people to have sex with

We sit up and there is the kind of buzz that can't be dulled by alcohol. It is the aftermath of good company and a string of hours suffused by happiness. It is the knowledge that loneliness lurks beyond the glow of the hearth but that for now the fire is in it's final moments of blaze and all is well with the world.

We talk of people you could have sex with. I imagine this in gentle sepia. I imagine you dipping your head to kiss their necks, these girls, some of whom love you. You are surprised to be loved, it seems, or perhaps this is just a conceit because you know all too well that you are lusted after. Still, when I imagine you with each one, I imagine you clothed and doe-eyed. I imagine the romance of it when you have never been a romantic soul.

You ask for a list of people I could see you with because your judgement is blinded by the lack of sex and your proximity to the possibilities. You ask me to picture you with your perfect other. I picture you, but they are faceless, these others, because it has been a good night and we are here in the early hours of the morning and the picture of us is infused in that same sepia glow. All I can see is the laying down of memories, our memories.

We will be friends for ever you say and it might be true. You with your indistinguishable other. Me with your children close as family. But I cannot picture the sex because this is all about talking way into the night, fond smiles across a conversation-lit room, and the safe wonderful hug at the end of it. This is the wonderous idea that now, finally I can be a friend for you, just for the sake of it.