Some people like to cuddle, to fall asleep in the arms of a lover, limbs intertwined like the branches of an old walnut tree. Some don’t want to touch the other, don’t want to feel their breath like the odorous summer wind of Ontario, don’t want to feel them twitch and shake, hear them snort and groan. Some like a happy medium, a head rested on a chest, one arm gently placed around, close enough to feel desired but with enough room to not feel smothered.
It’s 3:30 am on a Saturday night (Sunday morning) and I am still a little drunk. The party’s ended and everyone has headed their separate ways, in small groups of two and fours, with the occasional third wheel, to various rooms. I’ve had my fun, I’ve had my sex, and now I just want to sleep. I’d like to wrap myself up in a cuddly warm blanket, rest my head on a fluffy smooth pillow, and fall asleep to the motion of a spinning room. Available is a bed—I think it’s really a hardwood floor, cleverly disguised to the average drunk as a bed. It’s a soiled blanket atop a once thick, now flattened and dingy, sleeping bag. But at 3:30 when you’re half drunk, anything will do. So my date and I lie down, assumedly to get some sleep. But as the night goes on, my goal becomes harder and harder to achieve.
I lay down on my half of the bed. He too lies down on my half of the bed. If there were two more people who needed a place to sleep, I wouldn’t mind sharing my quarters. But there is no one else. Everyone else has already fallen asleep. They’ve all snuggled up or sprawled out on their makeshift beds, and are now comfortably snoring, moving freely in their sleep, dreaming that the room is standing still, praying that the soon coming hangover will be a mild one. I scoot over, an inch at a time, but like a magnet, he scoots along with me. Eventually I’m wedged between a wall and a guy. I can taste the dirty film of the wall, smell the layers of dust and mold, maintained by a house of college boys refusing, unable, to clean. My other choice of smell isn’t much more appealing. The smell of mold outweighs the smell of beer-breath and my mouth remains suctioned to the wall. The feel of his warm breath on my cold bare arm is pleasant, but not pleasant enough to ignore the stench it reveals. Like a rubber band, his arms wrap around me, tighter and tighter, each squeeze cutting off circulation. I’m not sure how comfortable this is for him. I wouldn’t think at all. Isn’t his arm falling asleep under the weight of my alcohol-filled stomach? Apparently not because it isn’t moving. At least something is getting some sleep. Wait…it’s not just his arm that’s asleep—I can tell by the snot-infested wheezing he too is asleep. Perhaps now the death grip will loosen and I can resume breathing.
No such luck. So I bear the pain.
I move around slightly, shifting my leg here or there, an arm up or down, attempt to roll onto my back, then to my stomach. He doesn’t seem to notice my restlessness and continues to cling to me like a child to his teddy bear. As time progresses, I begin to fall asleep in twenty minute intervals. I sleep, wake up, shift, and sleep again. My sleeping time begins to get longer, but the restlessness, agitation between sleep increases too. My sleep isn’t real sleep. It’s that half-sleep, the first stage of sleep, where I still hear sounds around me, rustling of blankets, breathing of friends, feel any movement of the being next to me. I’m easily awakened by his muffled snore, a frantic twitch of his leg. My body is in pain—a constant, mild pain. If I could just ignore it, it might go away. But all I can do is think of it, complaining, agonizing over my uncomfortablness. Eventually I fall asleep, into the deepest sleep currently possible, what for now will pass as real sleep.
When I awake, it's morning. The sun is blazing through the window, and like a raccoon I blink rapidly at its rays, cover my eyes with the corner of blanket. I hear birds chirping, more annoyingly than usual. Their morning songs beckon me to wake, to skip outside and bask in the glow of the sun. But I’m still as tired as I was four hours ago. I’d like to draw the shades, if there were any, and shoot each individual bird with a BB gun, if I had one. But there aren’t any and I don’t have one. Even if there were and I did, I’d be unable to release myself from my chains to get to the window. So I attempt to bury my face in what little bit of pillow I have retained and whimper myself back to sleep.
Again I wake up, and, seemingly for the first time, he wakes up too. I’ve made the mistake of shifting into the dreaded morning position: my back to his front. I don’t notice he’s awake until I feel his hands gently working their way up my shirt. Our shirts are slightly ruffed up, and I can feel the tangled hair of his stomach scratching my back, making me itch, irritating my skin and my sanity. I wonder how long I can lay here pretending to still be asleep. Pretty damn long. Too damn long.
I am not a morning person, and do not want to have to do anything in the morning. When I wake up, regardless of how late in the morning it might be or how early in the night I went to bed, I’m still sleepy. I’m grumpy. I don’t want to cuddle—or anything else for that matter—and the stench of moldy cheese breath does not positively influence me to join in. I understand that when we wake up, breath is not great; I’m not expecting it to be. But it needs to be fresh enough to not induce vomiting upon inhalation. Especially this morning, at 8:30, with the slightest bit of a hangover and only five hours of “sleep,” all I want to do is doze off. I’ve become immune to the surrounding filth. I can no longer notice the growls from my neighbors, I can’t smell the mildew penetrating from the walls. But I still can’t ignore this beast next to me and really fall asleep. He continues to attempt to cuddle, and not wanting to be bluntly rude, I continue to shift, attempting to make it difficult for him to be enjoying himself. Like a typical male, he doesn’t seem to notice my subtle rejections. Finally I move enough that he’s uncomfortable. Now maybe I can get some sleep.
I speak too soon. He’s shifting, trying to shift me, and finally I’ve had enough. Finally, I’m going to take a chance to express my true view on sleeping next to someone else. But like myself, I do it in the most vague and non-threatening way possible.
“I’m not a morning person. All I want to do in the morning is sleep. And I’m really uncomfortable like this.”
“Oh, okay,” he replies.
Well, that was simple. Why don’t I ever just speak my mind from the get-go? He turns over, our backs and feet gently touch, and for the first time in five hours, I fall into a deep sleep.
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