he with the magic fingers

A million years or so ago I promised to tell the story of He With The Magic Fingers. I warn you, the story might take a while, because there’s more to it than fingers.

It started pretty innocently; friendship. I was still married, still living with my husband, though only in name; he was due to move out in a few months.

I remember how it really began because it was the night my husband moved out. He took most of the furniture with him. I had dragged my bed into the middle of the living room just to have someplace to sit and look at my new television set on the floor. My new furniture wouldn’t be delivered for several days. It was deathly quiet and echo-ey in the place, and really, the last thing I wanted to do was to spend the evening in the gloomy emptiness.

So HWTMF called, and we went out, and then ended up back at his place. We talked until 6 am. It was the night he introduced me to Morcheeba, playing as background music as we talked. And as so many of my conversations tend to be, a lot of the talk was about sex. What I liked to do, what he liked to do, what I’d like to have done to me, etc. And honestly, I thought conversation was all it was. Mostly, anyway. Sure, I was turned on – the talking, the hot sweet liquid sex music – but I was also numb and a little in shock, I think, from the events of the day. That sort of cotton-head feeling. You know.

He walked me home while the sun was coming up. And at the front door to the building, he kissed me. Didn’t expect it, reacted quite badly, and in time we moved back into friendship groove.

But eventually, as my wounds began to scab over a bit, the attraction came back. It was a confusing time. I was incredibly obsessed with his best friend, actually (Very, Very long time readers will know him as The Muse). Which HWTMF knew about. But The Muse wasn’t available, and HWTMF was so adorable, and available, that one night I made a rather heavy pass. Oh, my God, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun just making out. I couldn’t believe how turned on I was. And yet all clothes stayed on.

Fast-forward over a whole bunch of confusing inter-related relationship stuff to do with the strange triangle I’d somehow gotten myself into.

The fact is that HWTMF listened.

He created a safe, trusting space for me. And then he proceeded to turn every single thing I’d ever said about sex, everything I’d ever thought or fantasized about during our talks or in my blog, and used them against me in the sweetest, most incredible way. He paid attention. He used the information he was given. And by the end, he could bring me to a fever pitch with just a teasing fingertip on the inside of my knee.

He gauged my arousal perfectly. He could turn me on with a look, a touch. But he delayed. He teased. Oh, sweet Jesus, did he tease. He took control of my body in ways I’d only imagined up until then. I remember one evening in particular, when he had his hand down my “daisy dukes”, his fingertip hovering about a half-inch away from my body, my entire body poised and stretched and tensed for just anything, a breeze even, to push me over the edge, I was that close.

His fingers were magic. He introduced me to my first silver bullet. He understood more about pleasuring a woman’s body (and mind) than any man I’ve ever known.

But there was more to it than that. I laughed in bed with him more than I’d ever laughed with another lover. Everything was natural and easy and sexy and strangely comforting, and I didn’t spend nearly enough time thinking about what that really meant.

I got too caught up in other crap. The triangular nature of the moment. The Muse. Whatever. The point is that I didn’t see what I had when I had it. Hindsight is always distressingly 20/20, isn’t it? And so my time with HWTMF was sadly short.

But he gave me several lovely perfect memories to walk away with. And Morcheeba is the soundtrack that plays over those memories like sweet, sun-warmed honey.

For that, I’ll always be grateful to him.