by November Tuesday

I like you like this, in my arms. Your head rests on one, and the other is holding you close. You're safe, here with my arms around you, with nothing to do but feel. Clothes seperate us. I gently nudge your boundaries, asking.

Please, you say. I reach down into your jeans, cup your pearlike sex. Soft. I reach, explore, looking for that root that grows under hooded skin.

You tense and I can no longer hear you breathe. Your back is a stone wall.

"Breathe, baby." I say. "I've got you."

And when I feel that place swell, and you grow and pulse under my finger, and you gently begin to rock back and forth, I know it's true. It leaps into my hand, affectionate.

You don't make a sound. I'd never know if it were getting you off, you are so quiet. Except that the root of you swells under my finger. And that when I gently ask, you tell me you like it.

How do you like it?

"Slow," you say, and I move in slow circles. I feel like I'm driving the earth around on its axis, everything that matters literally under my one finger. Again, you rock, just a bit, back and forth.

With just one finger I stroke it, coddle it, tease it, manipulate it. You in my arms, you under my finger. I'm the master of the fucking universe. You rock your hips slowly. Back and forth. Around and around. That root grows; moisture there seeps up from below. A silky groundswell, all for me.

In the dim light I can see you in profile, lying in my arms, lips parted. I can hear your breath, the sound of your clothed hips moving, moving.

"Stop!" You say, and I pull out of your pants like a paranoid boy.

"What's wrong?" I whisper.

"That was too much. I was too close to something! Too aroused."

"What are you afraid of?" I ask.

"I don't know." Your face is flushed. I can see that it's the truth.

But I don't mind. Because I have a feeling we'll be figuring it out together, you and I.