What do the married folk do

I’m lying next to you in bed. I can hear your breathing, slow and gentle, and turn onto my side to look at you. You’re lying faced away from me and my gaze runs over you under the sheet. The sheet is thin and white – you’ve tossed off the other covers during the night – and through it I can see the long, patterned satin nightgown clinging to your curves. (I don’t remember you putting it on last night, but after what you did to me that’s not surprising.)

I take in the gentle slope of your legs up to your hip rising under the sheet, then down to see the perfect intoxicating and, quite frankly addictive curves of your ass and I feel something stir within me. (How I could have the energy, again after what you, we, did last night is beyond me, but you give me that energy; you make me want so much.) I continue to look up you, along your trim waist, across your back where I can just see the curve of your breast at this angle, and then to your head, shadowed in your lovely dark hair. ‘

I shift again, onto my elbow, to take a look at your face, framed by that hair that I have run my fingers through hundreds of times. Everything else vanishes. Yes, your body is beautiful – looking at you one would never suspect that you’re a woman closer to 50 than you are to 30 – but that face, clear of any worry in slumber, with a slight smile on it (good dreams? Contentment, perhaps? Or satisfaction over what you accomplished last evening) still takes my breath away. You are so beautiful.

The only thing that would make you more so would be if your eyes were open and I could see your intelligence and wit dancing inside them. Greedy as I am I run my hand along your leg, over your hip and down to cup your curves for a moment, then back up your waist and just across the edge of your left breast. You stir, and smile, and your eyes open. There’s no confusion in them, as you know who you are, where we are and what’s about to happen. (Though perhaps you wonder what I intend to do this morning….)

I lean down and kiss your cheek, then move my mouth to your ear. “Good morning,” I whisper.

“Good morning.”

The lovemaking that follows is slow, gentle, well-practiced from all of our time together, and all we can stand after last night’s borderline debauchery. Looking around the room is still a mess from it – covers tossed about, clothes strewn places, the strap of your garter belt hanging from the window latch. We both look around a laugh a little about what we did, but then the familiar rhythm hits, the natural carving of the groove of me into you, and we smile the smiles of pleasure and knowing todays partner knows all of you.