sleeping with Perrine

The first night I was supposed to sleep with Perrine was the night of Jean-Marc's birthday party.
Everyone was drunk on champagne and at some point of the evening Perrine asked me to postpone our night because she wanted to sleep with someone she was really in love with.
For that night she chose real desire over experiment. How could I have possibly objected to such a strong and vital choice? Marko taught me a lesson I hope I won't forget for the rest of my life: It is crucial to ask for what we need and desire. As long as we know what we want.
That night of the party I suddenly felt strangely disconnected from the group. At the beginning I felt euphoric and in party mood (we had seen two amazing performances by Tiago and Tommy). I'm not sure what it was that made me suddenly withdraw to my own little world of worries and doubts. I guess I realized that the wild dancing and oversexed, exhibitionist party behavior wasn't what I was looking for. It wasn't exactly my idea of intimacy, although I am sure some people may have felt intimately connected in the midst of all this crazy hullabaloo. So I was actually relieved to withdraw to Perrine's room and spend a restful night with my intimate self in Perrine's single bed.
The following night Perrine did join me in her small bed after all. Now this was really about negotiating intimate space. We were literally on top of each other. I thought about proposing my favorite ritual of falling asleep: the one of mutually telling each other our detailed experiences of the day from wake-up to bedtime. I have found this very helpful in the past to facilitate the act of falling asleep. It is a great exercise for the memory and makes you feel you are on the same page with the other person. But Perrine was terribly tired and said good-night a few moments after I had crawled under the blanket with her. This premature good-night made me slightly anxious. I really need some kind of ritual of talking in order to have an understanding of what sort of energy and thought processes are inhabiting this bed with me.
Eventually Perrine did tell me a bit about her day and her love story. But the conversation faded out soon enough for me to realize that I was actually also quite exhausted and ready to go sleepy sleep.
Although I hardly knew Perrine I was surprised that feeling her warmth and body so close was perfectly all right. It felt like a brother and sister kind of intimacy. We could have been twins.
I didn't sleep immediately though. I was conscious of a choreography of shifting and readjusting which seemed to last the whole night. I was quite aware of her presence and didn't want to disturb her sleep, so I considered each shift with the strategy and care of a chess player. I must have gotten some sleep though. In the morning my alarm woke me out of a dream in which I was desperately trying to find an airport and asking people for directions.
It was 7:30 and I had to get up and drive Marko to the train station in Laon. He had to travel back to Croatia for a project. In Marianne's car we drove through a deserted, early Sunday morning countryside of fields and forests. We didn't speak much. We listened to classical music. I felt proud of driving Marko to Laon. I was profoundly happy and sad at the same time. It was like in a film. There was no need to talk. Someone once said that real intimacy is about feeling completely at ease in the presence of someone without having to speak.