Way back – right at the very start of things – Stevie used to walk me home from places we’d been. From the movies or the dancing. And it could be dark as cupboards then in places out of the reach of the street lights – in shop doorways or closed parks. And we’d hide there, just kissing and touching, and I’d say his name over and over and he’d say mine. We weren’t in no hurry to be someplace – everything taken slow and at its own pace.
Like I say, that was way back. That was how it was at first. I remind him sometimes. I tell Stevie I remember this or that. Hiding in the dark behind church one time and the dark was starred, and holding each other like we were dancing to no music. And he was kissing me and I was kissing him and there, with the mother of Jesus looking down at us from the glass window, and Stevie said he loved me. I said he didn’t ought to be saying stuff he didn’t mean and he said ‘swear to god’ and he’d prove it if only I let him.
He broke into the post office that night and he emptied the drawers behind the counter and he got maybe fifteen quid in change and seventeen books of first class stamps. Then he put the money and the stamps into my hands and he said it wasn’t but a fraction of the love he felt for me.
My heart was racing and I didn’t know if it was Stevie loving me so much or the breaking of the glass on the post office window. I said he was stupid and he wasn’t to ever do the like again. I said I believed him when he said he loved me and I said I loved him, too.
We’ve been together for a dozen years or so now, and Stevie doesn’t kiss me so much as he did then, or touch me the same slow way or do daft stuff to prove he loves me. We got two kids and though I love them to bits, they get in the way sometimes. I said to him once how we should just go for a walk in the dark. The kids were sleeping and I said it’d be like before. Stevie said it wasn’t sensible to just leave the kids on their own.
So I go out on my own some nights, and I walk slow and soft and far, and my coat buttons fastened chin to knee, and there’s a man I meet and he takes my hand in his and we just walk without words. Like that it’s as though I am twelve years younger, and we duck into shop doorways or we creep into the park, and he holds me like we could be dancing and I hold him. And in the dark we are made brave – a little – and we kiss, and each kiss feels new and interesting. And it is enough.
Stevie’s sleeping when I get back. I check on the kids and they’re sleeping, too. I put out all the lights in the house and I open the curtains on the bedroom window. Then I undress in the streetlight yellow dark, and I slip into bed beside Stevie and I say his name just to be sure, and he wraps his warmth about me, and I sleep.
Patricia Ann McNair 
…I like to do the things that would be shameful in the light.
Way back – right at the very start of things – Stevie used to walk me home from places we’d been. From the movies or the dancing. And it could be dark as cupboards then in places out of the reach of the street lights – in shop doorways or closed parks. And we’d hide there, just kissing and touching, and I’d say his name over and over and he’d say mine. We weren’t in no hurry to be someplace – everything taken slow and at its own pace.
Like I say, that was way back. That was how it was at first. I remind him sometimes. I tell Stevie I remember this or that. Hiding in the dark behind church one time and the dark was starred, and holding each other like we were dancing to no music. And he was kissing me and I was kissing him and there, with the mother of Jesus looking down at us from the glass window, and Stevie said he loved me. I said he didn’t ought to be saying stuff he didn’t mean and he said ‘swear to god’ and he’d prove it if only I let him.
He broke into the post office that night and he emptied the drawers behind the counter and he got maybe fifteen quid in change and seventeen books of first class stamps. Then he put the money and the stamps into my hands and he said it wasn’t but a fraction of the love he felt for me.
My heart was racing and I didn’t know if it was Stevie loving me so much or the breaking of the glass on the post office window. I said he was stupid and he wasn’t to ever do the like again. I said I believed him when he said he loved me and I said I loved him, too.
We’ve been together for a dozen years or so now, and Stevie doesn’t kiss me so much as he did then, or touch me the same slow way or do daft stuff to prove he loves me. We got two kids and though I love them to bits, they get in the way sometimes. I said to him once how we should just go for a walk in the dark. The kids were sleeping and I said it’d be like before. Stevie said it wasn’t sensible to just leave the kids on their own.
So I go out on my own some nights, and I walk slow and soft and far, and my coat buttons fastened chin to knee, and there’s a man I meet and he takes my hand in his and we just walk without words. Like that it’s as though I am twelve years younger, and we duck into shop doorways or we creep into the park, and he holds me like we could be dancing and I hold him. And in the dark we are made brave – a little – and we kiss, and each kiss feels new and interesting. And it is enough.
Stevie’s sleeping when I get back. I check on the kids and they’re sleeping, too. I put out all the lights in the house and I open the curtains on the bedroom window. Then I undress in the streetlight yellow dark, and I slip into bed beside Stevie and I say his name just to be sure, and he wraps his warmth about me, and I sleep.