Sweetest Hangover

There was an awful screech.

“Sorry baby, it’s my alarm.”

I woke up in my bed to the alarm on Marla’s cell phone. I had set my own clock to 7am to be sure she would be up in time for work, but her cell beat it to the punch. I turned off my alarm, and snuggled next to Marla. She kissed me.

Marla got up, naked but for my t-shirt. She headed to the shower. I drifted off.

I wake, and it is very quiet. My room is full of light. Did I miss sending Marla off?

I get out of bed, instinctively covering my erection in my hands. I run into Marla in the hall. She is naked, with a towel turban on her head.

“Oh!,” she says. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

I am hard, hungover, dehydrated, and my bladder is bursting. “No, I was just getting up anyway. You want breakfast, coffee, orange juice, water . . . ?”

“Orange juice would be nice.”

I put on a kettle and pour some juice. We wind up drinking juice together nude, in the sunlight, our hands on one another’s waists.

I give her a toothbrush. It goes into place next to mine and Celia’s.

We talk as Marla dresses, trying to make the most of yesterday’s work clothes and anything I have offered from my closet. She’s very easy to be with, and this feels very domestic, like I’m sending my sweety off to the office. I touch her clothes as she puts on make up.

I’m slightly embarrassed that I am hard all this time, but not so embarrassed that I get dressed.

“Next time at my place in Brooklyn, okay?,” she says, as I kiss her goodbye.

As I make the bed, I see that she has left her necklace on my night table.