The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

I come running through the worlds that you have built

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I am a selfish, dark room romantic. A 'read my mind', surprise me everyday, fool. I like it private, I like it small and I like it pretty. Like a chocolate on the pillow, or a bunch of lilacs in a vase on the edge of the bathtub. I like spontaneous, unsolicited hair playing, with warm-fingered back strokes under the sweater. I like tea at three in the afternoon before I think to make it on my own and I like the right amount of sugar in it, two teaspoons, no more, no less. I need a meaningful look from his eyes whenever our song plays, no matter where we are. I do not need to dance, I just need to know he remembers. I need his assurance that he understands me, and I need to know it's true. I need him to hold my hand when we are watching the sun sink below the trees, and for him to notice how pink the sky is at the same time I marvel at it without words.

I must admit that I find the idea of a man laying his life down for me to be exceedingly romantic, the notion of him taking himself out of the equation just so that I might be safe. I wonder if a man would rather die for his woman than for his country. I think love is a far more noble cause because everyone has a country, but not everyone knows true love. It is matchless, it is unwavering, and it feels right before it even begins.

My introduction to classic romantic overtures came courtesy of M. He started by sending me poetry, good poetry that he'd written himself about me. I was so taken with it that I printed it up and folded into a tidy little package which I hid in my wallet. Just knowing that it was in there, these words that were strung together with me as the inspiration, kept me walking about two inches above the ground. Next, were the flowers that came on a day without occasion. This was key, because it meant it was not forced, not a product of social pressure. He chose random days because those were the ones in which I needed them most, he'd said. Soon after were the visits, the long drive, secret rendezvous visits in which I had very little time to actually see him, what with my job and the fact that I was still officially in a relationship with someone else. He was happy to have me join him for coffee, and we talked and talked and talked...and I realized that I loved talking to him, that I needed it, and that it was better than sex (which, at that time we abstained from, so I suppose it was a substitute, but a good one) in so many ways. No one had ever made me laugh like he did, and this was what distinguished him from everyone else. I have always known that when the passion is over, if there is no laughter left, then there's nothing to keep things together.

We had a song, we had 'our' restaurant, we had hugs that were so tight they nearly hurt and kisses that lasted for centuries. One night, while sitting in 'our' restaurant in the beach area, a waiter came with a wine list and asked if we were celebrating anything special. 'We're celebrating being in love,' he'd said, and what do you think I did?

I winced. Then I turned red.

He saw that I was embarrassed but I think he chalked it up to girlishness, when really it was just a reaction to a culmination of gestures which seemed to come out of a manual. It was too much. I loved it, but felt ridiculous at the same time. There was something so disingenuous about all of it, and though I think he meant every bit, and maybe because he appreciates such grand gestures himself, he went overboard with the adoration. What worried me was that I wouldn't be able to live up to it, that I would begin to seem unworthy of the fairy tale set-up. As I looked around the nearby tables to see if anyone had heard him, I felt him take my hand and bring it to his lips. I let him kiss it, then I yanked it away and hid it under the table. Was I embarrassed of him? No, I mean, I knew I had a great catch in front of me, but I was concerned about everyone around us thinking we looked ridiculous, that I didn't look like I fit into the picture.

He got the hint. He toned it down.

Oddly enough, I find myself missing the grand gestures now and then, but most often I'm content with the way he brushes my hair off my face while I am caught between sleeping and wakefulness. I don't wait for diamonds to show up unexpectedly, nor do I worry about him pulling me into him so that we can dance in the moonlight. I think that most of it is because we're past the beginning, when all the magic makes everyone drunk and uninhibited, but I know that he loves me.

Sometimes, there actually is a chocolate on my pillow.