a quiet drink
It’s not an early start. We woke in a tangled heap, passed-out tired. You fell asleep on your back, blanket covering your legs and your head on my shoulder, but mostly comforted by the cement mixer in your middle weighing down on you.
It’s funny, I remember kind of waking up several times during the night. Your hard-working innards made so much noise. It seemed peristalsis would chase a bubble of trapped gas down some length of intestine, grumbling as it went, but then lose grip: the air would disappear back the way it came with a cheeky internal squeak and your guts would have to perform the same manoeuvre all over again. Every time I woke, with your digestion-warm body snuggling against me in the close darkness, it felt like your edges had blurred and I was floating inside you, somehow evading the slippery grip of your alimentary canal like those little pockets of air…
We woke and cuddled for a little while, barely speaking. I know there’s something on your mind but I don’t press it. Just make a safe space. When you nuzzle into my neck it sends thrills of excitement up and down me, but you don’t bite. God, could you even fit more inside yourself? You’re still digesting meat. Your whole abdomen is taut.
Who am I kidding. Of course you could take more.
When we rise you shower and then head out. I don’t know where to. I go for a run to clear my head and then rock out on beat sabre for a bit. Then there are technical things to do; money to earn, safety nets to test.
You arrive home quite late. You look drained but are carrying a carrier bag that clinks full of bottles. The first thing you do is hit the bathroom. You spend a while in there, let me tell you. I keep you company from outside the door, calling out crossword clues.
When you leave the bathroom and have walked down the stairs (away from the scene of the crime!) I kiss you and wrap you in a tight hug. You melt into it and we stay that way for a while.
“Okay,” you say, disengaging. “Tonight I thought: you cook something easy and I teach you how to make cocktails, so you can try surprising me sometime. Yeah?”
“Sounds good. You don’t find my endless tequila cokes thrilling?”
“You could stand to improve your range.” You give me a grin and drag me by hand to the kitchen, snagging that carrier bag en route.
We set up our stations. Today is a Birmingham salad of chicken nuggets, barbecue chicken strips, various beige forms of potato (they do these little hash-tag fries things that crisp up nicely!), fish fingers and pizza. You rack up bottles while I spread extra mushroom and cheese on one of the store-bought pizzas.
“Okay, so first, you’ve gotta balance sweet with something else. Often sour.” You draw out limoncello and lemons and limes and, curiously, eggs. I bring out the cocktail shaker you had me buy. “Separate the whites for me.”
I get you your ingredient, then the air fryer reports that the appetiser nuggets are ready. In between you adding slugs of drink to the shaker, I pop chicken into your mouth. When you clap down the shaker firmly in place and start vigorously agitating the whisky sour your whole body gets involved. Continental plates of delicate fat shift across the molten core of your body. The motion of your breasts alone, weaving, unpredictable figures-of-eight, is enough to restrict my breathing. I’m not even a boob man. The simple act reminds me in the most urgent manner of your physicality, your femininity, your gluttony, and your beauty.
“Sorry, could you repeat that last part?”
You smirk then open your mouth for another chicken nugget. It doesn’t help me pay attention any better, but we’ve got all night.
We use all night. It’s the most gorgeous, slow, tipsy, feedy gaming hang-out. You get us exquisitely smashed on cocktails that grow ever more experimental. It turns out that I will happily drink something with a shot of Angastora bitters in it, which you proclaim to be just about the worst thing I’ve ever done. I reward you with a slice of pizza.
This is a victory lap for your tummy. Three packs of chicken things are squirreled away inside it, and potato waffles, hash browns, hashtag fries and smiley faces round out the yellow food. You give each smiley face a name and I give it a voice, variously begging to be spared or begging to be devoured. After stretching yourself out to immense proportions yesterday the feast is positively comfortable..
I make up for it by massaging your belly hard. It actually feels bigger after yesterday’s excess. At one point you’re staring over my head at the TV, controller in hand, sipping a banana daiquiri through a super long bendy straw while I knead the pale foothills of your belly like dough. Those stretched and aching muscles inside you squeal in delight. You commentate your game and release simple, matter-of-fact belches with nothing to prove. We both love your body. We both know what it can do.
I make us a hot chocolate with the Chartreuse you brought, claiming they call it Chocolat Green in Grenoble. You pronounce me a philistine, then drink mine as well as your own.
You get a kiss for that.
And, well, that’s the evening we have. A break from what’s on your mind; a chance to share things with each other and fuck about and enjoy the things we like about one another. You remark that I kiss you a lot. I smile and say, only when I realise how much I adore you.
You beat my arse at Crash Team Racing for being so saccharine.