1.

Out of all four seasons, summer is the least inviting to love.

2.

You think your girlfriend looks beautiful, no matter what she wears, but there is something soft and wonderful about her body when she is naked. No fabric pulls or restrains her body, no polyester to support her breasts, no elastic waistbands to dig into her skin; she shines a different kind of light. When you gaze at her, that shy smile follows and you can practically see her confidence grow tender roots – with time, these will grow, but you must give them time.

Summer is a season for wanting to be naked, and yearning to be touched. In the winter, your overpriced apartment barely has enough heat to sustain a good, hour-long fuck, without the pressing need to hide under the piles of blankets. Summer would be, should be, could be perfect for it.

But the air is sticky and damp, making heavy bodies feel even heavier. Yours, with which you had such a loving relationship until of late, has not become an unrecognisable enemy. Your breasts, too sweaty; your legs too swollen, your belly too big. You are reassured that it is all attractive. You are told that your body does not have to meet unattainable standards of beauty in order to be worthy, and you needn’t beautify your acceptance of it in order for it to work.

Your rolls are not victorious, your stretch marks aren’t battle scars, your thighs are not to crush the head of the enemy with. Your body exists, it occupies space, and it is worthy of respect.

You find it easier to accept these truth as self-evident when they are about her, than when they are meant to be about you.

3.

Depression is an ugly weight to drag along, and there is no way to put lipstick on it in hopes that it will go away. You can discuss it, you can despise it, or you can try to work with it. There’s no need to embrace it; depression is like summer air, sickly sweet and heavy, doing nobody any good. Better go with ice cream instead.

You wish summer was less hard on the body.

How can a season be so revered and so welcomed by so many, when all it does is:

Forces you to take down protective layer after protective layer to be able to withhold the heat in some way.

Reminds you that there is always a goal you should be aiming at – the bikini body, the weightless nymph: occupy little, bother no-one, and decorate well if possible.

Stops you from enjoying your body as it is, love it as it is, let someone else love it even better, because it’s too fucking hot, don’t touch me.

4.

Healthy Tips to A Summer Fuck:

a. You are going to sweat. Accept it.

b. You will feel the bedsheets stick to your back, the backs of your knees wetter than your pussy, the insidious way skin has of snagging where you least want it. Accept it. Laugh, and move on.

c. You will remember, two seconds after coming, that you love having a body, even if it’s in the summer. And someone – she – loves it even more. But there’s no glowing aftermath, it’s too hot for that, please roll as far away as possible.

d. Hydrate, feel great.

5.

Summer makes the body and the mind slow. The thing that summer forgets is that summer holidays, for those who can afford to even take them, only last two weeks at most. But the asshole has no care for that; you’re supposed to be in a stroll-on-a-beach mood from June to August.

Summer in a big city is a vile affair. The lack of air gets more pressing, and you start to be angry at the noise and the pollution, you start to take it out on yourself and on her.

Summer is easiest kept at bay by kisses, deep and hungry, lips cool from the iced tea she drank, the ice-cream she ate.

6.

Oh, holy fuck, the beauty of a summer thunderstorm.

Throw the windows wide open, let the draft run through the entire flat, and crash into each other over, and over, and over until the rain has had its fill and so have you.

Nothing better than summer rain.

7.

This, you believe, is a season that has been re-designed to hate you.

You have decided to fight it back, by loving yourself as much as you can, in spite of summer.

You steal quickies in the morning, curtains drawn shut and room still cool from the night. You put on rain sounds every evening to fall asleep to something other than the traffic outside. You gorge on ice-cream, ice-tea, and fruit. You touch her as often as you can, kiss her bare skin, kiss her clothes-covered skin, kiss her.

You anchor yourself in this feeling, that when you can touch and be touched, the shape that your body is in the mirror becomes irrelevant. Your body is redesigned by foreign and familiar fingers, your body is mapped out anew by a teasing tongue, your body feels rooted and grounded and yours.

You could avoid mirrors, but you don’t ever want to avoid her touch.

Sticky skin is a price you’re willing to pay for a little corner of paradise.

8.

Of all four seasons, you think summer is the one most designed to test us.

But if you’re resilient and you are kind, you pull through.

The thunderstorms will be your reward.

Paula Geanau currently lives in London, and enjoys a good whinge about its noisy streets. She writes when there is silence. (This does not happen often.) Twitter: @PaulaGeanau

Image: Body Heat by Garry Knight (Creative Commons)