The Comforter

We used to take afternoon naps just for the guilty pleasure of hiding together beneath the pale blue, generic brand comforter we had purchased for $69.99 three years earlier as a wild splurge of funds. By now it had turned scratchy, the pills of cotton that had rolled up in self-defense scraping against our bare legs, our feet wrapped around one another’s in a defiant possessiveness. I would wrap my arm around your waist, the crook of my elbow sinking into the soft space between your ribs and hip. On afternoons like this I made sure to keep my fingers fiddling with the folds of your tee-shirt, unwilling to destroy the innocent pleasures of the afternoon by invoking other less innocent pastimes with wandering hands.

That blue comforter shared in our intimacy. You used to pull it up between us, wrapping it around your shoulder like a cloak. The insistent rhythm of my breath beating a tattoo on your shoulder blades made you fidgety. But you liked to be held, and so my sighs infiltrated the fibers of the blanket, diffusing into the poly-fill that embraced us four o’clock of a lazy afternoon. I would close my eyes and press my forehead to the back of your head, and you would hug my arm tight to you, pouring all your affection into the gesture. My fingertips reveled in your attentions.

Sometimes I’d lie on my back, and you’d rest your head on my shoulder, your arm across my stomach, your fingers falling lazily towards the mattress. I’d play with the small hairs on that arm, or twirl strands of your hair between my fingers as I kissed the top of your head and drifted into a doze. The comforter surrounded entwined in our legs we’d dream until the daylight had faded out. We’d awake in the dark, our sight gone, but our sense alive to the warmth and scent of each other trapped beneath the pale blue we could not see.

When I met your mother for the first time we left our border collie in the care of my father. I was worried about leaving her for a week’s time, but we gave her the comfort of those afternoon naps. We had retired our poor, pilled comforter and you tucked it into a space beneath the porch where she would lie out of the glare of the sun. I cried when we left her, but you kissed the top of my head and assured me she’d be ok, that the comforter would smell like us and so she wouldn’t feel alone.

Nothing smells of you now. I bought a thick comforter, dark brown Victorian patterns breaking the sickly periwinkle in mock richness for $120.00. It kept me warm this past winter. But now, in May, when I awake alone in the dark, I feel cold.