He was careful, meticulous even, placing down the drop cloth on the floor in the sunroom, straightening the edges, palming out the wrinkles, paying close attention to the corners of the room where the fabric was starting to wriggle away, exposing a splinter of floorboard. He certainly didn’t want to have to make any more work for himself than was absolutely necessary. No drips, no mess, no additional work. Smart man. Meticulous man. Fascinating man.

I watched him from the other side of the room, leaning back into the elegant red wingback velvet covered chair, this chair, the one which in 18 months time will hold our awkwardly propped up newborn son, windy smile destroying us and remaking us, propelling us into an unknown future, together. I watched how he moved with effortless ease, stroking, padding, pulling, smoothing. I watched his body move gracefully through the space as he assembled the assorted paraphernalia needed to paint this one wall. Paint, roller, tray. This one wall that looked out to the west, across the tops of crammed in houses+, trees like broccoli poking up above red rooflines, the scorching afternoon sun sending the wise into a Sunday slumber, blinds down, water glasses full, music soft, and sand brushed mostly from feet.

He has everything he needs now in front of him. The can of paint promising transformation, paint roller the handle of which was flecked with a rainbow of colors, and paint tray. Paint, roller, tray. He’s ready. Am I?

Paint, roller, tray. Faint, holler, stray. Taint, collar, fray. I played with these words in my head, making up rhymes, nonsense songs, all to the beat of Baaba Maal whose music filled our world those days. And I watched him, my eyes drinking him in. I was being carried off on some cloud that I was marveling at, that I was scared of, that I wanted to resist and yet was powerless to refuse. I was drifting, floating, pinching myself to double check reality, smiling each time I landed.

He leaves the room for a few minutes and returns with a screwdriver, kissing me en route back to the paint can, our eyes locked for a fleet. I feel a jolt of energy course through me, weakened yet fantastically alive beneath his touch, in his gaze. He twists the screwdriver under the lip of the paint can and pries the lid open. Orange. Orange? A color that will later cause some controversy much deeper into our relationship. Ochre he corrects me.

The next hour, or dreamy two or three are spent marveling at his exertion. It’s hot and getting hotter in this glass baked sun drenched room. His naked back speckled with beads of sweat, spider streams that etching out the landscape of his back. I was still learning about his body, how it moves, how it responds, how it dances, how it listens and answers me, how it makes love to me. His scent becoming more familiar to me every night we spend together, the noises he makes as he sleeps, when he wakes, all becoming gently encoded in me. He discarded his sarong when he started painting, and now his white underpants are patterned with orange - sorry - ochre stripes. He stretches and swoops, dips and dives, reaches and rolls. The wall comes alive beneath his touch, just like me. The color expands its reach across the wall, streaks of lime in the paint give it texture, movement, depth. It’s exhilarating to witness this transformation at his hands. Marvelous to see it blossom so quickly under his gardeners hands, a joy to experience how it starts to pulse a rosy hue as the sun starts to sink and settle itself behind the now red ochre roofline, and a wonder to begin to see the genius in this man.

And so why do i never let him paint anything orange? Was it because of the orange outdoor wall he teamed with a green flowerbed walll, and it was truly hideous and i had to live with it for waaay too long? Is it because I want to keep safe the memory of that first orange - sorry - ochre wall, a direct path back to what it felt to come alive at his touch in those very early days. Or maybe I should just let him paint orange wherever he wants