Waking up next to her is the best part of my day. Everything after that just makes me want to be back in bed breathing in her hyacinth hair, lavender limbs, and kissing her cherry-vanilla cheek. I try not to wake her as I leave, but a groan passes from my lips as I reluctantly drag myself from beside her. She reacts, but does not hear me; she moves, but never wakes. Should I wake her so I can see into her eyes, so she can see that in mine tears are starting to form like raindrops from dark, sleepy clouds being roused quickly to action?
I want her to know that I will miss her when I leave. I want to tell her that all of my thoughts will return to this moment as they do every day. Most of all, I want to kiss her until she begs me to let her up for air. I leave her there sleeping like a cherub on a marshmallow and tip-toe to the shower. Maybe if I make myself smell like her it will ease my pain. I use her shampoo, her body wash, I feel her presence as I stand there with my eyes closed wasting hot water as she would say, but when I open them she's not there; it is only the belly dance of the shower curtain behind me. I lube up in her lotion and drown myself in her perfume. The other cops make fun of me for coming into work smelling so fruity, but I don't care and they don't understand.
The fat farts I work with all have wives that stink of powder and lotion to cover the baby crap and vomit. Others don't have children, so they come home to a TV dinner, bon-bon, magazine perfume samples, or if they're really lucky home-cooking smelling wives. They complain during the day about what their wives don't do for them in the kitchen or in bed and yet they laugh about my lifestyle, about my girlfriend, about the way I love. But I'm still standing in the mirror in her bathroom dripping diluted hyacinth onto the tile floor. I could climb back between the comfy comforter and the body-shaped sheet and blend right in with her scent so she would never know the difference, but I can't. I slip on my undies and my government issued uniform, flat shoes and all. I towel dry my hair and pull it into a pony tail. I stare at myself in the mirror and try to remember what possessed me to take this job. I'm tall and slim, kind of pretty. I like my long, tangled hair and the funky freckles on my face.
I did a pretty good job of buffing up in the academy and I could have done that on my own. I could have been a model or something, if it weren't for her. I fell in love and wanted to make sure that I could take care of her. I take good care of her; she thanks me for it all the time. I guess I don't think much of it until she says 'thank you', I just do it because I love her. If I just slip back into bed for a few minutes, it won't make a difference. I can skip breakfast, lay there for a while, kiss her goodbye and leave before she realizes what I've done. I can see her sleeping form now getting closer as I creep toward the bed. I ease beside her and then give her warm body a cool embrace. She is everything I am not. I run my rough edges down her smooth curves and compare my textured white paint with her high-gloss, satin in a shade that should have a delicious name like cappuccino or mocha-madness. She squirms, she breaths, she speaks and my only reaction is to hold her tight and hope that she just wanders back into unconsciousness. "You smell...good"
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