“French Canadian dad, Creole mom,” he explains. “But I don’t speak a word of French.”

“Your mom isn’t going to show up this time, is she?” I joke.

He smiles. “Nope.”

“Good,” I say, getting closer. “Then I can do this without being killed.”

I put everything into the kiss. All of the waiting, all of the desire. All of the today we have and the tomorrows we might not. I kiss him to tell him I’m here. I kiss him to tell him he’s here. I kiss him to connect us, to meld us, to propel us. And he kisses me back with all of these things, and something else I can’t identify. His arms around me, my arms around him, and both of us pulling, both of us pressing. His hands feeling me all over, giving me shape. No space between us. No space. Then I pull back a little to take off his coat, kick off my shoes. He kicks his off, too, and I lead him back, my mouth barely leaving his. I push him onto the bed. I’m pinning him down, we’re meeting in the middle—still fully clothed but not feeling clothed at all. I kiss his neck, his ear. He moves his hands up my sides, kisses my lips again. There is not a single part of me that doesn’t want this. I feel like I’ve been holding back my entire life, and now I’m letting go. Feeling under his shirt, following the trail to his chest. Keeping my hand there, feeling how hot the skin is. He is moaning and doesn’t even realize it. I don’t know his name and I don’t need to know his name because he is A, he is A, he is A, and he is with me now. We are sharing this. Finger across my breast, finger along my back. Kissing lightly, kissing deeply. Shirts off, skin on skin. The only sense I have left is feel. Lips on shoulder. Hand under the back of his waistband. Arm on arm. Leg against leg. Fast then slow. Fast. Then slow.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say back.

I lie on my back and he hovers over me. Finger along the side of my face. Side of his hand along my collarbone. I respond, tracing his shoulders, reaching down the valley of his back. I kiss his neck again. His ear. The space behind his ear.

There is nothing like this. In all the world, there is nothing like this.

“Where are we?” he asks.

“It’s a hunting cabin my uncle uses,” I explain. Even when I gave him directions, I didn’t tell him where he was going. “He’s in California now, so I figured it was safe to break in.”

He looks around. “You broke in?”

“Well, with the spare key.”

He lies back. I feel the center of his chest. The exact center. Then I move my hand to the right, heartbeat territory.

“That was quite a welcome,” he says, his own hands unable to leave my body.

“It’s not over yet,” I assure him, turning his way as he immediately turns mine.

Closeness. That’s what this is. Sex should have closeness.

Now there is closeness. Not just of our bodies. Of our beings. A is careful, but I am not careful. I don’t want anything between us. So I take off his clothes, and I take off my own. I want all of him, and I want him to have all of me. I want our eyes open. I want this to be what it’s supposed to be.

Naked and kissing. Naked and needing. Naked and here. Moving in the inevitable direction. Sometimes moving quickly, but then slowing down and taking our time. Enjoying it.

It is dangerous, because I will do anything. But I will only do anything because I know it’s not dangerous.

“Do you want to?” I whisper.

I feel him against me. The heat, the breath. I feel the momentum. I feel how right this is.

“No,” he says. “Not yet. Not now.”

Suddenly I feel the colder air around me. Suddenly I feel the world around me. I feel all the parts of it that aren’t us.

I tell myself he’s being considerate. I look at him and say, “Are you sure? I want to. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I want to. I…prepared.”

But he’s pulling back, too, now. One hand still holds my side, but the other settles in the small space between us. “I don’t think we should,” he says.

I say, “Okay,” even though it’s not, because I don’t understand.

“It’s not you,” he tells me. “And it’s not that I don’t want to.”

Exit dream, enter nightmare. “So what is it?” I ask.

“It feels wrong.”

He says it’s not me, but who else could it be? I’ve pushed it too far. He must think less of me.

“Let me worry about Justin,” I say. “This is you and me. It’s different.”

“But it’s not just you and me. It’s also Xavier.”

“Xavier?”

He points to his own body. “Xavier.”

“Oh.”

“He’s never done it before. And it just feels wrong…for him to do it for the first time, and not know it. I feel like I’m taking something from him if I do that. It doesn’t seem right.”

This seems more in line with the way the universe has treated me all my life. Send the perfect guy in the perfect body. But then make him a virgin whose first time I’ll be taking away without him knowing it. There’s no vocabulary in my head for dealing with this.

Closeness. I got so caught up in sex that I forgot what I was really after, what I really wanted. Even if we’re not going to have sex, I don’t have to give up on everything else.

That’s what I wind up telling myself.

After a spell of being only in my mind, I return back to my body and press it closer to his. Turning so we’re knees against knees, arms around backs, face to face.

“Do you think he would mind this?” I ask.

His body answers for him. I can feel the tension fall away. I can feel my welcome.

“I set an alarm,” I say. “So we can sleep.”

I roll over, and he presses his chest against my back, echoes his legs behind my legs. Gathering into a pocket of time, and refusing to leave it. Together, our bodies cool. Together, our breathing slows. Together, we feel unalone.

Our bodies can fit in so many different ways.

The current of sleep carries us at different wavelengths. Sometimes I wake and he’s asleep. Sometimes he must be the woken one. And other times, our wakefulness coincides, and we have brief conversations as we remain holding on.

“Are you he or she?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies.