The doorknob is something of an antique, a faintly discolored glass of curlicue design rising to a blunt point, set in a brass collar of dark patina.  I let my hand cup it, cool yet smooth, reminded of the last time we made love and I held your breast just so.It isn't the nipple pressed against my palm, nor the smoothness that evokes the memory. Though your skin was warm to my touch, it 's the coolness that recalls that night to me.

I hesitate there, squeezing as I did not then. Your breasts are far too sensitive to stand more than the slightest touch. I know this, for you're careful to remind me whenever my hand steals toward you in the darkness, my lips press against the hollow of your throat. Memory plays such evil tricks. From its dim mists I almost see visions of how I used to kiss your breasts, tease your nipples with lip and tongue while you softly sighed.  I can imagine how I watched the flush of arousal spread across your chest and throat and face like unfurling dawn. I mentioned this in a poem I wrote to you back on our last anniversary. You told me I was only ornamenting history with fantasy.

I open the door on reality. The chill of the air conditioning seeps through my clothes in the darkness of the foyer. I'm home early on a half day of vacation.  That time of year again, when we acknowledge in our awkward ways that we've managed to survive another year together. You're still at work and I hope what I plan will be a pleasant surprise.

I've planned this night for weeks. Somehow, it lodged in my brain that, instead of going out for dinner, I would prepare something special for us.  You used to compliment me on my cooking when we would switch off.  For some time now, I've noticed you barely touch your food, if you come to the table at all.

So, I have considered what I seem to recall as your favorite dishes, your favorite wine. There are candles in the grocery bags I set down in the hall as I pick up the mail. Tonight will be perfect, I have promised myself, like it was before, or rather as I think it was.

The telephone bill seems rather thick, which puzzles me. I decide I will look at it later. Excitement starts to build in me as I let my whimsy roam over how tonight will be. I'm eager to get started. Dumping the mail by the television, I carry the groceries into the kitchen. The rose I had set in a bud vase this morning for you to find when you woke is gone, as is the card and poem I'd left with it. I smile; thinking you must have taken it to our bedroom. Perhaps this year will be different, this anniversary one to remember with fondness rather than filed away as another tick off the calendar. 

By hand, I wash our good china and silverware, drying them so as to avoid spots. Shortly thereafter, I busy myself with the mundane labor of preparing salad, chicken, baked potatoes, and broccoli with cheese.  It's what else that is running through my mind that stirs my desires, causes me some discomfort as my erection rasps mockingly against my trousers.  I am pulling every instance I can remember, or rather, am pretty sure I remember, of what has given you pleasure in our lovemaking. Perhaps it is no more than wishful thinking based on surreptitious reading of how to books and magazines, but I want tonight to be so perfect we will have it to share as a memory for years to come.

I spill some olive oil on my hand, yet pause before I wipe it off. The slickness of it, the clean, earthy smell seems to ping somewhere in my brain. The feel of your arousal, maybe? I'm unsure as I can only with certainty recall that, when we do make love our first movements in the dance are towards the lubricant.

Still, I slowly rub the oil between my fingers, letting it coat them and imagine or remember you riding my hand when I would, if I ever did, trace the swelling blossom of your desire. I lift my fingers to my face and leave a faint sheen upon my lips as I taste the oil. Yes, I know, I am dammed sure I know I used to linger between your thighs, savoring the flavor of you, the subtle changes as you approached orgasm. A definite memory, that, not just some recollection of a dream from the distant shore of my side of the bed. It hurts, then, a moment, knowing my addiction to feeling your swollen, pulpy folds kissing my lips, the eager quivering of your clitoris along my tongue, caused you such discomfort with a yeast infection. You told me he advised avoiding such activities in the future, and I wonder if you ever knew that I was not angry with you or the doctor, but myself?

While my thoughts have rambled, I realize my hands have likewise roamed. Without being conscious of it, I have unfastened my fly. My eyes come back to focus when a draft from the air conditioner whispers across my hard, dull purple penis. Thoughtfully, I stroke some of the oil upon me, feeling it soothe and at the same time send my cock to throbbing. My hand slowly wraps around the shaft and for a moment, I can convince myself it's your hand there.  I know, yes, I know you used to touch me, to lightly trace with your long fingers my veins, the underside of my head.

Yes, I think, yes, yes.  I remember now, how you used to stroke me, even sometimes let your lips slowly sip me into your mouth, tongue playing on along the underside of my prick like the two fingers I am moving back and forth.  I know you did this, would hold my balls in the palm of your hand.  Did they roll for you as they are doing for me now, I wonder, as I rise into a lightness of being beyond time and place?

Then, suddenly, I stop. My penis pulses in my hand at the very edge of erupting. I desperately cling to the sensation, try to savor it. Yet, the moment passes as my mind very reasonably recognizes I am caught up in yet another fantasy.  And a small, cold voice whispers, perhaps it is not just at this moment I have indulged in that.

I tuck myself away, painfully aware of my cock and balls expressing their annoyance. In some perverse way, I even welcome it as a means to stay focused on the task before me. I wash my hands and carry on.

Time moves swiftly for a while at least.  Once I have the table set, the food all but ready to be served up, I go to find your favorite CD's, setting up the player to rotate each of the three discs. There is nothing much else to do in the kitchen or dining room, so I wander into the bedroom. 

The rose and card are not there.  Maybe you took them to work today, to show your coworkers with pride and hear their expressions of humorous envy? I grin like a fool to think maybe, just maybe, your are thinking of tonight as well, with anticipation.

I set the condoms and lubricant near the bed, after searching your dresser drawers for them. There is a thick manila envelope near them. I pick it up, seeing faint stains of fingerprints near the hasp. It feels as if there are letters inside or maybe... The realization strikes me that perhaps you have saved the letters, the poems I have written you. That possibly, this is how you recall our early years when you indulge in private moments of pleasure. Tears come to my eyes and for a moment, I want to open the envelope, read the old words that express feelings we maybe both still share. I feel a weight moving off my chest that has been there ever since I began doubting that what I thought were memories were actually fantasies. 

I put the envelope carefully back into the drawer, unopened. This is yours. I gave them to you and you alone have the right to them. Joy suffuses me to think that you, too, long for those days past, that perhaps the spark still exists and together we can ignite the fire that was once ours, that I no longer dismiss as mere wishful thinking.  Still, I put out the condoms we don't need for birth control since my vasectomy, and the lubricant as well. Beginnings and re-starts are delicate things, and your often expressed need for these items for your comfort makes me want to move slowly. Perhaps, perhaps we may even get to the point you can accept me within you again without these barriers. Perhaps, perhaps, we can make love as we used to, even possibly face to face rather than from behind which you have insisted on for some time.

I all but dance into the living room. The telephone bill glares up at me from near the television. What the hell, I tell myself. When better to look at a bill than when in a good mood? Nothing can spoil this near ecstasy I feel.

My eyes widen when I look at the total. Almost five hundred dollars. I flip to the long distance section.  Call after call to an exchange in St. Paul? I rack my brain trying to think whom either of us might know in Minnesota. I suspect we have been misbilled, but it is really too late to call the telephone company now. You will be home in minutes. 

Just to be on the safe side, if perhaps these calls are somehow related to your work on graphics design, I decide to leave the bill near our computer with a note for you. The small bedroom we set up for a computer room has pretty much become yours, with me doing any work I need with the laptop my employer supplies me. 

I'm puzzled that the door is locked. It's an old skeleton key lock. I remember seeing one, all but forgotten, in the junk drawer of our kitchen. I go rummage around for it and return. Sure enough it fits. I open the door and step inside the room for the first time in, it must be years.

There's the rose, near your computer. I all but laugh. You must have carried it in here to check your email before going to work this morning. I wonder if you carried it with you when you showered this morning, kept it with you while you ate breakfast? Do I still mean so much to you that you would do that? I am becoming more and more convinced that yes, things can be made right between us, that this anniversary will indeed be the turning point where we leave this path of distant discomfort that has seemed to be our trail for such a long time.

I see the card, too, and the poem I wrote you. Even from where I am, I can see that purple ink you use and notes in your own handwriting. I know I shouldn't, but I have to take a look to see what you thought.

At first, I don't understand. It appears you have been editing the poem. Though you seldom comment on those notes and poems I leave for you, I consider that perhaps you are trying your own hand at writing a poem for me?
 

Where I wrote:

"Your breast rests within my hand
and through the tender flesh I feel
your pulse in gentle rhythm; then
my heart changes tempo, matching
yours, as if distant drums call out
for us to join in private dance"

You altered to read:

"when your hand cups my breast
do you feel through my tender flesh
the gentle rhythm of a pulse as if
of a distant drum, calling out for
you to join me in our private dance"

Warmth wells within me as I read on, how you used my words to create your own verse. Gently, I set the card back down and smile as I look at the rose once more. Only then do I notice that where I signed the tag on it, there is a broad streak of black magic marker blanking it out. And underneath, in your handwriting, a name not my own, "Minnesota Michael".

Copyright © 2001 Royce Skyes. All Rights Reserved. May not be re-printed in any form without express written consent of the author. Do not copy or post.

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