Curled

We are curled together, on his couch. His body still curves around me as perfectly as it did so long ago, and his skin is the same combination of oil, soap, and male that I have found irresistible since the day we met.

His fingers are gentle in my hair, brushing through it as we chat about inconsequential things. The conversation is irrelevant- it is this, this touching, this sharing, that we are here for. 

No one knows him as inside-out as I do, and yet loves him anyway. No one else touches him with the same knowledge of who he is, flaws and strengths and fears and passions. I know this, not because he has told me, but because he hasn't. 

And so I stroke the line of his jaw, and I let him touch me.

He does not know me, not as once he did. Nor is it me that he still loves: it is the memory of a 17 year old ingenue. But for the sake of that ingenue and her love for him, I accept that, accept the memory of his hands hot on my body and his lips tender on my skin.

My own heart belongs to another now, but his body still fits to mine, and his arms still give me the safety that I crave, if only briefly, terribly briefly.