Alone in my thoughts I imagine all men to be helpless and sweet and serene. By day they cajole and demand and tease; by day I comply and accommodate and defend. Recreationally, I escape. Drifting away from droll conversation I capture them in my mind and contain them in a place where I know them to be tame. I imagine them in bed; not sprawled, naked and lurid, but tucked in, curled under the covers, head lolled to one side. I imagine them in this state and see them at last for what they are. They parade as men, all billow and bluster, but asleep they are boys, adrift on some dream.
My boyfriend (my bedfellow) the cunning debater, plays devils' advocate for sport, entwining me in counter-arguments the way a leashed mutt might bind its owner. Girdled by his tether - his overwhelming reason - I collapse, frustrated and pouting. In argument I find that I am too empathetic, ever-willing to accept the other person's point of view. I am an unworthy opponent, incapable of matching the strikes of my lover/debater. He reigns ever-victorious as I grudgingly wave my white flag.
Early mornings, awake, I search him for signs of piss and vinegar. He's only sleeping, however; sweetly dozing, soft and warm. Long gone to REM, he drawls nonsense songs and mutters cryptic answers to my gently prodding questions. My opponent is lost to this sleeping child and I feel, for the moment, that I have captured something great and tamed it; lured it to the bed where I now lay, lovingly encircled in the arms of my beast.
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