19-02-17

And I sat on his floor and I didn't think to care that nice girls don't sit on floors and I watched his face and I trusted him, is it. I trusted that it wasn't for him, what he was saying, it really was for me - that he knew there was a trifecta that exists for genuine discussion, a very specific trifecta of having felt his sweat mix with mine, and his grunt - such an audible, grunt! A groan! - in my ear and all it took to get there: a few text messages too late at night, is the short version, a few months if we go back further, five years when I really sit down and comb through the filing cabinet marked how unexpected. 



And because of that - because of the sweat and the grunt and the un-expected-ness of it, he knew to look me in the eye to make me hear what it was he was saying, and he knew that this time I might listen. I stood up again, wine in hand, to resume pacing from the glass separating us from the balcony and back again toward the kitchen, and when I said accepting the help of a man infuriated me he didn't skip a beat to ask, rhetorically, do you know how much I normally charge for this stuff?



I was there because he said he wanted to learn. Learn... me. When I'd lost my temper, told him what he was doing wasn't good enough, that I wasn't interested, to have a good day, he said to let him learn what is good enough.



And I'll be damned if that isn't the most extraordinary thing a man has ever said to me.



I suppose I'm learning, too.