It's a Saturday afternoon, and I'm being entirely nonproductive. Faugh. At least I'm dressed; my husband is still in his tighty-whities, glorying in his unshowered splendor. I know that if I ask him to hop in the shower, he'll develop his Satuday Sillies, wherein he begins to taunt me with his nakedness like a little boy who sees only snooty hauteur in society's convention of cleanliness and clothing. Either that, or he'll return to the warmth of the bed. After all, he's only up because I am; we used to sleep far later before I began going to Weigh Down Workshop on Saturday mornings.

So here we sit, I before the Macintosh and he in front of the Linux machine. He's chuckling over the Microsoft ruling. Every once in a while he looks up and makes vague threats to take Windows off of our PC and remove Office from the Mac. It's moments like these that really allow me to see just how much I love him.

By our society's standards, he's not the sexiest man out there, but neither am I the model of attractiveness. He's sitting there, rapt expression on his face, nude but for his underwear and his wedding ring, his long hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. Every once in a while, he stops to push his glasses back up his nose. He idly whistles as he reads the screen.

The first time I saw him, he struck me as unlike anyone I had ever met. He was wearing a long black trenchcoat, black leather gloves, and a black fedora. He walked blithely into my life to help me with a computer problem, then left as quickly as he had come. I was immediately interested in this man who seemed so sure of himself.

Of course, he's not all that confident, as I came to discover. His knees were probably quaking that day when he first spoke to me. He probably thanked God that the first time he approached me could be over something as familiar as a computer. It allowed him to speak of that which he knew rather than be forced to start on shakier ground.

Since we've been together, we've had many afternoons just like this one. The second year of our relationship, I essentially lived with him rather than stay in the dorm room upon which my parents had insisted for a second year. Though he had, through lease problems, been forced to take an efficiency in a local motel for the year, we loved that apartment. Weekends were often spent lying in bed, watching the TV, feeling as if we were on a year-long vacation. That year was probably the most intimate time in our relationship thus far, and we still reminisce over it. Sharing such close quarters allows each member of the couple to learn their partner from top to bottom. I know how Eric rolls in his sleep on a Saturday afternoon. I know the sly grin which begins on his face when I tell him to hurry up and get ready, that we have things to do.

I love the rapt expression he gets when staring at the computer. It's the same one he wears when he makes love to me. I love his fire, his intensity.