Quotes About Intimacy

it struck me how comfortable I felt with him, as if we were old friends or had already done this many times over, him handing me pages with his heart on his sleeve - he couldn't pretend this work didn't mean everything to him - me reading his words, quietly amazed by what he could do.

But when Bumby nursed, his fist clutching the fabric of my robe, his eyes soft and bottomless and locked on mine, as if I were the very heart of his universe, I couldn't help but melt into him.

It was as if we'd pressed ourselves together until his bones passed through mine and we were the same person, ever so briefly.

Getting married had been all his idea, but he hadn't told her how very afraid of it he was. He seemed to need to force his way through it anyway, as he did with everything that scared him terribly. He was afraid of marriage and he was afraid of being alone, too.

Was my happiness so completely tied to him now that I could only feel like myself when he was near?

He was like a boy when he slept well. I could see the child he used to be under the man, and I loved them both, simply and completely and irreversibly. I tucked myself beneath his arm, and felt his breath moving in and out, and let myself sleep.

Kiss her until she be wearied out,' " Denys repeated. "That's the best bit, isn't it, and Berkeley does it so well.

Some nights I would try to close the distance and make love to Jock.

then, hardly daring to breathe, lowered myself onto him. But it was too late. Before I had even begun to move, he softened inside me. I tried to kiss him, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

All I knew of men beyond farm life and work were the warm, confusing thoughts I sometimes had late at night now, about being touched or taken, thoughts that could make my cheeks hot even when I was alone in my hut.

When we'd settled out of earshot, she said, "Sorry if Blix and I scared you away last night. It's not often we're alone. Being married to other people will do that.

After a year of fumbling and embarrassing encounters with Jock, I was finally learning what sex was, and that I liked it. Boy would come into my cottage at night and wake me by roughly pressing against me, his hands everywhere before I was fully conscious.

When I pulled up in D's wagon, I nearly always got a chaste kiss on the cheek. We'd have a drink on the veranda and discuss what had happened on the farm while I was away, the servants milling around us, always happy to see me home. But as soon as night fell and we were alone, the mood turned chilly fast. Jock never tried to touch me sexually—that

Caleb is here in the cabin, sitting in the middle of my couch.

We slept as much as we wanted, made love twice a day, read and wrote letters and played cards.

When his weight was on me fully, and I could feel every bump and contour of the roof against my shoulders and hips through the blankets, there were moments of pure crushing happiness I knew I'd never forget. It was as if we'd pressed ourselves together until his bones passed through mine and we were the same person, ever so briefly.

He'd left me for a time. He'd doubted me, but now he was mine again and I wanted to keep him here in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets until I'd quieted every last voice and we were only right again.

I didn't feel old enough to be anyone's wife, or that I knew enough or had lived enough, or understood the essential things. I didn't know how to say any of this to Jock, either. That I was afraid of the promises we'd made. That late at night as I lay beside him in bed I felt lonely and numb, as if some part of me had died.

We were newlyweds, after all—but when evening came things fell apart. We'd been married for several weeks now, and I could count on one hand the number of times we'd actually had sex.

I close my eyes an lean into Ernest, smelling bourbon and soap, tobacco and damp cotton - and everything about this moment is so sharp and lovely, I do something completely out of character and just let myself have it.

Before the nausea set in, we had managed to make love on my narrow bunk, but the whole thing was such a tangle of elbows and knees and bumping chins, I barely knew the thing was happening before it was over. Afterwards, he kissed my cheek and said, "That was lovely, sweetheart." Then he crawled out of my bunk and into his, while I was left feeling just as lost and confused as I had been on our wedding night. Jock

He pulled me into the room and way lay on the featherbed and made love. And I was reminded of what was best about us. How very easy and natural we could be as bodies, with no sharp angles or missteps and no need for talking. How in bed, as nowhere else, he was my favorite animal and I was his.

Did you ever think it could be like this? The way we're happening to each other?

But some of us, a very few in the end, bet on marriage against the odds. And though I didn't feel holy, exactly, I did feel that what we had was rare and true—and that we were safe in the marriage we had built and were building every day. This