Howl

Love…When You’re All By Yourself

Finding sexual nourishment when we can’t be with a partner

I stare at the image you send me, the way the light falls on your skin. I can’t touch you, but I’ll trace the lines and curves of your body across my phone’s screen, as accurately as I would do in real life. My eyes delight in the vision of you. You can’t see me, but I bite my lip. My toes curl.

I read your words again and again. Each line makes me feel like a meteor shower is erupting in my belly. Buoyant and unexpectedly beautiful. Will you do these things to me? How long will I have to wait until we are together? Until you can touch me? The minutes, the hours, the days are painful.

I think about the way you pinched at the fabric of my skirt under the table at that party last summer. The way you lifted it just a little bit…then a little bit more. The breeze began to brush against the skin of my inner thighs and I laughed, as if amused by the conversation. But really…I could only think about you. And what you might do to me later that night.

You smiled, taking a drink from the bottle in your hand. I remember the way your teeth were white and shiny in the light of the setting sun, your lips just a little bit pink. You didn’t even look at me. No one would have suspected where your fingers had strayed to by then.

I let my own fingers stray now, though I’m not wearing a skirt this time. Instead, I undo the button of my pants. Slowly tug the zipper down. Let my legs fall open as my hand slides into the V of fabric, into the V of my body.

You aren’t here. But I can imagine…

The nights are the hardest. The days are rough and busy, fast and perilous. I have to keep my wits about me which means I don’t have time to think of you.

But at night, when it’s dark and I’m lying on the mattress we once shared…that’s when the ghosts come.

I watch sitcoms on my tablet while curled up under the blankets. It’s what I always do when things are lonely to the point of being frightening. It comforts me to see people going about life as if they know what they’re doing and as if all the little mistakes and heartbreaks are just funny misunderstandings.

The light from the screen bounces off the walls and ceiling, giving the whole room an eerie, almost blue glow. Somehow, it makes the space seem steely and small.

And it’s so goddamn cold in here without you. I warm up my heat packs — the ones I used to put on my shoulders when I was stressed out — and place them strategically behind my knees and at the small of my back, where you used to press into me, your arms around me. It’s a small comfort.

Then I turn off the tablet because eventually, I have to face the silence. There is no avoiding that. And that time between turning off the tablet and falling asleep is the worst time of all.

I imagine the way you used to press your face into the crook of my neck, making me yelp and laugh. And I’d turn my head back so we could kiss goodnight. Unless your hand snuck up my stomach to my breast, giving it a gentle squeeze. Dammit, I was a sucker for that move. Didn’t matter if I was exhausted and had just finished a 12-hour work day. Of course I would let you pull my nightgown over my head. Of course I would part my legs. Of course I would sigh and melt into the pillow when you drew my nipple into your mouth.

I count back in my head. How long have you been gone? How long has it been since anyone touched me?

I miss you so much.

I call to my dog. He looks up, his ears so goofily crooked. He knows exactly why I called him and makes it across the room and onto the bed in two hops and a leap.

He cuddles up next to me, ignoring my attempts to make him stop licking my face. We fall asleep in a puddle of paws and limbs.

The bathwater is warm and makes a pleasant plunking sound every time I move. I love the feel of it on my skin, like a cloak that fits my every curve.

I cannot help but touch myself in the water. I run a hand down my thighs and up again, over and over. Across my stomach. Up and down the other arm, then over my shoulder and up my neck. My eyes are closed and I let myself melt as the water dances in response to my hand’s movements.

I go to bed in a pile of blankets and pillows, surrounded on all sides, as if buried in a fluffy, warm cloud.

In the morning, I take my break and have an over-sweetened cup of tea and I savor every swallow. I rub my leg with one hand while holding the mug with the other, listening to one of my favorite Tori Amos songs, Bang, which tends to make me uncontrollably horny, especially when she drawls, “Hydrogen lusting for helium’s burst.”

I put the mug in the sink and make my way back to the bedroom, where I find my favorite toy and slowly undress. If I position this toy at the edge of the mattress, I can get into my favorite position and have quite a good time.

And I do. And the mattress springs squeak a little louder and faster as I go. And my breathing gets harder. And then it cycles through a series of pauses and gasps until I hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it…

When I come, I cry out again and again, with the rhythm of my body’s contractions. The springs make a soft echo until I eventually press my face against the bed, letting my body relax.

When I open my eyes again, the sun is hitting my face and I laugh.

For all of you out there who might be lacking human contact right now whether due to distance, grief, singlehood, or pandemic…may you find the sexual and emotional nourishment you need.

This article was written for Howl by Yael Wolfe, a weekly column. © Yael Wolfe 2020

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