Writing, mostly.

It’s gone three in the morning when he opens his eyes. Perhaps it’s a dream that wakes him, perhaps the stirring of his cock. If there had been a dream it’s long gone. If there had been an erection then that too has faded, leaving him alert in a way that rarely happens.

He lies for a moment, listening to the quietness of the house. Where once doors were left ajar, leaking light and the sounds of breathing, now they stand solidly shut, guarding against fire or unwelcome intruders. Where once his body would find hers, slipping inside like a slow sunrise, now it only hopes to suppress a fiery bladder and retain the warmth of a late summer night.

Reaching for the radio and the music of parents he switches on, letting sound arouse his sleeping partner. She wakes quickly, as though worried the day might start without her. Lonely, he craves her company. Hands cross the creases, spanning the divide, finger over finger over finger over thumb, ten dry digits no longer seeking to encircle, caress or probe.

In the half-light her eyes adjust and she knows what he wants, what he always wants on nights like these. She leans across and takes him in her arms, briefly checking his crotch for any dampness that might spoil the moment. Then, with a voice once lush with obscenity, she breathes a memory into his ear and seduces the past to their mutual, shuddering delight.

Soon they’ll rise; they will stare at old photos and cry, remembering how he won’t be a baby again, won’t have a first day at nursery or school or college or work. Then they will fold up their memories and dab their eyes and talk, a little, of when he first came home late or stayed over with friends or argued against us and won. These are the late night lover talks of the old; they dampen sex and spit out nostalgia.

We fool ourselves at every turn. This isn’t about how we miss rocking him to sleep or having him turn to us for sweets or love. This is about you and I, him and her as we stare at each other and cry. Wondering not so much on where the years went but on how many there are ahead.

They whisper beneath the duvet and with every breathless gasp, children are reborn.