I had only my white underwear on, grooving in the small confines of your room to Champagne by 311 and peering at my lightly swaying waist reflected off picture frames on your desk, when I heard fumbling at the door and folded myself into your chair out of fear as it was earlier than when you said you would be home—then in you came saying baby and in another second crashed into my arms like a pendulum let loose with all your weight and all the texture of your roughened tee and trousers with many pockets and all the scent of your outside clothes and androgynous perfume and sweet, sweet wine. I asked you what’s going on but your legs were already buckling so I had to lay you down slowly on the floor, yanking your body up like a sandbag so that your head rested comfortably on the cushion. You had that sheepish half-smile that I love and your eyes loosely fixed on my face as you asked, again and again as you forgot you had just asked, whether I had taken a shower; I answered, again and again, laughing as you were so endearing drunk and I kissed you, again and again on your spiky sideburns (you had a fresh haircut earlier in the day), your neck, your cheek and your forehead, all the while inhaling the cloud of nectarous grape scent that hovered on your face. I straddled you with my back arched and helped your hand to my breast, which you gave a light squeeze before your arm slumped to the floor; and I would’ve gone on and on if I hadn’t known you were absolutely spent and needed rest, so I slipped into my bathrobe and skipped to the shower for a quick rinse.
When I came back you were still passed out on the floor, sleeping so deeply that even as I blow-dried my hair, not a twitch registered on your peachily gleaming face. I climbed down the bed, naked except for a frilly pair of midnight-blue underwear, and pushed an extra cushion under your hip—but that woke you and you clambered onto my arms to get up, then immediately grabbed hold of the bin at hand and threw up in it.
Seeing you sick tightened a knot in my chest, stringing in nerves throughout my body till they were taut and tingling. As you heaved silently, it felt as though something was caught in my throat too: not nausea, but a pang that swelled, stretched the inner walls of my heart and soon permeated my whole being. It was pain, a vicarious kind (as I love you) but minus the actual discomfort you were in, even laced with a secret pleasure (as I love you). It was not unlike arousal in that a delectable sensation is derived from muscles contracting, airways narrowing and vessels distending; except there would be no dramatic release in this scenario, as the titillating heartache chased no climax in the loved subject’s pain.
A sweetly sour whiff began to exude from the bin, around which your arms like a feeble koala’s wrapped, and into which the lower part of your drooping head disappeared. I slipped my hand between your forehead and the bin lid, fearing that it might scratch your face. I fought the instinct of stroking your back and holding you close, as the sense of constriction could worsen the nausea. Stationing myself behind you, I limited myself to light caresses of your arm when the retching became laborious, and quick pecks during the interludes on your wide, domed back: an image of hardiness and frailty in one.
Something about that mix stirs the libido. I sensed my elevated heart rate as I guided you, step by step, shakily down the stairs to the shower; heard my inwardly choppy breathing as I took out the soiled bin bag and tossed your sweet-smelling clothes into the laundry; and felt the magnetic pull with which the sum of my energy hurtled toward the bathroom door, behind which you were imaginably fighting to regain lucidity under the steaming shower, as I waited outside with my ears pricked for any possible sign that you needed help. It’s funny how overwhelming concern can sometimes translate into desire. One of our best intimate moments was when you were running a fever from Covid: oh how wicked I was, taking advantage of you while you were sick; but how ardently your body craved and effused delight!
A twisted form of protectiveness—I suppose it is one of the many sick variants of love. It is reserved for the protector: you, who would melt away my tantrums with kisses, jump at any danger or ill feeling heading my way, and filter out inner turmoil rather than unload it on me. Where, in the depths of your armored soul, do your most primal, selfish, childlike frailties lie? When on account of some indefensible breach they finally emerge, to assure that it is okay to show face—be it a faint pout, a sterner voice, or a lapse of sickness—it is fated that my whole being rushes to tend to it, with my mental drive in its headlong stampede often dragging its libidinal counterpart into perverse excess.
The latter could be kept in check as potently as impelled, however, if love is true. As you were tucked into bed, with the blanket up to your cheeks and your dried-up hair in a poof—mumbling goofily I love you again and again since your muzzy mind couldn’t be sure if you’d said it yet—I echoed you, again and again, until your eyelids drooped. I remember smiling to myself that night, and the warm euphoria that swirled within and carried me to my dreams.
Vanessa is a Hong Kong-based writer, currently editing and writing for a local English newspaper. She holds a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago. Her work has appeared in Imprint, The Apostrophe, Eksentrika, and Adelaide Literary Magazine.