He looks at me. “I don’t like this type of music.”
“I can tell.” I smile. “Shall we go for a wander?”
He nods, his long sun-burned surfer hair streaming out from under his wide-brimmed fedora. We walk away through the crowd shoulder to shoulder to another stage.
The music is no better but we are away from our group of friends. For a moment it’s just the two of us. He holds me close. I pull away so I can see his face to I ask him what’s on my mind. “I feel like you are a little bit shy with me.”
He fumbles with the statement, startled, starting several unfinished sentences. “Is it because I don’t throw myself on you?” he says.
If you prefer, listen to the 6-minute audio recording of this story here.
It’s not what I mean.
I mean, in general. Whenever we are together he’s so shy and gentle and sensitive with me. But the music is too loud and I don’t want to explain myself by yelling. I look at him trying to read what he’s thinking/feeling/saying.
He continues. “There’s no rush is there?” I shake my head.
Suddenly, we both lean in at once, our lips press together, his tongue fast and eager in my mouth. Our first kiss, followed by another and another. He takes my hand and pulls me towards a tree for a little privacy and holds me close for a minute more.
Instinctively, the moment has passed. We return to our group.
I break away from him and collide with some girlfriends, 4 of us hand in hand. Together we squeeze ourselves to the front of the stage where Muse is playing.
After their set we run to the next stage, losing one to an ex-boyfriend she’s still in love with. Three of us dance to Justice until 4 am swaying our hips, teasing the men around us with long glances under long eyelashes as if to say ‘come here but don’t dare touch me.’
The festival ends. The taxi queue is a kilometre long and there are precisely 0 taxis. Two girls walk in our direction and we see car keys in one of their hands and quietly beg them for a lift home. They look at us and turn to each other to discuss between them and then nod. They are Italian — one a Ryan Air flight attendant the other a waitress — who have lived on our little island paradise since just two months.
At my stop, I throw €5 euros over the seat to them and thank them profusely. They laugh and refuse. “We don’t need your fucking money!” “Please take it!” I beg. I cannot be more grateful to be home. After 3 nights, dancing a total of 50 kilometres, there’s nothing I want more than to lie horizontally in my own, familiar bed.
It’s 5 am as I quickly shower to rinse off the night, dust and sweat and crawl between the comfort of my sheets. Instantly, I disappear into a deep coma made up of dreams and secret wishes.
☽
I wake to an unfamiliar sensation. My cat, Danger Zone, has jumped onto the bed, but this instant feels different. I roll over, away from the wall and come face to face, with a soft, small, sweet little dove. Still warm yet very dead. Shocked out of my slumber I look at my phone. It’s 7 am. 2 hours have passed.
At some point in those 2 hours, I must have opened the sliding door to the terrace for him to go out, but I don’t remember. For the first time in 3.5 years, he has killed a living creature and then brought it to me as a token of his love and devotion.
But the timing…
I get up and find a t-shirt in my dirty laundry basket to pick up that sweet little dead dove and transport it outside. Danger looks at me confused. He doesn’t understand why I’m not overjoyed by his gift. I lay the pigeon deep into a thicket of bushes to let nature takes its course and vacuum the little soft feathers scattered around from my cat’s deadly rampage.
And then crawl back into bed, and sleep.
☽
When I wake again, the sun is high in the sky, my lips parched and dry. I get up and slice some watermelon to relieve my dehydrated body from the 3-day dancing marathon I put it through and let my mind wander.
I have never, in my entire life, met a man who wants to take his time. All of my experiences until now have been of men hurrying into physical and emotional intimacy with me as fast as possible. I have never met a man who has made it clear with his words that he likes me and wants to intentionally and purposefully draw out the process of getting to know one another. I start to wonder if perhaps it’s because I’ve never been with a man before.
Maybe all the ones before were just boys.