TRAVELLING

Lying in the back seat, all bunched up because you’re too big for the space.

Bags or jacket or jumper rolled up under your head, because the moulded plastic of the door is an intolerant pressure on your skull, and your sock-clad feet nudged up against the window crank of the other door, shoes had been toed off into the footwell hours ago.

Half asleep, the figures in the front seats look too-large and their voices are mumurs that you don’t bother to sharpen, don’t try to decipher because they’re soothing, like white noise or the sound of waves.

You couldn’t sleep before, because the swinging white-blue glare of headlights had washed through the car, intermittent and random, it wasn’t constant enough to ignore.

But then it turns dark and you’re the only car on the twisty back roads, the only car in the middle of empty space with the stars visible through the window above you, only occasionally blacked out by the ruffled silhouettes of trees.

Then there are street lamps again - orange pulses of light that come and go, and come and go, and come and soon you’re falling asleep.

You’ll wake up with pins and needles, and air freshener mouth and your neck will hurt and everything will be too bright and the voices will be too fucking loud that tell you ‘wake up! we’re home.’

You’ll unroll your aching body from the back seat, young bones protesting like a strange biological prophecy, and rub the sleep shit from your eyes, scowling at the vague blurry shapes with their relieved cheer.

But it really doesn’t matter.

You’re home, the journey is over and, yes okay, they’re right - you’re home.

HIPBONES

I’ve always loved hipbones - call it a fetish, a fascination or just a warm appreciation.

I love the dip and curve of them, the hard angles so close to the surface. Never the same shape or in the same place; as every bit as unique as the skin that covers them. I love to touch them - to draw my fingers over their rise and fall, tracing letters and patterns. Light and careful, so not to scratch or mark - but sometimes I get carried away. Sometimes it’s red raised skin and nail-dug trenches, but never blood.

This time I’m soft - sweeping lines and barely-there touches, my fingers brushing at the edge of sensation. My fingers are calloused and I am always amazed that skin doesn’t catch on them, like fabric far less soft often does.

She doesn’t like it when I do this. My hand sweeps around the swell of her hip, circling back to that jutting bone and she squirms. Wriggling as her skin explodes into goose bumps and laughter contracts the muscles in her abdomen. I can feel them move under my fingertips.

He doesn’t mind at all. He’s not ticklish, and my attempts to make him laugh and lose control just lead to an amused smile. Hard or soft touch, light or rough - he just looks at my pout, unaffected. It would have been annoying, if I didn’t know how he reacts to ice cubes. Everyone has something.

As it is, I love her hipbones and his hipbones perfectly equally - though today it is hers that command my attentions.

It has to be the post-coital slump that does it; the reason that they let me get away with it, even as they’re dozing off. Pliant and obliging; comfortable so that moving to dissuade me seems like an uncalled for effort. I feel warm; it radiates off us all, muscles twitching and settling like the metal on a just-parked car as it cools. We are all of us happily tired and I can indulge.

My head is pillowed against her stomach; I listen to the liquid sounds of her. Soft, strange inside sounds - her stomach, her pulse, her breath. I tap the jut of her hip in time with her heart and sigh contentedly through my nose. Her stomach tenses as the warm air moves across her belly; it makes me smile against her skin, how easily affected she is. There’s a freckle - maybe an inch from my nose, just below her bellybutton. I kiss it and she giggles.

Everything moves for a moment, and then her hand is against my forehead and in my hair, pushing me away. A feeble symbol of a gesture, for I know if I moved away that the hand would turn and become grasping, pulling me back.

‘Stop that, yeah?’ Her voice is a thick murmur; her face is nuzzled against his chest and the pose distorts, muffles her words but she’s not annoyed. I can tell.

He cracks an eye to look down at me; the hand on the back of my neck tightens briefly and I know it’s his. Keeping track of hands and legs and bodies never mattered; we share everything, now. Whether the squeeze of his hand is a warning or encouragement, I can’t tell. I tilt my head to look at them both, to get a better view.

‘Make me.’ I duck my head again to bite gently at the bone, mouth closing over that delicious angle. She giggles and wriggles, but he bands a strong arm about her, holding her hands away from me. It’s a sweet game.

When it ends, she tangles her fingers in my hair and settles back against his chest. His eyes close again, one hand flat and loyal against my neck and the other twisting a lock of her hair, making shadows corkscrew across her shoulder. I reach across her, my knuckles curling into the curve of his hip.

And I’m happy.