As the gentle melody of Phillip Glass rises and falls to the nondescript carpeting of our modest apartment, lapping at my ears and soothing my frayed nerves and heightened senses, he writes to me.

I’ve asked him, again, because I believe in him; I believe in this. He isn’t writing to turn me on, to make me wet, to prove to me that he can do it. He’s writing for me, because I’ve asked him, and because it’s within his nature and talents to do so. It isn’t an assignment; it’s a feeling. Not a task, but a total immersion.

Because when he writes … he steals the moment from me, and holds onto it, preciously, for safe-keeping until further notice. He has done so many times, and in each, he reminds me not only why I love him, but why I always have — even before I really knew it. As I watched him chew idly at (many) pen caps, reclining in an office chair, contemplating his next move: be it to bet, raise, or fold; invest, stop, or pull, engage or disengage from any particular event, or, always stirring in the recesses of his consciousness: where will he go from here?

Here, where we are today, is different from what I’d ever imagined, sitting mere feet from him, at my desk in his office; sharing his space, quietly wondering if he felt I was in violation, or if it was truly welcome. That poker face. I never could read him. He was too good — even for me. (And that is saying something.) I wouldn’t know … for years. I’d never even really, honestly, had a dream come true, as they say, that meant something to me. But it was worth the wait.

Even as I sat disbelieving, watching, wondering, waiting, hoping — just maybe, maybe some day, I’d have a real glimpse into his inner-workings; some sort of passage into the deep inner-sanctum. The place where he keeps his dreams, his secrets, his deepest yearnings, longings, fears, and nightmares … If I could hold that key, we would be complete. Not I, not he — but we would be complete.

I don’t ask him to write for me, but for us. It always jostles the lock, just enough, so that I can peer inside yet again. And the wonders that I behold … every time …

I ask him to write for me — not (only) because it arouses or excites me; but because it takes my breath away.