Ben's hands wrap around my hips as he drives his points home. I am crushed underneath him, locked against him and I am desperately trying not to pay attention. He's forcing me to with exquisitely sharp twinges of pain exacted as he pleases to maintain my focus.
He's incorrigible.
He's delicious.
He's maddeningly right, and I never saw it coming.
(Oh, there's a joke in there, a filthy pun. I'm not telling it).
Life isn't a fairytale, bee. It's a difficult climb up a steep hill and we're dirty and tired and demoralized but every now and then we get look at true beauty and a taste of the faith that makes us keep going.
More than once I have braved the red hot razor-burn of his three-week beard to look up into his eyes to confirm that he has not been replaced with a poet or a reverend. Maybe this is a dream. Ben's words are never so prophetic or reassuring or...logical. He writes angry music for a living. I would have been less surprised had he talked about how the devil would consume my soul as it burned on through the night, stoking the fires of hell or something.
(Oh, wait. Perhaps he is the prophetic one. After all, my soul was consumed and then spit out and returned to me. Currently it sits on a shelf behind Duncan's unworn, overpriced Oakley sunglasses and the rice cooker I bought that has to be returned because the capacity is nowhere sufficient for my kitchen.)
I wish Ben would shut the fuck up and save it for daylight. He pulls me back down and turns me over. Oh good, my ears are covered and I can't hear him.
But I can't breathe either.
(That's sometimes a fun game in itself, but only if the one in control is aware of the problem and timing a fix, otherwise you're just gunning for dead princesses and a whole lot of explaining to do.)
He pulls my head back up and I take a deep breath and I realize he's still talking. I start to laugh out loud. I don't know what else to do. Ben asks what's so funny. I point out I'm getting an attitude adjustment at the worst time ever.
He tells me he is multitasking, that while he's adjusting my internal organs into their new locations, he is also adjusting my outward attitude. Then he starts to laugh because he's got a very big ego when it comes to this department.
(Big like everything else.)
I roll back over and smile. Ben is taking this well. I mean me, he's taking me well. He stops talking at last and lets the dark take us both under. This is not the time for words. Words can wait for the sun.