Realigned Love  I'm at home upstairs in the large bedroom in bed with my ex-girlfriend Annie Thomas. The double bed is in the northeast corner of the room. We lay on separate side of the bed: no sex. She is near the wall; I'm on the outside of the bed. Neither of us can sleep, and we may communicate this to each other. We're tired but restless, unable to relax. It almost seems as if we're drugged up. We may go to someone to get drugs to help us sleep. The allure of touch grows between us. At one point I think that sexual contact between us always seems to happen. My sister Ramona is sleeping in the next, smaller, bed. There is a stereo in the room with a radar remote control that has right lights on it. Annie turns on the music. I'm worried that the music will awaken Ramona, or disturb anyone else in the house. It's very late at night, and the music will draw attention to anywhere or anyone. I think of this knowing also that the sexual activity that will soon follow the music is not the ideal situation to be found in when confronted by disturbed individuals. I look back in the small room, and see Ramona stir. At some point I know she has gone downstairs to sleep because the music disturbed her. I'm glad she has done this so we don't disturb her any more. I walk back to the bed. Annie is lying naked, her head pointing north, sideways on the bed. As I near her she spreads her legs wide open and bends her knees upwards: she is ready for and desires cunnilingus. I start slowly, rubbing my nose in the inside of her left thigh. She makes some high-pitched creaky noises: I'm tickling her. I lift her pelvis up a bit and lick the area between her vagina and anus. She laughs. I'm not embarrassed, uncomfortable, or at all deterred by this. She lies on top of me, and I think she will initiate penetration. The sexual contact stops. There's some discomfort between us. She asks me, "How come... you're going to all these small places?" She may have asked me this earlier before the music, and received a short, incomplete, ill reply from me. After a bit of a struggle we are both frustrated and she is about to leave. I say to her, "Listen", as I sit her down to explain myself. "I've changed since being gone. Before I left my life was stable and constant." She replies, "Yeah, you used to be able to laugh at anything, make fun of anything." I say, "Now my life is not so stable. I'm not in the same place." Something clicks in my mind and I choose to use a scene from out past to somehow illustrate what has happened to me. I say, "When we were first-years in college we talked in your garage over Thanksgiving break, the first time we saw each other since the summer after high school. I told you I couldn't or didn't love the parts of you that were new, that I didn't know. The same applies here. I don't think there is any fault, it happens to everyone." I say this to try to communicate that we change when we're apart and there is nothing wrong with those changes. Jake, Pia, and another person from the University of Wellington are there. They've heard our conversation and agree with me to some extent. I seem to have posed a clean, convincing statement of my view. It's about 5:00am. I think: how or why did these three people come to my house at this time of day? I think they must have just walking in the back door, since no one would be up to meet or stop them. I think maybe they're still out from last night, and wonder if they're drunk. We talk about the sleep cycle. One of the three says that the only sleep that matters is from 10:00pm until 2:00am. I say no: if one person sleeps 10-2, and another from 10-6am, there'll be a big difference! People seem to agree. I add that the person who sleeps 10-6 will live about 40 years longer! I tell them that all that information is in a book on the shelf, and I point to the bookshelf next to the south wall. I'm thinking of Moorcroft's 'Sleep, Dreaming, and Sleep Disorders', and I peer on the bottom shelf to see the blue binding of the book. I don't see it just then. The others get up and look. One of them pulls out a tall, wide, thick book with a clear plastic cover over the hardcover. It is called 'AIDS and the _____ (young athlete?)'. The man looks through the book. There are several removable sections in the book that he takes out when perusing it. Each section is on a subtopic. It's just beginning to get light outside. I look across the street. I see the outline of the figure of my high school classmate Chad Owens walking southward on the roof of my neighbors the Smith's house. Two of his brothers are near him on the ground. They're delivering newspapers. I stand up and walk over to Annie, who is standing a bit away from the bed. We share a hug. My left arm goes below her right arm and my right arm goes above her left arm. It's comforting, to her, I think. I feel strong and sure: stable, like I'm giving her support, comfort, and assurance. It's a warm, enjoyable embrace. We kiss, and continue to kiss as I slowly walk forwards, and her backwards, until she touches the wall. We're just to the south of the south window on the east side of the house. We're considering the different types of panes of glass in a window. It's as if Annie needs a window or pane or combination of panes. There seems to be a window with a single outer pane and two smaller inner panes that slide. The outer pane may be mesh: a screen. I say to Annie that she, "Doesn't even need a salamander anymore", because George Costanza has one.