A Safe Harbour
by Vikram KolmannskogHe says something about how he’s been meditating a lot lately – meditation was an activity we shared, separately – and that we need to talk. “Break,” he says at some point, and something breaks all right. It probably started a while ago, but now it feels like I’m free falling and loosing my breath. He moves out.
“The breath is your anchor,” says an annoying, American voice on my mindfulness app. “And a safe harbour you can always return to.” Fuck, I think to myself, I also need somebody, another’s body as harbour. An anchor. A harbour. To be held. A ship. A body. Like all good metaphors it is true bodily and physically, first and last. I start creating a profile on Grindr, but delete it again. I call good friends and family instead. And they hold me, either physically or otherwise through their presence, often both.
I pack stuff away. But there are constant ambushes. Memories hide behind the most everyday things. I’m shaving my head in front of the bathroom mirror one morning, not quite awake, when I suddenly think of him and lose my breath. The shaver. We were in New York, his hometown; I bought it there. I don’t remember what I said, what he said, I only remember that it was nice, we had a nice time together in the shop and the town that day. And then he shaved my head, his strong hands tenderly against my head, the sound of the shaver.
Sometimes I reflect on what went wrong, what my role was. Sometimes I get too caught up in these thoughts and memories. Sometimes I become aware of my breath and body, let emotions move through me, let memories come and go. Sometimes I’m even able to wish him well.
But I also need another man’s body. I need to be held, not as a baby – well, maybe even as a baby – and I need the certain confirmation of another man’s erection. I create a profile, naked upper body and partially hidden face. Soon I see another naked upper body and partially hidden face, ‘76 meters away, dark, muscular, 6 feet 3 inches tall, XL, top’.
“Hi,” I write.
“Hi,” he responds.
“Some more photos?” I ask and get a face pic. Blue eyes, dense and dark hair, trimmed beard, dimples.
“Handsome! And there’s something familiar about you,” I continue and send a face pic in return.
“Why, it’s the sexy neighbour,” he replies with a wink in the text.
“That’s right, you live just across the street. I guess we’ve never really met properly. Maybe we should do that some day?”
“I’d love to. But don’t you have a boyfriend? Open relationship?”
“Break.”
“OK.”
“Or end.”
“I’m sorry. Or maybe not.”
“Yeah, but let’s not talk so much about that now.”
“OK.”
“So, XL?” I write and wink and soon get another photo: A Gillette shaving foam can and a cock to compare, thick, probably 8 or 9 inches long, cut.
“Impressive,” I continue, heart beating and horny but also a little scared.
“Thanks,” he writes and winks.
“Want to meet and see what happens?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Your place?”
“OK. Amar on the doorbell.”
I jump in the shower, prepare myself for the possibility of sex, and thinking that we might have sex makes me hard. I put on some short shorts, singlet and sandals. Walk out the door, across the street and ring the bell.
He’s barefoot in shorts made of jeans and a simple white t-shirt, his brown skin extra shiny against the white. Neither t-shirt nor shorts are tight, but his chest, arms, thighs and crotch fill the clothes. It’s almost spilling over, blue eyes, brown skin, body.
“You can see straight into our living room from here,” I say and walk over to his living room window. And it’s strange to look down on the flat from here, and I just said our, and he knows that I’ve been we until only recently.
“Yes.”
“So do you, Amar?” I ask with a smile, and when I say Amar I become more aware of him, us here and now, seductive.
“It’s happened,” he says and moves closer with his blue eyes and white teeth smile, and for a moment I think about white towns along the Mediterranean coast. He presses against me so I feel his cock against my stomach, I’m reminded of the photo, Gillette, and I get hornier but also a little scared again. He places his big hands around my face, holds me, bends his head and kisses me; I close my eyes, my lower lip between his lips, my arms around his neck. His hands come down to my hips and he moves me slowly backwards, lays me down on the couch and climbs on top of me. Then he looks at me with his blue eyes, slowly, I see him seeing me, his face almost serious.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, and I look to the side a little, smile and kiss him again. His tongue is in my mouth, his erection grows bigger and bigger against mine, and I lift my legs and wrap them around him, a small sound from my mouth.
“Do you want to fuck?” he whispers in my ear.
“I think so.”
“I’ve wanted to fuck you for a long time,” he says, looking me in the eyes, and while he holds my gaze, as if he does it with his blue eyes, he lifts me up. For a moment he stands like that, holding me, my legs wrapped around his hips, my arms around his neck, for a moment I’m carried like that. Then we both let go and I come down, feet against the floor again.
He takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom.
“Only if you want.”
“I do, but can we be a bit careful?” I ask. He smiles, nods and pulls off my singlet. He strokes my chest and arms, and it feels as if he’s sculpting me, creating my body here and now. I pull off his t-shirt, revealing more of his muscular form, black hair denser on the chest and crotch. I feel his muscles, skin and hair; already thinking it would be nice to rest my head on his chest, sleep there for a night maybe. He slides one hand into my shorts, grabs one ass cheek in his hand, holds my face with the other, me moaning, and he kisses me. He pulls off my shorts and boxers, grabs an ass cheek in each hand, pulls me closer, and I feel his erection through his shorts against my now naked body. I want to see, I create some space between us, look down, the contours of his cock through his shorts, thick and long along one side, the shorts bursting, I think. I unbutton him. He’s not wearing anything underneath, so out it falls, hot, hard and soft at the same time, pulsating, powerful. I kneel down, almost religiously, look up at him and smile. I lick around the head, let my tongue slide up and down, I get the head and then some into my mouth, and he groans. After a while he bends down, grabs me by my shoulders, and I get up to a kiss. He guides me towards the bed, lays me down on my back, looks at me, all of me naked on the bed.
“You’re so hot,” he says and shakes his head as if in disbelief. He walks over to a drawer, the erection somehow huge in the room, takes out a condom and lube.
Lying down next to me, he takes a little lube on a finger and places it gently against my hole, cool and moist, pushes gently so I open up a bit, and while his tongue enters my mouth, I feel his finger slide further in.
“OK?”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling back. He places a pillow under my lower back and I spread my legs more. He slides a finger in again, then another finger, two fingers there now, preparing me. Then he grabs his cock, and I feel the bulging head against my hole. This will never work, I think to myself, but he takes his time playing with the cock against the entrance, rubbing it back and forth, and I relax more, I want to have him, I want to open up for him, this familiar stranger. I wrap my legs around him. Then the head is inside, he stays there, looks at me, I’m biting my lower lip.
“Still OK?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah. Not too much.”
“No more?”
“More,” I say, laughing a little, muscles relaxing as I do.
“OK,” he says and smiles. I look again into those blue eyes and relax even more, I feel him filling me up, so much that I feel a pulsating sensation, his pulse against my pulse inside me.
“Can you just stay inside me for a little while?” I ask, and he does that, he fills me up completely, lies down on top of me, a welcome weight, his arms beside my head, his head over mine. He kisses me gently on the nose, forehead, lovingly.
“God, it’s so good to be inside you.” Slowly, he begins to move back and forth again, then faster. I place his forearm against my mouth so I won’t make too much noise and to better endure the painful pleasure.
“Break,” he says with a smile and stops after a little while, “I want this to last.”
He lies down beside me. Strokes a couple of fingers over my chest and my stomach. He spits in his hand, grabs my dick and moves his hand up and down. Then he turns me around on my stomach and kisses my neck. He climbs on top of me. The still hard, huge cock creeps up my lower back. He stretches for the lube, and soon I feel the coolness again, and then once more his cock, this time from behind. And we’re close, his heart against my back, his one hand over my heart, his cock inside me now. After a while, he positions me so I’m on all four and he grabs hold of my dick with one of his hands. I hear him breathe, and I too breathe faster. He fills me up again and again, thrusting movements and then tremors, he groans with pleasure, and I too come in spasms. He pulls out slowly, embraces me and places lots of little kisses on my shoulders and neck.
“That was fucking insane. Stay for a while?”
“OK.”
He leaves the room and returns with a slightly damp hand towel, which he strokes over my stomach, my crotch and on the bed where I came.
“If I get really horny, do I have your permission to fuck you again later during the night?”
“Yeah.”
He lies down on his back, one arm around me, and I rest my head on his chest.
During the night, I feel he’s about to enter me again and half wake up. After he’s come I fall into a deep sleep and then…
“Coffee?” He’s standing with two cups of coffee at the side of the bed, already showered, naked in all his glory and seems completely at ease.
I sit up in the bed, he gives me a cup, climbs in, and we drink coffee together with the morning sun bathing the space in warm light. After the coffee, he has to hurry off to work. I go home and sleep some more. When I wake up, I’ve got a message: “Thank you for yesterday and this morning, habibi.”
Amar and I continue to meet. But this won’t last. One evening he says that he’s falling for me, that it’s probably silly since I’m just coming out of a long relationship and need time. I nod. I say something. Then we embrace one last time before I go home and lie down in my own bed for the night.
The next morning I go to the bathroom to shave. I take the razor and shaving foam out of the closet. And while I squeeze so a little foam comes out, I smile. Gillette. I wet my face and apply some of the cool and airy foam. I shave and see another face appear in the mirror. I hear the water running, and I exhale. The next breath I follow all the way out.
