In a bar watching the Giants win a game in the football playoffs, we were sitting at a table opposite a couple who were watching the television behind us, while we watched the television behind them. She was never more than a few inches from him — his shoulder, his head, his hand, his leg. He reached his hand up under her sweater, kissed her cheek. I suppose they were in love.
My husband and I were more modest in our affections. The other couple’s affection brought a warm feeling to my heart. It made me think more of sleeping together than of having sex. If you have someone to turn to and touch in the night — it brings happiness and comfort. When we are old and decrepit, of if one of us is ill, we will still tap the underlying affections which rise in the middle of the night, and I would feel fulfilled.
The young couple’s affection was foreplay, but for me, now, sex is foreplay. The real story is told when we are sleeping together, shifting position and moving toward each other, acknowledging a touch by a mumbled sleepy, semiconscious word.