11 September 2000 ~ The Partridge Family Secret, and the world's only eleven-and-a-half...

"I wonder what David Lynch would say?" he asks after we've made love. I'm not sure if he's trying to make me giggle or if it was just a random comment.

"He'd say, 'Sailor baby, you got me hotter'n Georgia asphalt,'" I quote "Wild At Heart." Then I giggle.

"Mmm... 'My name is Mike,'" he says, quoting "Twin Peaks." "'His name... is BOB...'"

"I liked mine better," I mumble into his bare shoulder. My entire body is wrapped around his. I'm not sure if he heard me. I'm too engrossed in petting his back to think about much of anything else. Even David Lynch.

We kiss. A lot. He's a lovely kisser. He's got a warm, sexy mouth, and warm, sexy brown-green eyes. They look aqua until you're up close.

"Helena?" he whispers.

"Yes?" I already know what he's going to say. Sometimes, you just know. I'm getting fairly good at knowing what he's thinking. We've only been together for three days, but already, the connection is very strong. I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, what he's going to say.

"Helena, I think I love you."

"I..." But he interrupts.

"I guess I say 'I love you' fairly easily. I say it to friends, and mom-and-dad type--" His words drift away for a second; I'm pressing my ear against his shoulder. "That's what I was going to say the other night... Remember when we were on the futon and you were just holding me, and there was this moment when... You know, the moment when I asked if you'd ever seen the Partridge Family?"

"Uh-huh... And then I asked why and you wouldn't tell me, and you said it was some big secret?"

"They had this song... 'I think I love you....'" He's singing now, very low and sexy... At this point, I think he could start talking about hairballs and nuclear war and it would be sexy. "...Anyway, I was just thinking of that song, and I wanted to tell you, only it wasn't the right time..."

"And that was the Partridge Family Secret?"

"Mm-hm..."

"Norman, I think I love you too... Only..." I pause. "Only I don't say it very easily at all..." I think of the last time those words left my mouth. I think of the last time I said those words and MEANT them. I think of the last time I said them effortlessly, almost by accident... I glance behind me at the clock. It's four in the morning. It takes me a second to regain my train of thought. I was thinking about "I love yous."

"No more I love yous......" --Annie Lennox

"I didn't want to say it yet because... I wasn't... I mean... I didn't want you to be..."

I didn't want to say it and have you think I say it to everybody... I didn't want to say it and have you think it was because I was in a state of post-coital stuporbliss... I suppose maybe we erred in having sex on the first date or whatever, because now I'll never really be able to tell you I thought I loved you long before you ever touched me...

"--And it doesn't mean we're going to be in love forever or anything, but I do mean it, and I didn't want to say it before... Things have been moving really fast... I hesitated because once you say 'I love you' when you're in a relationship--" Relationship... Three days we've spent together, and it's already a relationship... "--it's kind of like the end... And you end up only being together for a month or something... I don't want us to get sick of each other because things are moving so fast..."

I kiss him. I'm scared. I'm really scared. I wasn't kidding when I said I don't say "I love you" easily. I don't love easily. I'm not a very easy person at all. I don't trust people easily. I don't love people easily. I don't even LIKE people easily. Now, it's not particularly difficult to get me into bed, as I assume you've noticed as of late, but I do not equate sex with love. And I don't understand why I'm lying in this man's arms -- this person who was essentially a stranger a week ago -- thinking things about relationships and love and spending ridiculous amounts of time together and ignoring the rest of my life completely... I kiss him again.

We kiss. A lot. He lifts my eyelids open gently with his fingers. I can feel the callouses he's got from playing his guitar. They're sexy. He's got sexy eyes. I smile into them. I trust him completely. I don't know why. It's so damned dangerous to trust people. You trust somebody for five minutes and you end up finding out they're with somebody else, or they're ABOUT to be with somebody else, or they've got their eyes open while they kiss you so that they can look behind you at the sexy dude passing by outside... But Norman is different. I don't know why. It scares me, but I'm happy. I'm so happy.

"--You're a better kisser than David," he says to me suddenly, and this time I burst out laughing.

"WHAT???"

He smiles. "We made out once... It wasn't really anything big... We were at a party and we'd both had a few drinks, and I was in this phone booth trying to make a phone call, and he stepped into the phone booth with me... I kind of think he'd had a crush on me for awhile... But anyway, you're a better kisser." He smiles. I try to glare and it ends up being a smile. I bite his lip. I'd told David years ago that he was the world's only eleven on the one-to-ten kissing-scale. "Eleven and a half," I whisper to myself, and glance at the clock. Four-o-eight. David's probably working, making a drink, or eating something extravagant. Eleven and a half, I gloat silently in his direction. And then I kiss Norman again.

We make love. Again. When we've regained our ability to breathe, and I've regained my ability to walk, I get the orange juice out of the refrigerator and we drink orange juice and smoke Camels. In the darkness. Naked.

He sings me to sleep in his bed. He sings me the blackbird song. It registers that I'm supposed to know it, but I don't know where I know it from. I'm so tired.

I fall asleep in his arms.

"...I think I love you too..."

~Helena*