In a bedroom that’s been lived in before, a shaft of sunlight is magnified through an old window. The light trickles over body parts entangled together on a bed, now coiled into one. I grab his ankle, curling my fingers around his Achilles heel while stretching to touch my middle finger and thumb into a perfect circle. My fingers aren’t long enough, but I try anyways. It reminds me of a place that’s clean and untouched. I use pressure to pinch his heel, circling my fingers over tiny hairs that fade away into the white underneath his foot. Until now, the only parts of the body I cared about were obvious. Now I’m touching everything but.

We’re lying in his bed. Lightly, I skim my finger along faded tan lines to patches of hair and freckles between thighs. There’s a thick layer of skin on his big toe that’s worn and tough as it should be. I squeeze it affectionately and it feels strong between my fingers. I press my thumb against the arch of his left foot, wrapping my legs around his calf like a stripper around a pole. Body parts are like provinces; each unique to its own region with a geography of muscles and bone. My fingers maneuver up to his upper thigh and I tease the soft skin near his pelvis. I tell him to lie still so I can push my palm with force over the enormity of his upper leg. The sheer size of his thigh is colossal and I stare at a tiny scar near his knee cap. He’s good-looking in stillness.

Blood rushes. My heart is trying to tell my body something, but it won’t listen. My body is distracted by his temperature. Changing positions, I scratch my fingers through the indents of his rib cage, to shoulder blades and his sprawled legs. He lets me model his skin like a tactile block of clay. I glide over body parts with curiosity, stroking nipples, earlobes and toes. I want to bite him now and taste the skin I’m sculpting. He doesn’t seem to mind. I like him for not saying anything about my inquiry with his physical. I fear that my exploration will come to a halt and he’ll say:  What are you doing? Why are you doing that? What are you looking for? He doesn’t and I wouldn’t answer him if he did. I ignore my heart again. My heart and the body will be separate entities today. My brain is a different story.

He taught me how to be selfish. Before him, I fixated on the erection, ignoring the practical parts of the body that connect, stabilize or balance. Cumming quick was mandatory in the convention of belligerent intercourse. Unzipping, unbuttoning, taking off belts and throwing off socks theatrically; I would strip and fuck as fast as physically possible. Silly really, two people furiously taking off clothing in darkness. Yet still, as impatient as I once was, I was too afraid to go any slower. I ignored the rest of the body as the cock took center stage. I didn’t admire my exes’ bodies the way I should have. The way a person should devour another in a single gaze.

Looking outside the window, the morning sunlight catches his elbow. I pinch the tough layer of turtle skin. I imagine who he really is, bone-weary and alone. The person underneath doesn’t belong to me. There’s just temperature inside of him, nothing else. I stare outside the old window, tracing my thumb along his upper arm that is much bigger than mine. It’s in the morning hours that my mind becomes to pre-occupied with the sensation of touch. My mind wanders with my finger over the hill tops along his spine. I thrust my knuckle against his lower back, applying the fullness of my weight into him like a dagger. His skin sprawls 1,000 miles while he turns around to face me. It’s like looking through a microscope, a full-screen of animated nude colours splashing around in the flesh.

In moving light, his skin becomes shades of bright yellow, grey and blue. I imagine that my finger is a sharp pencil, drawing the lines of his torso on a thick piece of paper in my notebook. I cruise over his belly button, shading a dark circle above his cock that he playfully tugs. I draw a tiny scratch on his inner thigh. I could pick it with my nail and watch it bleed, smearing it away with some spit like an animal mending a wound. I paint his stomach the colour of last summer’s tan with a pencil crayon, blending ruby red and Mauve pink over his nipple that’s now perked to the ceiling. My pencil indents the paper like the peak of a mountain; he changes position with his back against the bed. I clench his butt with two hands, my head tilted upwards to meet his eyes above me. I want to say something but there’s nothing to say. I move my hands away from his tailbone and back down to his ankle. I’m a tease and now he’s tired of letting me play, it’s his turn.

We fuck like we’re angry and when it’s over I put my clothes on. My cheeks flushed and skin red from the grasp of his hand on my hips, I feel taken advantage of in a way I don’t mind. I pull over my sweater and buckle my jeans, being careful not to spill the streetcar dimes onto his floor. My body doesn’t want to be covered by clothes right now. I want to finish my imaginary nude drawing before it’s over. But it’s done and I dig my nails into my palm, tightly making a fist to remind myself that it’s time to leave his place. The drawing never happened and skin is just skin after all. He is just a temperature and I am just a pile of clothes on the floor. Later in the dwindling light of the afternoon, I’ll remember the body parts I once forgot about. And his skin that felt warm like clay.