it was a weekday night. the kids were asleep. it was about midnight and marty and i both got into bed within five minutes of one another. this does not happen often but when it does one of two things happens. we talk or we experience one another, maritally, as in, sexually. this night was a sex night. while i enjoy talking with marty i more enjoy the alternative. mostly because we can talk in the kitchen in front of the children, on the porch in front of neighbors and just about anywhere. this is not true of sex so when that is on the table it is always where my gaze will ultimately drift.

the sex we were having on this night was letter X sex. i call it letter X sex because if you were to look down on the bed from above, our bodies would form a letter X. i'm sure that all those sexual positions books have a name for this configuration but i've never looked it up. i already know how to do it so haven't felt compelled to research it further. additionally, i'm perfectly fine calling it the letter X position, which by the way, is also my all-time favorite of all the alphabetic-positions.

someone hanging from the ceiling might have had problems seeing we were in the letter X formation because the sheets were covering us up. we have to do this because while all the children were in bed, there are no guarantees they will stay there and our bedroom door is always open and our room is on the way to the bathroom and, well, marty easily gets chilly, so the sheets are on us.

for this particular session of letter X sex, at the time i'm breaking in here, we're almost done. i'd put it the 70 or even 80 percent mark. i remember this vividly because it was here that we heard and then saw a child appear in our doorway. the child was alex and it seems this was the point in the night he stirred from sleep. this happens every night but not usually this early. when it happens he gets out of his bed and comes into our bed, climbs up and over marty or i (usually me) and curls up between us. this is just what he did this night. after falling in place, scrunching back up into fetal position and resuming the loud sucking of his thumb he was back asleep in seconds.

marty and i remained frozen, still ready to go but not going. the new guest in our bed was preventing us from seeing one another. after a few moments and being confident he was sleeping i lifted my head so i could see marty and asked ...

so?

so what?

so, what are we gonna do?

what do you mean what are we going to do?

so ... are we going to finish?

here? now?

yes.

well, no. of course not.

yeah, that's what i thought too. i mean, it would be too awkward. too strange.

yes. you could say that.

but ... he is asleep.

i've never been a good salesman and this night was no different. but i am good at looking pathetic so we did end up finishing. we just had to move to another room where there was not another human separating us. sadly though this interruption and relocation killed my letter X sex. i think we ended up with more of an R. not my favorite letter but certainly better than no letter at all.