mindfulness

We don’t spend every day at the gym or anything. On top of my work and the occasional mysterious calling that occupies your time, sometimes we just chill together.

Sundays are good for it. I’m watching you play Braid on the console. I can’t remember if you’d said you’d played it, but you certainly seem to be making good progress through the twisted, time-traveling logic.

In fact I’m watching you, studying your face as you furrow your brow, stuck on a particularly difficult puzzle. You never talk through the puzzles out loud; instead you stare, like the game will get unnerved and give up its secrets.

So much has changed so quickly. Your progress has been incredible. At 110kg, just over 17 stone, your figure grows ever more compact. There is never loose skin, I’ve noticed. It’s like no matter your size, your body has been made for it. You asked me if I missed your belly before and I told you that I did, but that I would love you at every size. Well, the uncanny rightness of your body is what makes that so: even when you are transitioning, you always look like you were put on this earth perfect.

Afternoon tiredness unmoors my mind. My thoughts wander further than normal. All of a sudden, and without anything seeming to change, I become hyperaware of everything around me. The orchestra music of the game, running in reverse as you undo some action in the current puzzle. My guitar propped against your fireplace. The way you’re sitting forward, holding the controller like it’s an extension of you. I think about the fangs hidden behind your lips, the beat of my heart in my ears, the hidden labyrinth that occupies so much of my waking life but which I will never experience in full, and not more than once.

It’s like some greater being cut this moment out of crystal. I daren’t move for fear of shattering it. Everything is so perfect. You are so perfect. My life could have been different, I might never have met you, or I might be a nameless part of some ecosystem somewhere after your ruthless guts had their way with me. But no. Here is your knee brushing mine. There is the scent of your perfume.

When I kiss your cheek I make you jump and you drop a critical part of the puzzle. Your annoyance defuses when you turn to me and see that beatific smile on my face. “What?”

“I know you’re wanting to lose and gain and change yourself, and I support you. But I want you to know that you’re perfect as you are. You’re always perfect.”

There’s no easy response to that that isn’t just sarcasm, and I look too happy to be sarcastic at. You settle on giving me a kiss and leaving me to my pseudoreligious experience. Perhaps you shuffle a little closer, squeezing your thick thigh against mine.

Then it’s back to the game. You turn back time…