Touch Issues

My mom and dad neglected to work out all the details before their marriage. Mom assumed they'd sleep together in wedded bliss; dad figured separate twin beds were the way to go. Eventually a compromise was reached: every night they pushed two beds together, and dad built a wall of pillows between them. This story always got a laugh during post-12-step meeting "my family is more dysfunctional than your family" contests, but now that I'm saddled with a relationship myself I finally get it: touching's over-rated. I'm not talking about fucking mind you. Fucking's cool. It's the endless before and after body-contact I could do without. Perhaps someday I'll publish a special pamphlet Happy Co-Habitation in Three Easy Steps: stick it in, wiggle it around, get the hell away. Hope my boyfriend Jose reads it. He's always chasing me around the bed like a zombie starved for contact with the living. Things start out pleasantly enough with him obediently cordoned off in his separate-but-equal corner, but before long an errant foot makes its way across the dividing line to rest, ever so innocently, on one of my toes. I nudge him. "Oh, was I touching," he yawns. "So sorry." Yeah right. He knows exactly what he's doing. By morning there’s no question who has won. Jose’s got me pinned against the very edge, his arms wrapped tight around me in gleeful unconscious victory. I won’t be going anywhere soon.