At age 60, I’d given up hope that I would ever find my bashert, or even sleep with anyone again, as I was so set in my ways.
Because I’d lived alone for so long, I slept anxiously. Discerning sounds of a neighbor laughing out loud from a murder in progress was a survival skill. When my allergist told me I was inhaling mites from my pillows, that was the last straw — and the last down I ever deliberately inhaled.
Dangers during hours meant to be restorative undermined any sense of security. Was there no sanctuary for the informed?
I baked my bedding daily in the dryer to suck out bugs, had foam wedges to protect me from gravity, never drank after 6 p.m. so I could sleep through the night. Sippy cups, Tempur-Pedic pillows, lavender eye masks, knee dividers — worlds of merchandise cost me the money I hid under my hypoallergenic, latex mattress, as well as the intimacy I so desired.
Then, I was stunned to discover a doting daddy, a doll of a nice Jewish Ph.D. amid the wonders of cyberspace. On our first, four-hour date, he was slipping me the crispiest bits of his chicken, the nicest slice of his pie. He liked me, too!
Within weeks, our waking hours couldn’t contain our enthusiasm. It was time to take the next step and sleep together. Not to have sex, just to sleep.
“I’m shy,” I said, “ … about moving too fast.”
“Me, too, but our being together feels inevitable.”
“To be honest, I sleep in baggy, cotton stuff.”
“So do I,” he said.
“I’m a pillow-holic,” I giggled.
“Me, too,” he cried. “I have six.”
“I like ’em soft.”
“I like ’em hard.”
“I’m a morning person.”
“I’m … a night guy.”
“I’m a light sleeper.”
“I snore.”
“I have ear plugs.”
“I … have a sleep apnea machine!”
How could such daytime complementarity exist with such nighttime incompatibility? For two insomniacs with so much more daytime magic to explore, spending the night would be our Everest.
We embarked on the climb equipped with cotton T-shirts and shorts, and 2,000-thread-count sheets and crept onto his wall-to-wall, extra firm, California king. We had a lot of adjusting to do in the cuddle phase. Living alone, I hadn’t realized how bony I’d become. My ribs couldn’t tolerate his arm, my neck his shoulder, for more than a minute. My arm on his chest inhibited his rest, my leg over his made him claustrophobic.
On the third night, deliriously tired, I ear-plugged and blindfolded myself into sensory deprivation as he read under the prison floodlight sweeping his half of the acreage. With my manly bedmate on watch, I slept deeply — until he turned off the light and his breathing degenerated into snoring, punctuated by snorts of near suffocation.
Instead of being irked, I felt I had to stay awake so he wouldn’t die on me. I discovered that if I made successive kissing sounds I could stop his snore sequence and get intermittent rest.
We awoke and debriefed.
“Boy, do you snore!” I said.
“Well, you make these weird little sucking noises all night.”
Despite it all, we fell joyously in love. And within a year, he’d given up his sprawling king for his queen.
Things got harder as he got comfortable in my home. The sweetest man by day, by night, Stan was a sociopath. Gentle Jekyll would hide nocturnal Mr. Hyde until, drowsing into bed at 2, he’d head butt me comatose in his try for a goodnight kiss, clap my eardrums to bursting in his attempt to clasp my face to his, or kiss my eyeball, widened in panic, before it could flinch.
It’s a rodeo some nights, as I’ll roll him bucking onto his side to pin down his lurching legs, or he’ll fling his pillows from the bed, pull mine out from under my head, and roll over in the covers exposing me to frostbite. Or fling an arm and leg atop me and pin me to the mattress like a mummy, gazing at his digital clock as it clicks past my sleepless hours.
But there is so much to be grateful for.
Even unconscious, my man’s talented. His animal impersonations — trumpeting elephants, growling tigers, hidden kittens! He can honk like a donkey, or a flock of geese. He can whistle for a New York cab with one nostril stuffed. His coughs could open in “La Boheme” at the Met.
I love to touch his sleeping hand and have it clamp onto mine like a Venus flytrap, until it’s nearly gangrenous; the way he reaches for me, making out with a pillow until he locates me amid the covers.
Two years married, we awaken amazed by the creature comfort in which we live. My free-floating anxiety sinks in his ocean of devotion. There’s nothing that can warm my hands like his, my feet like his, my heart like his. Ours is a love for which it’s worth losing sleep.
Melanie Chartoff has acted off and on Broadway, and starred in many TV series. She appears in the upcoming film “Alexander IRL,” opening Oct.17.
