After

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time thinking and daydreaming about after.

After work, or school, where I'm doing or learning to do something entirely new, I drive home. Along some lonely desert road. Or maybe through the swamps of Southeast Florida.

I pull in the driveway--from the road it looks almost as though no one lives there--of my modest, sparely furnished house. Maybe it's a place I built myself, from one of my many designs. Maybe it's an open plan ranch.

And in the door, here comes Faithful Companion, lumbering in from the deck where he warms his old bones in the sun. I head to my study, emptying my pockets, putting my cell phone in the charger, hooking up my iPod to the speaker system.

A nice feature of my study--a smallish room with bookshelves and a desk--is a low platform, about five by seven feet, upholstered in some comfy manmade material that doghair doesn't stick to. It's smack up against a floor-to-ceiling window. The perfect place to read the paper, check email on my laptop, relax with a good book and drift in and out of sleep on a Sunday night.

Then I head to the bedroom. I get the hot tub going. Take off the clothes.

I head to the kitchen. The kitchen takes up a lot of real estate. In the middle is a big island, covered in butcher block, a nice, wide open work space. There's a big dining room table off the kitchen, because I love to feed people. I get some tea started and get dinner for Faithful Companion.

Then back to the bedroom. I jump in the shower. The shower has a wall of glass, to bring the outside in. When I shower in the morning, I see the rising sun lighting up the sky.

Tea's ready!

I pour myself a mug, grab a cigar, and head out to the hot tub.

For the next forty-five minutes or so, I have a big smile and a vacant expression on my face.

After the hot tub?

An intense little workout, then dinner.

Spend the night reading, surfing the 'Net, watching telebishin. Head out to my welding workshop and do some work. Spend some time in the dungeon, making everything perfect.

Before bedtime, I head to my little Pustina. A little corner of the house set up as a chapel. Something discrete. Minimal. (Everything in there is minimal. Duh!) I light a candle, get quiet, and say Compline.

So all this alone?

Yeah. Maybe.

Maybe there's the Love Of My Life in the picture. But we're not co-habitating. I need to live alone for a while. Man I miss living alone. "She resolved never more to live her life to the rhythms of others" wrote Tillie Olsen in Ironing. That's the ticket.

But he can come over for dinner. Sit in the hot tub with me, both of us smoking cigars. And, of course, he can spend the night.

Or maybe there's a slave around. Or a boy. Or some duly submissive man. Making sure my boots always look great. Having that tea ready for me when I get home. Always ready with a backrub.

And there's a guest room. Guests are good. Come and stay for eight months if you want.

Or not.

Either way, I'm good.

*sigh*

It's taken me a long time for this vision to be so robust, tracing so many different intimations to the source. It's a great gift to know what you want.

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