March 04, 2003 | 3:07 PM

I would like to make love to someone on a shoddy pin striped mattress with no sheets or blankets, surrounded by various sundries�empty wine bottles commingling with our discarded clothing and untied shoes all around us at eye level on the hardwood floor.

While laying beneath him on this mattress, our bodies tied up like lengths of licorice I would see right out the open window to the insides of abandoned factories. And then I would grasp his face in my hands and stare into his eyes and we would both stop moving, just being part of each other, enveloped and inside. We would not have to talk or kiss. Just be connected in that way. Eventually we would fall asleep as my hand drifted lazily up and down his back. On top of me, beneath him.

Still part of, still inside.