A Handbook For My Lover Read online

  ‘Spend the night with me,’ you said.

  I didn’t, because even though I was younger then, I already knew the intimacy and danger implicit in the act. I wasn’t worried about the repercussions the morning after—having to wake up conscious of the night’s delirium, wondering if it was either a dream or a mistake, having to re-clothe oneself, take a shower, and be obliged to have breakfast together before going our separate ways. With you I wasn’t wary of these formalities. I was more afraid I’d get attached.

  Sleep has always reigned supreme in your hierarchy of indulgences. You’ve never understated your preference for sleep over sex. And in our first year together, in that long-distance phase, what you wanted most from me was that I spend the night with you, that I share your bed.

  We don’t just sleep together, you and I, we perform the act of sleeping, we shapeshift through the night. When we begin, you are a wall and I’m this rich, green moss that’s creeping over you, colonising your surface. Midway through the act, I become an ocean wave. You caress me and try to surf upon my breadth until we are suddenly transformed into branches of two tall, fruit-bearing trees that, oddly enough, grow in each other’s shade. Often we have to will ourselves to wake up, to shake sleep from our eyes, for we both know that given half a chance we could go on forever, shapeshifting like we are prone to do.

  There’s no approximate figure to encapsulate the number of conceivable sexual positions there are—the missionary, the cowgirl, the reverse spoon, the bend-over-backwards, the lotus, the standing position, the butterfly effect, the deep impact, the crushing spices, the swastika, the swing, the tortoise, the bicycle, the corkscrew and at least six thousand more. And yet, there’s little written about the probable combinations and permutations of sleep patterns that two people can possibly share after the act of sex, or despite its omission.

  You are fascinated by the subject of sleep. You love taking photographs of people in the throes of it. I asked you about this obsession once. You said you were curious about the superficial relationship between sleep and death; how, ostensibly, the two states resemble each other, as if death is merely a form of sleep characterised by the absence of a pulse. You reminded me of that biblical incident, when Christ is about to raise Lazarus from the dead: Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.

  You are well aware of the intimacy of sleeping with a lover. It far outweighs the primacy of sex. There are nights when our shared bed is a warm safe cove. Between the sheets you lie foetal-like, and I am attached to you by the umbilical cord that is my breath, and you feed off me as I nourish the texture of your dreams. And then there are nights when our bedroom resembles a war zone.

  Over the years I have catalogued some of the forms we assume as we shapeshift through our sleep.

  The Take-This-Waltz Position

  This is how we begin our expedition. I’m usually in bed before you, but when you’re about to emerge I shuffle with delight. You enter the bedroom. Your yawn precedes you. Then, with your back to me, you begin to strip off your clothes. I peep through the corners of the book I’m fake-reading as you unbutton your cotton shirt, roll off your trousers until you’re left with just your socks and your underwear. You always take off your socks first, then for a few seconds you are completely naked. If it’s summer, you wear a pair of shorts, if it’s winter, a pair of pyjamas and a T-shirt. There are aberrations, of course, sometimes you tire halfway and decide to sleep in your underwear, but I always beseech you to wear a shirt so your muscles don’t get cramped by the incessant whir of the fan.

  You slip into the bathroom, brush your teeth, take a leak, then head back towards the bed, turn off the lights, and enter. I feel for you in the fresh darkness. You lie flat on the bed. At first I was convinced you always sought out the right-hand portion of the bed (assuming you are facing the bed, left if you’re lying in the centre). But you revealed later that your natural instinct is to occupy the side that’s closest to the door. ‘A symptom of claustrophobia’ is how you referred to it.

  So you lie flat and I move towards you. You stretch your right hand out like an invitation. I respond. I enter your embrace and angle myself such that the left side of my body rests against the bed while the rest of me is splayed over you. Your right hand oscillates between my shoulder blades and my lower spine. My lips are pressed against your neck, and while my left arm lies low against the bed, my right arm reaches out for your palm. Our legs are intertwined. In an aerial view we’d look as though we were waltzing.

  The Teaspoon Over Tablespoon

  As you begin to cave in to the dictates of sleep, you shift positions. You turn your back to me and as you do, you draw my right hand over you as if it were a shawl. Then you enmesh your legs within mine and as you do, you stroke the length of my calves with your feet. My lips are now pressed against the nape of your neck, my breath resounds against your skin.

  It is in this position that you let me assert dominance over you. Traditionally, spooning involves the close fit of the larger concave of tablespoon over teaspoon, the broader frame of a man’s body over his female lover, hard flesh over wet mound. You force me into the role of sleep-watcher.

  ‘Pull my hair,’ you plead. I oblige. I guide you through your journey into the subterranean. I wait until the pace of your breath is relaxed, until I can hear the first tenor of a snore. Then I kiss you softly on your neck and forehead, draw the thin cotton sheet over you if it’s summer, and turn away from you; we now assume our next phase.

  The Still-Butterfly Effect

  In which we both lie in foetal-like positions, but in opposite directions, so that the only point of contact is our asses. By now I’ve un-entangled my feet from yours, and eventually, our legs form a ninety-degree angle as do our torsos. We look like the letter ‘X’, but I like to think of this as the butterfly formation. From this point of stillness I begin my descent into sleep.

  The 4 a.m. Intermission, a.k.a Separation Anxiety

  Around 4 a.m., my eyes tend to open inadvertently; it has received the signal from my brain sent by my bladder. I unpeel the sheet, wake myself up, and head to the bathroom. By the time I open the door to return to bed, you’ve already woken up, having sensed my absence. I walk back into bed. I inch closer to you and around now we assume the hierarchic position. I press myself against you so that my face makes contact with your chest. Your head is angled such that the base of your chin touches the edge of my forehead. You wrap both legs over me, while your left arm sweeps over my frame. I am encased in you completely. If the earth had to cave in at 4 a.m., we’d die locked in this embrace. I think of the archaeologists from future generations who will excavate our remains. What they will deduce. Will they be amazed by how our individual bodies were trapped in different shelf lives? Will they see the poetry in the embrace, the peaceful succour of our bones? At 4 a.m. I often struggle with sleep. The warmth of your body is both soothing and arousing. I battle temptation. I resist the urge to steal into your naked body and arouse you from your slumber. Your heartbeat echoes against your rib cage and I can feel the light tremors. Yet, it is strangely paternal, how you hold me in this position. At 4 a.m., I let you become my protector, my saviour, my guide.

  Variations

  Before I proceed with any further documentation, I thought it best to intervene here and address the aberrations to this general narrative of sleep.

  #1

  For instance, on nights when you have angered me, when the unstoppable force that is your temper has reared its ugly face and you’ve said things you shouldn’t have, delivered monologues without pausing to see how I’m collapsing under their weight … On nights like these I do not occupy your bed. I lie on its margins. I put as much distance between us as I can muster, and I consistently turn away from you through the night. My pillow soaks in my tears, the soft breeze that floats in through the grilled window offers some solace. The tempestuous scene repeats in my head like a rerun. It seems familiar but each time I review
it, a fresh flood of anger streams past my cheeks.

  When you come to bed you perform the usual ritual with your clothes, then you enter and for a moment, hesitate. You see how far I’ve wandered from my usual location and you wonder whether to reach out or stay still. I know because I am attuned to your every movement. I have sensed the times you almost touched me in a gesture of apology, and the times you’ve tried to pacify me with ridiculous sounds, never a straightforward I’m sorry; always a pussyfooted move. Sometimes you feel righteous in your anger and do nothing at all, except lie on your side of the bed and fall peacefully into sleep while I lie sobbing on the deeper end of the shore. Hours later, when, with swollen eyes and thirsty lips, I’ve managed to finally surrender to the evasive arms of sleep, I wake up to find my body aflame with lust. As consciousness kicks in, I realise it’s because you’ve besieged my body. Your left hand is wrapped tightly around my frame, your palm cupped under my right breast to contain me, while your left leg envelops what’s left of me. Your insistent snoring confirms that this move of yours was unconsciously made, and despite being lost in the landscape of dreams, your cock is erect and it rubs itself against my cunt. You refuse to retreat from this position. I have no choice but to give up on sleep and stew in my juices.

  #2

  Of course, there are nights when you fail to make this compromising move. So I spend hours nursing my anger, shaping my resolve to leave you in the morning and never return. On such mornings I get out of bed early, brush my teeth and just as I’m about to exit the bedroom, you stir from your sleep and call out to me with a singular line, ‘Come here…’

  I do. I carry the weight of all my lost tears as I walk towards you. You pull me closer and you caress me with the guilt of a sinner begging for a sliver of forgiveness. I yield.

  #3

  There are nights when you count the hours to your departure. I hate your morning flights but you have this preference for reaching your destination while it is still daytime there. On such occasions the bed is populated with stacks of clothes and equipment. I’m usually exhausted from having to prepare your house for your absence since your apprehension about leaving me your keys persists despite my pleas to the contrary. But you’re kind enough to clear my portion of the bed so I can sleep at will. Despite my best efforts I’m unable to sleep. My body waits for you to climb into bed and I always know when you do. But it’s usually at some unearthly hour and though we go through our routine positions, you’re already up by the time I wake up. In a few hours you are ready to depart. Reluctantly, I prepare myself to leave with you and say goodbye to your bed.

  #4

  Sometimes, after we’ve made it past stages one and two, and after I’ve finally managed to lose myself to sleep, I wake up to find the darkness vanquished by light. My eyes take time to adjust and when I finally come to, I find you standing on the floor furiously swinging a racquet.

  ‘Take that, you fucker,’ you shout as you scratch the itch of a mosquito bite.

  ‘How come they only bite you?’ I ask as I grab the second racquet and assume my position on the floor beside my end of the bed. We look comical, like we’re playing a game of badminton with an imaginary shuttlecock.

  We continue like this for about fifteen minutes, straining our eyes in search of these swiftly flying trespassers who have stolen your blood. You will not sleep until you’ve sought revenge. After you’ve electrocuted at least five or six of them, you beam with satisfaction.

  ‘Let’s go back to sleep,’ you say.

  And when we do, we start all over again from the first position.

  #5

  Every few weeks, the sciatic nerve that runs from your spine down the back of your right leg resembles a stone wall. You hadn’t warned me about it initially. I discovered how painful it was for you one night when I woke up (just before the 4 a.m. indulgence) and found you crouched in your corner of the bed, your head supported by the adjacent cupboard, your right hand nursing the stubborn nerve. You wanted to sleep but the overarching pain foiled each attempt. I sat up and ran my fingers through your hair until you stirred.

  ‘What happened? Why aren’t you lying down?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s less painful if I sit up.’

  ‘Why are you in pain?’

  ‘It’s my sciatica. It’s acting up again.’

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’

  ‘You were fast asleep. I didn’t have the heart to.’

  ‘Well, tell me what I can do.’

  You lay on your belly. I sat beside you. You began to spew a list of instructions. I obeyed. I pressed my fingers against the surface area of the nerve and massaged your thighs. It was only slightly softer than stone. Then you asked me to position my elbow exactly over the centre of your right buttock and nudge you gently. I followed your every word and within half an hour, the nerve had eased. You felt better and you drifted off to sleep.

  By now you have learned to warn me when you first sense the impending ache. On nights like these I must fight my own drowsiness and patiently massage your thigh until the pain subsides and you can be eased into sleep. You have also suppressed your qualms about waking me up in case the nerve starts to tingle in the middle of the night.

  #6

  You told me once that you were convinced you didn’t dream. I told you that we all dream, but not all of us can recall the contents of our dreams, however loose or lucid. I know you dream because I have sensed exactly when you’ve arrived at a nightmare. Your body gets tense, you quiver slightly and your lips let out small soft gasps. Instinctively I turn towards you and stroke your back until you ease out of whatever frightening landscape you’re in and stumble back into less threatening worlds. Sometimes I wonder what torments you. You’ve lived through so much terror. You may not have been to war but you’ve photographed the half-eaten remains of riot victims, the devastation caused by cyclones and floods, you’ve seen human beings kill each other, and you’ve seen death even in those ostensibly alive. It frightens me to think of how damaged you must be by all that you have witnessed through your lens. As I circle the expanse of your back with the ball of my palm, I realise that I want to be your deliverance from bad dreams. I want to be the one who restores your faith in humanity, who guards you from the dangers of cynicism, who rescues you from your fate.

  #7

  Sometimes, right after the Teaspoon over Tablespoon Position I lie flat on the bed after I’m sure you’re asleep, and I masturbate.

  #8

  What if I were to tell you that there are nights when I wake up feeling fucked, only to discover it was all a dream because your snoring is proof that you haven’t at all stirred from your state of slumber. Each wet dream is vividly real and I can recall with precision the sensation of you having seduced me, of breathing in your body and having you sealed so fervently within my folds. I find it hard to believe I had imagined it all and while I’m disappointed to realise that the events in my wet dream didn’t exactly unfold at all, I am thrilled by the exquisite rush that takes over me. I wake up wet and confused and surprised and elated and when I turn over to face you, I kiss your mouth. What I want to do is arouse you, but in deference for your preference for sleep, I choose not to disturb you. Instead I nurse my wet and aching cunt and I come.

  You, however, have no inhibitions about acting on your wet dreams. I remember so clearly that one night, a year ago, when you shoved your hands inside my shorts and started to stroke me with a desperation you perhaps are only able to express while subconscious. I found I could no longer return to sleep. You had awakened my hunger. I stared out the window and watched the sky as it changed shades, lightening with each passing minute. And when the sun had made its appearance, I pressed myself against you and waited for you to harden. When you did, I proceeded to undo you. You seemed surprised by my move.

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ I said to you as you moved inside me.

  ‘Why, what did I do?’ you whispered in my ear.

  ‘You did unspeakab
le things in the middle of your sleep,’ I said. ‘You rubbed your hands against my cunt. Did you really think I …’

  Just as I was about to complete my sentence, you announced your arrival with a loud, beseeching groan. Then you fell asleep over me as my fingers played with your hair.

  #9

  Some nights, when sleep is particularly evasive, I lie awake and listen to you snore. You told me once how you were afraid you were suffering from sleep apnoea, but my intense study of your snoring patterns shows otherwise. There are no gaps of breathlessness between snores. In fact, I have deduced that your snoring condition is far from acute.

  You’re very polite about it. I’ve learned it’s why you sleep on your left side, because you feel you snore less, and it’s true, you do.

  Your snore is phonetically composed of two syllables. Seldom do you snore in iambs, where the second syllable is stressed and not the first. Largely, your proclivity is towards the trochee, the first syllable is accented while the second is only slightly stressed. There are moments when your snoring builds up and you sound much like Coltrane at his fiercest. At other, non-musical moments, you sound like an out-of-tune trombone. On the rarest of occasions, you perform the ritual of silence. I call this the 4’33’, your tribute to John Cage. For the record, there’s been only one instance where your snoring was so loud and cumbersome, I had to wake you up and ask you to turn down the volume.

  One night I felt inspired enough to record your snore on my phone’s in-built voice recorder. It’s an eight-minute, nine-second long recording and it confirms the note I once made about how your snore is, on average, four seconds long, mostly all trochees.

  #10

  In my absence, I have learned that you do not bother with sleeping on your side. Instead, you sprawl over the length of the double bed and you colonise my pillow too so that your head rests against two layers of cotton stuffing.