… is like any other, especially the kind where one partner steals from the other, day after day. It is a committed relationship, in that I am totally committed to never going more than four hours without getting the scent of her hair to flood my brain.

At first our relationship was just a pleasant after-school routine, like a good habit that also feels very warm. Then it quickly turned into a during-school routine, and eventually a kind of life-force.

When we finally made love for the first time it was horrifying, but in the strong, pleasant way like the first ride on a new horse. We had been foreplaying for months, neither of us really knowing what to do, and so constantly tying the wrong knots, mixing up the prayers and forgetting to undress at the same time. Later on, when all the candles were lit and the sex was underway, she looked at me and asked, “Why are you shaking? Don’t you trust me? I did, I realized, and that’s when I became so overwhelmed with love that my nerves trembled and my soul began ejaculating wildly as I wept. I also ejaculated in the normal way. 

In the end, our relationship is exactly like that old saying, the one about both people being happy and also physically dependent on each other’s existence.

ZPH