Leia Talks About Murphy

Murphy is sort of my ex. But it’s complicated. We were sort of together, for a while. Murphy doesn’t really do monogamy. Come to think of it, maybe he simply doesn’t do romantic attachments, period. He once described love to me as a drug you can choose to be on, for a while. A few other women have been on trips with him since he and I decided to mostly be friends. Sometimes we run into them, in the kitchen, in the morning, making coffee. Sometimes they introduce themselves. Sometimes they don’t. Murphy never talks about them.

Our romance trip, his and mine, lasted a little bit less than a year. I remember the way it felt to wake up in his bed. My animal body happy, my sense of self softened and expanded. Like I was precious to him, but never taken for granted. Because I could walk away whenever I wanted to, no hurt feelings. Surprisingly enough it would feel like I had shared my soul, too, when giving my body to him, without really meaning to. Like sharing my body was sharing my soul, no matter how much we framed it otherwise. Reliably, I would start making plans for the future, after spending a few nights in his bed. Reliably the sex would feel less good, less free. The soul sharing would stop. He’d start thinking less well of me and letting it show. I’d start being annoyed with him and letting it show. We’d fight, and one of us would exercise the walking away option. Only to be drawn back into each other’s orbits, and beds, after a few weeks apart. 

I remember the way it felt to have sex. We’d hang out on the couch, smoking weed, watching a movie. The cuddling would always start out platonic. Nice, and sweet, and caring. Like he was giving me refuge from the world. But not sex. Not until I asked for it. By the end of the movie, a staring contest would ensue. You can have sex if you ask for it, his stare would say. I’m not so sure, my stare would reply. I don’t want to get hurt again. I don’t know if I want to want sex. I don’t know if I want to or how to want to. How does any of this work, really. Reliably his stare would outlast my stare. Like he was looking at the part of me that had already said yes and was just waiting for me to notice. 

His touch, in the beginning, would always be firm. Confident. Equal parts reassuring and exciting. Somehow he understood that too much caution would make me run away, hide my desire. That I couldn’t deal with the question of what we were doing. That maybe I needed, a little bit, to pretend not to know. His gaze would hold mine, firmly, as if reaching inside of me to the all scared and timid places seeking reassurance, telling them to cut it out. To get out of the way of my pleasure. His hands would touch my neck while kissing me, one hand wrapped around my head, playing with my hair, grabbing and gently pulling it to exert his will over the position of my head. His other hand would frequently find its way to my throat, running his thumb gently over its center. His kisses made me feel lightheaded, breathless, and pulled, like a puppet on strings. 

Lying next to him in bed, I would rest my head on his chest, curling into his bigger body. His hands would start their play, his attention firmly capturing all of my responses. It felt like I was a book he was reading, mesmerized by the story, always trying to predict the next paragraph. His hands and attention would draw me into the the story of myself too, as if I was simply reading it, not struggling to write it. Somehow my state would shift, sometimes gradually and sometimes all at once, away from my normal self and towards a different self. One that knew how to touch, and move, and feel, without having to think about it. I’d always thought, previously, that sex had to do with giving each other pleasure. But this other self knew that sex could instead be about simply being pleasure. Murphy was good at sex.