagination. I was naked from head to toe. I stopped suddenly, feeling vulnerable. It was a different type of vulnerability - more like a patient at the doctor who was getting a physical, removed from sexual connotations. We had not had sex that night, merely taken our clothing off and fallen into bed exhausted. There would be plenty of time for sex later. But this new arrangement, with the bed in the middle of the room, not only was it inviting our sex life to become open and public to all those who entered - it was breaking the one rule we had made when we were together from before: no sex on the balcony, or even near it.

            Still naked, and getting over the precarious nature of how I felt in my own skin right now, I walked over towards the window. I felt empowered with each step I took. Though the removal of my clothing had been innocent enough and merely for sleeping comfort, as soon as I stepped towards the window, I began to remember what we could do now. What we finally had the option of doing now as the only restriction from before was removed. It didn't matter who saw me naked at his window, and it didn't matter if Gerard were to come up from behind, put his arms around me, and then...

            I looked over to him at the bed, hoping he had been roused and maybe fallen off the same cliff in his own dreams, but no, he was sleeping. I debated for a moment waking him up and sharing my new idea for us, but I remembered something he had told me in Paris about how, with old age, if he was woken up, he almost invariably had to get up right then because his body would feel rested, even if he had only slept for three hours. This was predominantly why he had started to get up so early - his body almost forced him to. I decided against my plan, letting him sleep, and also coming to terms with the fact that we lived here now, and were going to be staying awhile so there was no rush on things. For once, there was no rush. Even in Paris, there had felt this constricting timeline of what we needed to do and how we needed to be together to make up for lost time. Now it felt like we were on even ground. And fuck, it felt so good. I let Gerard sleep and actually felt okay about it.

            Seeing the clock from the kitchen, I realized it was about three in the morning and I wondered if I was going to be able to fall back to sleep. It was a passing thought at best, and I focused my time on looking out the large window, at the many city lights. I had not been awake at this time, in this place, for a long time, and though it was cold and I risked diminishing some of my parts, I opened the door and stepped out for a bit. I was still naked.