We had never really watched TV together because what would Magnus find interesting? Definitely not the Walking Dead. Probably not even Friends. Or the Office. He would have no context. I wondered about trying old school like The Lucy Show, but thought the vintage aspects might be confusing. So I chose SpongeBob. I figured it was silly, and there wasn’t an intricate storyline to follow.

I leaned back on the pillows and Magnus laid his head on a pillow on my lap, curled on his side. “Explain it tae me then?”

“He’s a sponge under the ocean, and that’s his friend, the starfish, Patrick.”

“Such as the ones on the wall downstairs?”

“Just like that, except this one talks. And that’s Squidward. He hates them and — just watch, try to enjoy the silliness of it. Oh and SpongeBob works at a hamburger restaurant. You’ll see.” First joke and I was giggling much more than the joke called for.

By the third joke Magnus was laughing too. At one point I paused the show to giggle. “You came forward in time three hundred years, and the best of culture I’m showing you is SpongeBob!” I laughed so hard I started to cry. It was a relief to be happy-crying instead of sad.

Magnus turned his back to the TV and watched me laugh.

He laughed at me while I laughed at the show, and then I laughed at him while he laughed at me. “You art funnier than the show.”

“Really?” I snorted and beer dripped from my nose. Then I giggled more.

Magnus laughed at me more, and we sat together laughing at each other for a long, long time.

Finally I ended with “phew!” and we quieted. “I’m super stoned.”

He said, “If that is what tis called, then me as well.” He raised the beer to his lips and drank.

“Promise me you won’t leave me when I’m high like this.”

“I promise. But you canna stay high tae keep me here.”

“I promise.” I turned SpongeBob back on. “Just tonight, so we can think about something else.”

“Och aye, tis good.” He leaned forward and kissed me, his lips wet with beer and warm breath and sexy uncontrollable desire. He rose, pulled me by the ankles down flat on the bed, and climbed on my body. We kissed for a long time. It was so sensual, kissing him tasting and licking. It all felt good and new and slow and patient and lasted for a long, long luxurious time. The SpongeBob episode ended, and a new one started. Magnus climbed down my body to kiss my belly. Then he blew into my skin making a fart sound, and we both giggled hysterically. He held me around my hips, his stubbled cheek nestled in the soft area of skin on my pelvis. I giggled, my hand on the back of his head.

He looked up at me and smiled, then lowered farther down and blew, making another silly noise between my legs. I giggled a lot. He said, “You make sounds like the sponge.”

I caught my breath. “You’re so romantic.”

Then he kissed me there, for the first time. My back arched, my head grew dizzy.

“Och aye, I dinna know this.”

I managed to gasp, “What?”

“That tae kiss ye here makes ye wiggle and squirm ev’n more.” He nuzzled into me. “Was a secret I am just now learning.”

I gasped, “No secrets,” and then I careened away, lost in the moment, in him, in our room. And after he finished with me, I introduced him to his own secrets, in turn, giggling and silly, and then serious, and oh so feeling good, SpongeBob flickering quietly in the background.