From my paper journal:

Loverboy and I engage in these verbal sparrings that leave me terribly exasperated. I get to my wits’ end and think I can’t take it anymore, I want to get away from it, it’s no use.

Then, the next time I see him, he’ll surprise me by being his sensible, loving self again, and I am totally disarmed. And in love once more. It’s quite the wondrous thing.

I love the smell of his skin.
I love kissing his mouth.
I love the masculine grace of his body — the way he stands, walks, moves.
I love his hands — their size, their shape, their sureness.

Parts of my body warm up as I write these things, as I think about the way he looks and tastes and smells and feels. But I do not put this book away, turn over, and instigate lovemaking with the man snoring here beside me in this bed. No.

I enjoy the heat. He rolls over to face the other way. I stretch, content to leave him sleeping. I do not have an itch that needs scratching. I have a healthy sense of being alive, of smouldering lava in key places.

There are many times like these, when I think of or watch him and feel lust. He finds that impossible to believe, because I do not always instigate a sexual encounter on these occasions. I may simply focus on the sensation itself instead of acting upon it. This is apparently unthinkable to L.

I explain it to him by saying “I am a woman, not a man. Maybe there is a difference bigger than the obvious visual ones. Maybe I do not feel driven, as you do, to pursue a pleasure other than the one I am already enjoying. Maybe I am slower to heat to boiling point.”