I put the book down and picked up my hair brush. As I dried my hair with my brush and my fingers, I thought about the reconnect, its immediate effect on both of us as opposed to the disconnect and the slow rise to chaos. Think of the devil…the weakness started somewhere deep and as soon as I recognized what was happening, I stood and pressed my whole body to the door, tears stung my eyes. I forced myself to listen and match his breathing.
“I’m coming.”
I heard his voice from inside. He pushed and I pulled. The door opened. I could tell that he had to interrupt his routine but he was wearing shorts. That’s all I could see before his arms surrounded me. My own arms automatically encircled his waist. We held our bodies close and coordinated our breathing and sighed with relief as the reconnection made things right again.
Infused with gratitude and appreciation we prolonged the embrace and ignited a fuse of desire, passion, pure physical need and the uncontrollable urge to get closer – the reconnect got more and more intense after that point rendering us completely incapable of ignoring the urges.
We were saved by the knock on the stateroom door “Room Service.” We jumped away from each other but held hidden hands to keep our connection. We were letting ourselves get carried away and not from need but just because it felt so good - desire. I was already chastising myself for letting the reconnect go so far.
That’s the second time that we would have completed the connection, the deepest connection, if not interrupted and forced to separate.
My head started to clear. So, if we just allow the reconnect to happen and then a quick change to the pinkie before the reconnect goes too far. The trick will be to know when the reconnect has gone too far before it had gone too far.
I went to the door with Michael right behind me to let the wait staff in. He was in a daze and just stumbled along in my tow. He wasn’t coming out of it very well – he was being lead by his desire. Lordy, I hated to interrupt that. Obviously, it would be up to me to put a stop to letting ourselves get that carried away again. I didn’t want to be that person; I’d like to throw stones at that person. I wanted to be the person who allows it all, who explores passion and brakes down boundaries. It’s my luck, to have the chore of putting the kibosh on something miraculous and sweet. It’s my luck to go against human nature, to put out the fire before any of its glory is seen or felt. Good grief I’m a fuckin’ killjoy.
While breakfast was set up on the balcony, Michael and I stood at the rail, coordinating our breathing and holding hands; we were lost in the expanse of the ocean. I barely noticed it when Michael tipped the waiter and led me to the table. We sat down to a hearty meal. Eating with one hand was difficult and slow but we helped each other and we weren’t in a hurry. We were grateful for each other and found it challenging but very satisfying to operate as one person. We listened to Percy Faith and laughed at our clumsiness’. We didn’t speak much while we ate. We mostly concentrated on using each other’s hand; it took more focus than you would think.
For many long minutes after we were finished with the repast we were absorbed into the air around us, the clean fresh scent, the balanced pressure and heat from the sun kissing our skin both nurturing and warning. We sat in the sun with our faces to the sky, eyes closed; pinkies hooked, and breathed in unison. Our contentment was so complete that every dozen or so breaths were sighs, sighs of complete satisfaction, those too were synchronized.
“Michael,” I interrupted the silence.
“Hum?”
“Would now be a good time to examine our research? There are questions that could give us direction and help focus our experiments.” I let it just sit in the air while I waited for him to answer.
Time didn’t matter and silence was ok. I could feel the word in the air, in all that silence, the word sat in the air slowly taking purchase in his consciousness…
“Experiments?”
His voice was a combination of intrigue and fear.
“Yes, some basic stuff to start and then some tailored experiments as our information grows.”
“What do you mean?” He said, starting to move.
I kept a tight hold on his hand to keep him from rising. It didn’t take much; he settled right back into a lounge position.
“Relax, don’t move, and close your eyes. Answer yes or no to these questions: Are you comfortable?
“Yes.”
“Can you feel my hand on yours?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any pain?”
“No.”
I turned his hand over so that our hands were palm to palm, his was on the bottom. I lifted my palm but kept all five digits touching his.
“Did you feel any change in the connection right then?”
“No.”
I lowered my palm down until it touched his palm; you know, the “hand kiss” and asked, “Change?”
“D’you mean, did it feel good, it did.”
“What I mean by change is did your heart rate increase; did your breathing become labored; did you feel any anxiety?”
“Oh, no.”
Next, I moved my fingers up and away from his hand while maintaining contact with the palm of my hand.
“Change?”
“No,”
I laid my four fingers across his palm and stroked his hand from palm to finger tip, lifting my fingers at each new stroke. “Change?”
“Yes, my Johnson jumped.” He chuckled.
I turned his hand over so that my finger tips were touching his knuckles. The pressure was so light, it could barely be felt. My finger tips visited every knuckle, slowly, deliberately. “Well?” I prompted.
“Same as before.” He said.
“What do you mean the same as before?” I asked.
“You know the Johnson thing.”
Ok, another line of questioning then. No more movement with the connection, no more rubbing, patting, stroking. The movement seemed to bring on a sexual response.
With minimum cooperation from Michael, I felt we were making some progress towards understanding.
I methodically measured his tolerance for distance and the connection. I raised my entire hand up off of his by barely a breath. “Anything?”
“Yes.” He said. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “My heart skipped a beat. It was nothing, I’m fine…I’m just reporting.”
I moved my hand to about an inch away from his.
“My heart skipped a beat again. I’m fine, I think.”
I moved my hand farther away from his in increments and at each change we gauged the effect. The result was exactly the same, skipping a heart beat until we reached the two foot mark. Michael looked at me like I had punched him in the gut and he doubled over. I immediately grabbed his hand for the reconnect. The relief was instant and appreciated. Michael pulled me onto his lap and cuddled me a bit. It was really nice but I was on the alert not to let the reconnect get carried away.
I pulled myself from his embrace but held onto his hand. He had a puzzled and disappointed look in his eyes.
“Michael, when we are that close, I can’t think. Haven’t you noticed that I babble gibberish until there is space between us?”
I needed my wits about me to figure out what was going on.
“I think you’re doing great. How do you know what to