Something that I also had to learn was that most of the susurrus that take place during lovemaking do not lend themselves to be said repeatedly and articulated clearly. One of my first dates proved especially talkative in this respect.
I was just stroking her belly and thighs, distributing small kisses to her navel, when I heard it:
«Guään?”
I hesitated. Was that a question? At least I thought it was, her voice had gone up at the end, hadn’t it? My mother had always told me it was disrespectful to not respond to questions. But I was in the worst possible position to understand anything. The sound that reached me was quiet and unclear, breathed rather than spoken. My beloved also spoke over my head and away from me. Nestled as I was on her, I couldn’t see her speak. Already at the time, I always relied on some lip-reading.
But the worst thing was this: the situation was a completely new one to me. Where acoustic understanding was not sufficient, I used everything I knew about the situation to help me understand. If, for example, someone had a teapot in his hand and held a cup out to me, it was almost unnecessary to understand acoustically. This, incidentally, is also the reason why hard of hearing people have trouble with jokes and punchlines: if it is not clear in advance what could be said, if what is being said is a surprise, it will be hard. This was precisely the case here, with us, teenagers on a couch: what in heaven’s name could be said in a situation like this? What could she want? In the end, I decided that canoodling did not really require any talking. Should it have been important, odds were that she would repeat it. Rather than interrupt our pleasant moment by asking her, I kept on kissing her.
«Guään, dansó, yes?”
That was clearly a question! I could no longer ignore it. So I dropped everything in the truest sense of the word. I straightened up, put our faces in front of each other and looked at my beloved expectantly.
She looked at me too, but said nothing. I felt the magic of the situation melt away. Then, after what felt like minutes, but certainly were at least three seconds of silence, she rolled her eyes. I gathered my courage.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What, you beg my pardon? Why did you stop?”
“I did not hear you, could you please say that again?”
«Orrr. I said: ‘That is so good. Don’t stop!”
I realized it at that moment: some things just couldn’t be said with a clearer and louder voice. Or, well: you could, but it sounds funny. At the latest after the third repetition. “I SAID YES! EXACTLY LIKE THIS! AND EXACTLY THERE!” just isn’t the right tone — outside kinky games perhaps.