Stream [first passing]

Five hours sleep last night.  An hour of that after the alarm clock.  I take my caffiene in medicinal portions these days - small sugary, caffinated, taurinated drinks.  Maximum effectiveness.  I used to drink them to ensure maximum performance. Now I drink them just to perform at all.  My heart races.  Is it sleep-deprivation? Caffiene? Or the thought of her?  The first two exacerbate, the last is the cause.

Last night we lay down together again, unable to touch but seperated only by the flimsiest of screens.  Like a child I clawed at her, trying to make contact however I could.  Telephone, the written word, the video screen - large and small.  I stole the intangible, but stole nonetheless, to spend ten more minutes, five more minute, one more minute basking in her pale backlit glow.

I caught her scent for the first time last night. Remembered it.  I never told her how she smelt - she would not have appreciated the compliment.  Do not smell girl's hair.  It is too intimate.  As we lay in bed afterwards, she shut me out with fairy-stories, and I held her tight with one arm, enjoying her warmth, her softness.  In the pale-light of pre-dawn I put my face in the tangle of her hair, twisted and unravelled by sex.  She smelt of smoke, and come, and the sea.  She smelt like adventure and coming home and leaving and staying. I breathed in deeply, her ears shut to the sound, safe.

Last night I smelt her again.  I remember smells.  The smell of my mother on a Sunday morning, porridge and toast on the table, just before she opened the milk and poured on the cream.  The smell of my grandfather, tobbacco'd and oiled.  The smell of school books, the dust on the gymnasium floor, the putrid canteen.  I remember the smell of the first girl I kissed, cheap lipstick, cheap perfume.  The smell of rugby is my favourite: the smell of leaves just fallen, the chill of winter coming, the sweat, the salves, the anger, blood, the bitter bite of adrenaline. The smell of war.  Every year the smell of rugby haunts me.

Last night I smelt her again and I nearly laughed.  She wanted to know. "What? What? Tell me. Tell me."  She was playful, but demanding.  She always tries to hide it behind her smiles or her laughter or some coy distraction but when she wants something there is always the thin steel edge.  Demanding not asking.  It arouses me. I think there are few who can resist her in that mood.  The edge flashes out like a flick-knife.  I try to disarm the passion with a few charming words, to distill some of the tension and lock it away for later.  She will not tolerate it: "It's difficult because we love each other."  Concise, accurate, pointed, straight to the heart of the matter, straight to my heart.  Her words are like rapiers, and each word stabs.  There is more pleasure in this pain than all the scented, silked harems in the world.

Awaken.

So ends the first.