That’s illusion. Reality is two people who care deeply about each other, getting to know each other as intimately as possible, and it’s full of sounds and awkward movements and occasional strained laughter. It took us a bit to get past the shaky, nervous part, but when we did, we found that our bodies moved together as easily, hungrily, and passionately as our minds.

When I used to daydream about losing my virginity, I always thought I’d put on a show when I had sex for the first time, be the femme fatale, dazzling, wild, and most definitely on top. I’d rock his world and not think about mine. I’d impress because that’s what I do, I impress because I’m never sure people will like me otherwise.

None of that mattered with Dancer.

He was already impressed with me and I got to be just who I was, and it was slow and easy and beautiful. And it was clumsy at times and so damned personal and vulnerable and he slid his long length over my body and rocked himself into me gently and with exquisite care, cradling my head, staring into my eyes the entire time.

And when we found our rhythm and he moved inside me, I started to cry and couldn’t stop.

Not sloppy.

Just silent tears rolling down my cheeks.

I stared up at him and he looked down and he started to cry, too, and without saying a word, we both understood why the other was crying.

No matter how much time we had with each other, it would be too short, because he could die or I could die, or we could both live a century and it still wouldn’t be long enough. He was just good, and with him, so was I, and life lost all its sharp, dangerous edges when we were together.

I cried because I’d never felt so much emotion in my life. I cried for my mom, who never once felt safe and maybe never knew this kind of moment. She knew the other kind, the ones that demean and leave you emptier than you began. I cried for everything I’d lost. I cried for his heart and the world. I touched the tears glittering in his long dark eyelashes, caught and kissed them then kissed him with the salty tang of both our tears on our tongues.

Then neither of us was crying but our eyes were locked, wide with wonder, as he moved faster and deeper and my body trembled around him and my orgasm made a kaleidoscope inside my skull. I didn’t just come with my body, the explosion of so much sensation did something to my head, too. As if it was injecting an incredible chemical into my brain and suddenly I was no longer shorted out and I started to vibrate and we both looked at each other, startled, then he started to growl and I realized what my vibrating was doing to him and I started to laugh and so did he, but he was growling and gasping, too, and he shook on top of me and threw his head back and groaned and sort of roared and it was the best sound I’ve ever heard—Dancer, free and happy and totally alive.

I held him afterward, cradling his head to my chest, smiling because I had some really cool tricks I could do and I couldn’t wait to explore all of them with him.

I drifted a bit then and so did he, and as I was floating in that dreamy place he said softly against my ear, “I see you, Yi-yi.”

“I see you, too, Dancer.”

We killed the clocks that night.

It stretched impossibly long, as if, just for us, time stood still. We made love over and over, trying anything and everything during those long hours of him kissing me all over, touching me with just the right amount of reverence and lust, and some part of me was reborn. Something I hadn’t even understood had died a long, long time ago. It was young and new and would need nurturing but it was there.

Deep in my core, that nameless thing found a way to be, shifted and settled into place like a bone wrenched from its socket long ago. I had no idea what it was but I’d figure it out eventually.

No thinking tonight. Just feeling. While my long-held suspicion about brainy men was proved true. Dancer had the inventive imagination of a geek, zero inhibitions, and the lusty hunger of a man that lived each day with full awareness of his own mortality.

Brainy is the new sexy.

When I woke to the mid-morning sun slanting in the windows across our bed, his breathing was rough and labored and he was gasping in his sleep.

This was what he’d never let me see.

The bad times.

These were the days he’d overtaxed his heart, gone into hiding from me so I would never know that he thought he wasn’t man enough for me.

I’d never once asked where he’d gone or why, telling myself friends didn’t ask questions because they required answers and requirements were cages. Told myself he’d just wanted time alone. Like me.

But now I knew all those days I’d been freeze-framing around the city, burning off my boundless energy and steam, he’d been lying in a bed somewhere, trying to gather enough strength just to get back out of it. Alone or with those friends he’d permitted to know about his problem and see him that way. Perhaps Caoimhe had been with him, bringing him food, making sure he survived.

I drew reassurance from those times, because it meant it had been happening for a while. And that meant it could continue to happen. And maybe he would live a whole life this way and I could deal with that. But I sure wasn’t going to be having sex with him five times in a single night anymore. We were going to have to pace ourselves. And maybe I shouldn’t vibrate either.

I placed my palms gently against his chest and tried to will some of my strength into him. I closed my eyes and imagined beams of light bathing his heart in healing.

But the power to heal isn’t one of my super strengths, and he woke up, sat up, and leaned back against the headboard. We sat together and held hands and waited for him to feel better.