the combat zone

She waits for him to
come back to bed,
but she knows it
won’t be
soon, because he knows what she wants
and she knows he knows and
it’s, well, become that way, all
the
time, now. Sex, for them, always has
been a matter of control, survival of
the
quickest to sense the
other’s
vulnerability and refuse to
salve it. He will wait as long as
he can, hold out
as long as he must,
to make certain that he has
the upper hand, if only for
this night. It is that and that only, for them, now: a contest, a battle of
wits, a struggle of wills. And
they
are
not
alone. Not even close.