I’m snuggled under a blanket on the couch, my head in Garrett’s lap, and he’s playing with my hair, brushing strands back from my forehead in a repetitive movement that has me drifting toward sleep as the movie credits roll. The roaring nerves from before have subsided to a dull hum in my chest. I’m warm, and I don’t ever want to move again.

He points the remote at the TV, and the room goes dark and silent. I wait for him to say something, to give me some indication that he wants me to stay, but he remains quiet, even stops stroking my hair. I sit up hesitantly, the couch leather protesting against my movement with a rubbery sound. “Well…thanks for dinner again,” I say, sliding my feet back into my flip-flops. I don’t want to appear eager, or like I’m overstaying my welcome.

His angular profile is silhouetted against the dim light of the street lamp shining through the curtained window behind him. He shifts toward me in the dark, and then I feel the feathery touch of his hand on my thigh. I gasp like he’s shocked me—and maybe he has, a little—and then cringe at the sound; I hate what it tells him, hate that I’m as easy to read as a picture book.

He moves closer. His lips touch my neck. The minty clean scent hovers about him as though he’s fresh out of the shower, and I hold my breath and try not to gasp again, try not to show him just how desperate I am for him to want me. I feel like my arms are pinned again, but really I’m just frozen, unable to give more than a silent offering of myself.

“Relax,” he whispers against my neck, and the tickle of his breath unfurls me, melts me backward until my head is resting on the plush arm of the couch. He melts with me, his lips brushing my skin, and it’s so simple the way he’s touching me, his fingers in my hair and his mouth on my neck, little unhurried caresses—simple, but nerve endings are lighting up all the way down to my toes.

I reach my hands around his neck, tentative and uncertain. He kisses me on the mouth with the same dry, open-lipped kiss from before, and again I want to snake my tongue between his lips. I’m panting so hard I might as well be screaming at him to fuck me. I can control what my tongue does, but the panting can’t be helped.

He pulls his thigh up between my legs as he’s kissing me, and the pressure of his leg there—it’s such a nothing move, but it’s killing me, the subtlety of it, just his leg pressed between mine while he brushes his lips against my lips and lets me pant into his mouth. Other guys I’ve slept with were too eager, only in it for themselves, rubbing their hardness right into my crotch, frantic for contact. But Garrett…well, that’s just it: he doesn’t need me. He knows where to touch me, how to touch me, how to make me beg, for fuck’s sake, but he could just as easily do without me.

I widen my legs for him.

“Did I give you something to think about last week?” he murmurs. His lips bend into a smile against my mouth.

I move my hands over his muscled back, pulling him closer. “You know damn well you did.” I mean it to come out full voice, I mean it to sound sexy, but my words are timid, barely a whisper. My arms, draped around his neck, have already begun shaking.

“Excellent.” He pulls my T-shirt over my head and lowers himself to me, kissing my neck again, kissing down my chest and then pulling the cups of my bra down until my breasts are bared. His mouth is on my nipple then, sucking in a way that awakens a throbbing in my groin. God, he’s going to kill me. I moan, arch into him, and once more I feel him smiling against my skin, reveling in my arousal.

He reaches a hand between my legs and slides a finger up under the hem of my shorts, and then he’s inside me. “You want me?” he whispers, and I almost scream Yes!, but I grit my teeth around the word and it comes out as a hiss.

He pulls his finger out of me and kisses my stomach, then abruptly stands and scoops me up in his arms, bride-over-the-threshold style, and carries me down the hallway to his room. I’m curious what his room looks like, but I can’t see anything but shadows in the gloom. He lowers me until I feel the bed against my backside and he’s over me again with his mouth on my neck and chest. He’s kissing and licking above my bra cups where my breasts are crudely exposed, and then my hands are reaching for him, tugging and grabbing, and he helps me pull his shirt over his head. I run my fingers all over his chiseled chest and stomach, this perfect statue of a man. How is it possible that he sees something in me? That he wants me? Does he want me? He brought you to his room, idiot. Yes, he wants you.

He takes a minute to undo my shorts and slide them off along with my thong, then pulls off his own pants and underwear. I reach down and take his hardness in my hand, amazed at how he is simultaneously rock hard but also so smooth, how even the skin of his genitals, like everything else about him, is so clean. He really is like Superman, made of steel, right down to his manhood. But, also like Superman, there is a pureness about him. I try to guide him inside of me but he says, “Wait, slow,” and I flush all over, embarrassed again about moving too fast.

He lowers his pelvis until he is between my legs, the length of him pressed against my wetness, but still he moves without penetrating, back and forth, dragging himself along my clitoris until I’m trembling and whimpering, ready to come. I spread my legs wider, inviting him, pleading with my body. Eager. Too Eager. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness I can see him hovering over me, watching me with such intensity it makes me dizzy. I’m overwhelmed by him, every part of him. I’m sure it must be written all over my face.

“Beg,” he says, and I think Can’t you see I’m begging already? but I understand now that this is how it will be with Garrett. He’ll drive me half mad with desire and make me grovel every time. I don’t think I’m supposed to be aroused by this, yet I am—and the throb between my legs is stronger than it was when Garrett had me up on his counter.

“Please,” I say, but the word comes out shy, stifled by the weight of my vulnerability.

“That’s it?” He stops moving against me, and I have to take a few breaths to gather my courage.

“Please don’t stop. Please.” My voice sounds desperate now, breathy and shrill, on the verge of whining. What can I say to get him to give me more? “I want your cock,” I say, experimenting with words I’ve never said to anyone despite all my sleeping around. “I want it. I want you inside me.” My words are sex—I’m practically fucking myself with my own voice. I reach down to grab Garrett, to guide him, but he catches me by the wrist and pins my arm over my head. My nipples shrivel in response to my defenselessness, tightening and tingling the skin of my chest. “Please, fuck me, Garrett. I need to feel your cock inside me.”

Holy fuck, my voice.

He gives me a satisfied smile and then releases me. I start to grab for him, to pull him back to me, but I hear a drawer opening, a tearing sound that tells me he’s putting on a condom, and now I feel stupid, because aren’t I supposed to insist on that? I’d gotten so heated I wasn’t even thinking about protection. Even now I’m pawing at his arms, impatient to have him inside me. Then he’s over me again, finally, and I feel him pressing against my opening, but he’s going slow, so agonizingly slow. Goddammit. I lift my hips, trying to take him into me, but he resists, always so…controlled.

“Please,” I beg again. “Fuck me.” I’m breaking apart. I think I’m really going to break apart, I’m going to lose it, I’m going to cry. “Give me your cock, please,” I try one last time, and the words stumble from my mouth in a breathless whisper, my face—every inch of my skin—smoldering at my shameless desperation. One hot little tear escapes the corner of my eye. This is too much. Too much.

“Beautiful,” Garrett says, and I don’t know if he means I’m beautiful or if my begging, my agony, is beautiful to him.

You’re actually very pretty when you cry…

He sinks into me, fills me, still so slow, pulling out almost all the way every time he draws back and then burying himself until he’s pressed against my clitoris again. “Keep begging until I make you come,” he says. “I want to hear you beg for it.”

I do as he says. And by the time he is done with me, I am destroyed.

---

He lets me stay. We brush our teeth together—me with a brand-new toothbrush Garrett had stashed under the sink that makes me wonder if he’s planned the whole night in advance.

I can’t stop shaking. I’m freezing in one of Garrett’s T-shirts and my new thong underwear he never even looked at, my nipples poking out the fabric of the white T, goose bumps covering my arms and legs. I look over at Garrett, who is brushing his teeth as thoroughly as I would expect from someone with such fresh breath, and he returns my glance with a smile in his eyes. He’s shirtless, but his skin is buttery-smooth. No goose bumps.

We climb into bed together and I align my body with his, pressing my warmth-starved flesh against him, trying to stop shivering. My insides are buzzing again with a queer unease; I can’t tell if I’m thrilled to be in his bed or terrified of how brief my time in it will be.

“I have to practice tomorrow,” I tell him. He’s lying on his back now, his arm under my head like a pillow, and I’m facing him on my side, finally starting to warm up. “Early. I’m meeting with that study group in the afternoon.” I wonder if Rome has invited anyone else. He said he would, but I keep forgetting to ask him about it.

“That’s fine. I’m an early riser. Planning to do a long run tomorrow.”

“How far is a long run?” I skate my finger up the ravine that divides his abdomen into its pretty, perfect little blocks.

His shoulder shrugs beneath my head. “Ten to fifteen miles.”

“Geez. I don’t think I could run one mile.” My finger skates down the ravine.

“Of course you could. The key is to take it slow. I could easily train you.”

I smile. Running sounds terrible, but extra time with Garrett… “Would you want to, though?” I say. My heart trips over itself because I realize I’ll be crushed if he says no. I don’t want him to know this, though; I make my finger keep skating nonchalantly along over his skin, as if a few extra hours per week with him is something I could take or leave.

“Yes, I would.” Hallelujah. He clears his throat. “You would have to get up early, though. Otherwise the day becomes too hot and your body wastes energy trying to stay cool.”

“Well, I guess I could get up early if it meant hanging out with you.”

“It’s not hanging out.” His tone is sharp now, almost admonishing. “It will be grueling. You will hate me by the end of the run.”

“I doubt I could ever hate you.” I let my hand fall to rest on his stomach.

“Don’t stop,” he whispers. “It feels so good.”

I snicker. “Beg.”

“Please, please, oh, don’t stop!” He turns on his side to tickle me and suddenly we’re wrestling under the covers and I’m squealing with laughter, kicking at him and trying to push his hands away from my ticklish middle. He stops just before I’m genuinely uncomfortable, and we settle back down, slightly out of breath, so I can resume my tracing.

He gives a deep, contented sigh, and I think, I made him sigh like that. Me. A rush of warmth begins in my abdomen, spreading outward until even my ears are ringing with the feeling. It’s that same sort of overwhelming rightness I felt when we swam with the manatees—that sense that Garrett is suturing my jagged pieces, that he’s done something to heal me. I’m smitten with him, or…in love, maybe. No, not love. This is way too fast. But oh, I can’t take it—I hug my arm around him and bury my face in the side of his chest.

“What?” he asks, resting a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m so…” I can’t go on. I’ve exposed myself so much already. What do I have left? How much more vulnerable can I be?

“What is it?” he asks, his voice soft and concerned. He turns on his side so that he’s facing me, his blue eyes piercing me through, even in the dark.

“I’m so happy. God. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy,” I tell him, and then I’m blushing all over, half-trembling with the awful confession. Gushing my stupid feelings like he gives a shit. I sound pathetic.

He strokes my hair. “I love that you told me that.”

I squeeze him until my arms grow sore and my grip finally slackens. I’m getting hazy, slipping from consciousness, when he asks quietly, “The other day, when you said that your mom died…”

I open my eyes, dreading the question, waiting for him to go on.

“May I ask what happened?” His voice is polite; the aural equivalent of a tiptoe.

But I feel my body slacken even more, wilting like a flower. “Yeah…she…uh, she committed suicide.”

His shoulder tenses beneath my cheek, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pry. I think he wants to know—I think he intends the silence to be the space where I can set my story. But only if I want to.

“I feel like I should say what everyone else kept saying when it happened,” I tell him, my voice low, “which is that my mother ‘took her own life.’ But I hate that phrase, Garrett, I really do. It’s a bullshit euphemism for a cruel, horrific, irreversible act. ‘She took her own life’ implies that life is a tangible, returnable thing, something you can hold in your hands, something you can pack up in a picnic basket, mount on a bike, and ride away with, and then, after a nice picnic, you can return it.” Hot tears are rolling down my cheeks and onto Garrett’s chest, but he makes no move to wipe them away. “My mother didn’t ‘take her life.’ She fucking killed herself. She’s gone. No more picnics for her.” I brush my tears from Garrett’s chest. My face is still wet.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.” The room is so quiet it’s like even the walls pity me. “Did anyone realize she was depressed, or was it a surprise?”

I grimace. “Suicide is never not a surprise, Garrett. Never. But yes, she had been depressed for years.”

“My question was insensitive.” His voice is rough with contrition. “I apologize.”

“It’s okay. It’s a difficult subject for people to talk about.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes, and his breath deepens and becomes more even. I think he’s almost asleep. “My dad made her do it,” I hear myself whispering. They are words I have never, ever spoken aloud.

His breath hitches, and I know he’s listening again. “How?”

My pulse thuds thickly in my temples, heavy but faint, like a giant approaching from afar. And then I tell Garrett what I’ve never told anyone. How it started with low-level offenses—vague, passive-aggressive remarks about my mother’s parenting, her housekeeping, her intelligence. How month after month, year by year, my father upped the intensity. I tell Garrett what Liza believes: that for my father, manipulating my mother was a game. How far could he push her? He persisted until the night she locked herself in our apartment’s tiny bathroom. Liza and I had been doing our homework by lamplight, only half-focused, trading jokes about a popular girl who’d made a comment about my hand-me-down outfit. Then my father was jimmying open the bathroom door, the noise of it drawing Liza and I out into the hallway.

“Would one of you girls dial 9-1-1?” he said, though at this point I could still see only his shirtless back, his jeans, his hairy bare feet. “Your mother has gone and killed herself.” He was blocking the bathroom door, but I could look between the cracks, between his arm and torso, between the place where his silhouette ended and the doorjamb began—and my gaze zoomed in on her like a telephoto lens, etching into permanent memory that porcelain-white tub, the top of her head, and her knees sticking up out of the red water like mangroves. The long chopping knife bleeding onto the dingy linoleum floor as if it were she who had cut the knife and not the other way around. And then Liza threw up all over the hallway carpet, so I had to be the one to call 9-1-1 and tell them my mother was dead.

I talk for so long that I’m sure Garrett has drifted to sleep listening to me. But I don’t care. It’s been too long since I faced it, too long since I had a good cry, and Garrett, with his uncanny ability to sew me up and pull me apart at the same time, he’s made me feel like it’s okay to let it all spill out, even if he’s fallen asleep while I do it.

But he’s not asleep. He turns so he’s on his side facing me now and pushes my hair back from my face. Some of the strands are wet from my tears. He kisses me, slow and soft and deep, like he’s drawing the pain right up out of me. Then his hands slide down my torso, to my waist, around to my backside, pulling me closer, and I wrap a leg around him and pull him to me, my heart swelling at his compassion. He takes me again, as skillfully as before, but this time he does not ask me to beg.