On average, I confess, I have a terrible time sleeping next to anyone, even my sister. Ironically, I can’t seem to fall asleep without my dog, even though she sometimes insists on sleeping atop my head. I think it’s because she gets cold; her name is Beast, and she doesn’t have much hair. Usually, if either of these two conditions take place, the first present, and the second absent, I just pretend to rest, keeping still out of courtesy, waiting until it’s late enough in the morning for me to leave or move somewhere else to take a nap, unless of course I can come up with a better excuse before. I’m not sure why, but this insight seems significant to me now. Significant in the sense that I’d known him for only a few hours, but sharing my sleeping space then didn’t seem so offensive. Offensive at least in the way other people strike me. I have a problem, you might say, with smells – other people’s smells – anything organic. I realize it’s probably nothing they can help, probably just genetic, so I take full credit for my own personal oddities. This aversion I’m sure sounds terrible, though I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of the rest of this probably will too. My point here is that he didn’t offend me on any level, though normally this degree of intimacy – sleeping, actually sleeping in the same space – would take me months to welcome. Hence, sharing a twin sized bed with a man twice my size, in any other scenario sounds absolutely horrid. Though, at that moment, at this point in time, it didn’t seem as though there any other options.

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