Reaching Out, Touching Me, Touching You

As the current Covid lockdown rumbles on and I grow increasingly starved of touch I find my masturbatory thoughts turning away from the cut and thrust of sex itself, and instead bringing intimate touch into detailed focus.  I am a very tactile person and I miss touch.  I crave touch.  Yes, I’d love someone to fuck away my cares for an hour or two right now (I have plenty of burdens I’d love to set down for however short a period), but what I really crave is someone lazily trailing a finger across my shoulder as we lie in the sweaty afterglow of a job well done, brushing a damp tendril of frizzy hair out of my face, laughing as my super-sensitive post orgasm skin twitches under the lightest of touches.

I think of all the times I lay with C, my head on his shoulder as I played with his chest hair.  I never tired of the way the silky hair would curl around my finger, tempting me to lightly tug on it, testing my resolve to not do so.

I think of the way R would wrap himself around me, every possible inch of his skin touching mine, spooning me as I turned away, kissing the back of my neck as I dozed off content and secure in his arms.

Odd flashes of memory come back to me: dates I thought long forgotten returning in vivid detail, G’s warm hand skimming over the cool skin of my neck as we walked along the waterfront before darting into some scrubland where I dropped to my knees and took him into my mouth.

One memory keeps returning, real and immediate.  An evening spent at the Christmas markets in Manchester with L, in the early days of a new arrangement where we were still getting to know each other – dizzy with that first heady flush of possibility and exploration.

The day was bitterly cold and windy, and even bundled in a huge coat and oversized scarf I was chilled within an hour of stepping off the train.  Ears numb, eyes streaming, we took shelter in one of the bars and I warmed my hands on a steaming mug of liqueur coffee.

It was the first weekend of December and the city was alive with Christmas partygoers enjoying a few drinks before attending their work night out.  Every bar was noisy and busy, and as the bar we were in filled up we sat ever closer together, both to allow others to sit down and so we were close enough to hear each other over the Christmas music and the general noise of people.

Our conversation was innocent enough but we sat as close together as we could, L turned slightly towards me, one arm around my waist while the other hand rested on my thigh, the back of his hand occasionally brushing over my thigh as he moved to pick up his drink.

The fairy lights around the blurry perspex window lent the street outside a charm it had never possessed in real life, and we sat in the warmth letting the atmosphere and the drinks do their work.  As I warmed up I unbuttoned my coat and unwound my scarf.  L removed his scarf and took off the leather gloves he was wearing, bundling everything over the back of the seat – so much fabric between scarves and coats that it forced him to sit slightly forward.

As we settled into another drink the hand L had at my waist found its way under the heavy jumper I was wearing.  The initial chill of his hand on my bare skin made me jump, but he gradually warmed up with his hand held still, only his thumb moving to brush across the soft skin.

When I realised L wasn’t taking things any further in public I relaxed, but the sensation of his thumb brushing my skin so gently made me shiver.  I had by now progressed to touching his thigh as we talked, his arm being otherwise occupied.

The conversation never turned away from innocent chatter, but the constant tickle of his breath against my ear, the insistent movement of his thumb at the bare skin of my waist, turned it into an incredibly arousing situation.  The warmth of the drinks and the bodies massed together created an erotic frisson, a sense of building anticipation.  As we sipped at yet another drink our eyes met in that moment when you just look at each other and realise you are going to have sex as soon as you can possibly tear each other’s clothes off.

Hurriedly finishing our drinks we re-dressed in coats and scarves and gloves, L leaning over in a slight priapic stoop that made me giggle as we took the mugs back to the bar and stepped into the bitterness of the outside weather once more.

We had sensational (if slightly drunken) sex that night, but that doesn’t play on my mind in these lonely, isolated times.  The sensation of L’s thumb stroking my waist as his lips almost brushed my ear is the one that currently raises goose-bumps and makes me ache for a time that’s far more social and far less distant.