Our breathing slows. Deeps breaths after deep breaths. He flips over and reaches for a cigarette. He lights it in bed and offers me one. I hesitate but he places an ashtray in front of me.
Don’t worry. We’ll crack the window open. The landlord already knows anyways, he says without worry.
After I take one, he gets out of bed to his LP collection. While I inhale noxious plumes, he studies each sleeve. He seems too engrossed to be scanning for a certain song. Instead, he’s weighing each album, whether side A or B as a whole would fit the vibe he’s looking for. A musical accompaniment to our silence, our smoke.
He doesn’t bother asking me if I want to hear something in particular. I’m not bothered. I don’t ask what he’s thinking about or give any suggestions. He’s not trying to impress me, I could tell. I’m not looking to be impressed. This is what he does for himself, not in an all self-absorbed and self-important manner. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a good song after a good fuck?
I stub out my cigarette and put the ashtray back on his side table. I tire of waiting, so I turn and face the window – the window we were supposed to crack open but it was too cold or we’re too lazy to. I think about a second cigarette but stop.
It’s snowing, I turn towards him and say with quiet pleasure.
He looks from his collection and gaze out the window. He sees me and smiles. It’s the kind of smile that’s slight – amused – not fake nor belittling. His eye crinkle that sly, gorgeous eye-smile. He puts down his LP and crawls back into bed. He draws in close and holds me as I turn my back to him to face the window. I let him cover me, his arms just tight around my shoulders and chest. His heartbeat is steady on my shoulder. He breathes in deep as if to inhale me and savors that breath. I love when he does this even though I probably smell like sweat and smoke.
We can’t hear the snow, yet it fills the silence. Flurries cover the street with white purity, and the snow blankets our room with calm. Time slows as the snowflake listlessly fall, and the frost outside somehow warms us. It’s blissfully overwhelming.
I’m pulled into him. I turn and bury my face into his chest. His heartbeat now at my forehead. I had to face him. Like hot coals, this moment – us, smoking, the silence, the snow – burns within and I can barely hold it in. I had to share it with him by digging deeper into him, as if to enter him through his chest cavity. This time I breathe deep; I inhale and savor him.
He then kisses the top of my head. The coals cool. He understands that something was flaring within me. Or maybe not. Either way, I’ve shared with him the way I needed to, and he in his own way.
Our breathing synchronizes. It steadies. It slows. We drift back to sleep as the snow piles outside.
This short was written with Sweet by Cigarettes After Sex in mind.
It’s so sweet, knowing that you love me.
Though we don’t need to say it to each other, sweet
knowing that I love you, and
running my fingers through your hair.
It’s so sweet.
lee, sooho 