Three Words of Consequence

I’m stroking his sleeping form, my hand tracing the idlest of circles with the deepest concentration. This is the one I have chosen, he who is mine. I sit now, watching the gentle rise and fall of his shoulder blades under his slowing breathing. The slumber is deepening under my coaxing, and I feel content. My fingers are widespread, and gently skip across the thick waves of his back, exploring each crest and trough. It responds, resilient in some places, pliant and soft in others. I brush close to the edge of the quilt, under which his lower half is covered, and feel goose pimples rise. Are they from cold, or tremors of the sensation?

His face is turned away from me. How does he always, even after the fall into unconsciousness, know where the glints of my eyes will be? I brush my hand through his hair, thick and coarse; always in need of a brush. He can’t hide it anymore. He said it, he said it tonight.

I think back, to blissful foray past, when moon put her ear to the gap in the curtains to listen to the night time radio, turned up just a little too loud for furtiveness, while we moved in the dark. I could not see him then either, the ghost light cast his features in shadow, but as I lay back, feeling, I heard it on the rim of his lips. I saw the syllables, darker than the gloom, work their way through his gaping breath and around his ragged tongue. They emerged, and they were quiet. It was almost as if he was ignorant of their import, or unaware of what it was that, as if it had slipped out and escaped.

A whisper and we were bound. Inextricable. The moments of our passion passed, and yet he remained. It was I who slipped out from under, not quite knowing why, many minutes after and though, heavy with echo.

“I love you.”