I guess I don’t, you said. I travel a lot. I’m not here that much.
“Then where’s home?”
Something strange crossed your face, and I wondered for the first time and not the last if there were as many layers to you as there are to me. You tapped at your solar plexus. Right here, I guess.
I found that oddly sad but didn’t say so.
My place is the opposite of yours, messy where yours is neat, warm where yours is cool. Big furniture, bought for comfort, pillows and throw blankets for maximum softness. Like the fluffy white down of my comforter where we find ourselves now. It ensconces us.
Our lovemaking has changed over the last week. What was gentle, exploratory, considerate—is this okay? Are you okay?—has become urgent, hungrier. There has been a shift in its pitch, a change in vibration.
Your arm around my back is powerful, your breath on my neck a growl, deep and desperate. Then you’re so deep inside me that I let out a cry, half pain, half pleasure. You don’t stop. It’s wild and raw as we wrap around each other, and I come alive with desire, with pleasure.
You breathe my name. Wren. Oh, God. Wren.
I hear your passion, your helplessness; it’s an echo of my own. Each time we make love I feel like I know you better, as if you’ve revealed another layer of yourself without saying a word.
When we’re done, and we are only our breath and the darkness, I think you’ve drifted off to sleep. But then you shift, close your arms around me, and whisper, “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”
Up to this moment, I’ve measured everything I’ve shared with you. I’ve given myself over in pieces, slivers of truth, layers of self, curated memories, only the most banal likes and dislikes. But there are things I’ve hidden. It hasn’t been necessary to bare all; relationships these days rarely last. I can’t afford to give all of myself away to someone who may ghost me without a moment’s notice.
Does he know? Jax asked when I confessed how much I liked you.
No, I told her.
When will you tell him?
Now, I think. This is the moment. Tell now or it becomes a lie, something I’ve hidden. So, in the warmth of your embrace, in the dark of the hours after midnight, I tell you something I’ve never told anyone else.
four
“Can I see you tonight?”
You always ask this, nearly every morning, as if it’s not a foregone conclusion.
“Of course,” I always answer.
You’re already dressed in fresh clothes from your overnight bag. When I woke just a little while ago, I heard the shower running. Glancing at the clock, I saw that you were running late and that I had slept in. It was a long night with us talking and talking, until finally I must have drifted off. The memories, the things I’ve told you, they cling. I regret it in the light of the day. The night made me feel safe. In the morning glow I feel exposed. Shame, it tingles all over my skin.
“I want to ask you something tonight,” you say, fastening your belt at your trim waist.
“Ask me now.”
You shake your head, smile wanly. “Impatient thing.”
I roll over on my side, prop myself up on my elbow, and watch you as you pull a brush through your wet hair, your large frame filling the mirror over the dresser. Your hair is thick and wild, the envy of any woman. But when you look at your reflection, it’s with a critical frown.
“Where and when?” I ask.
“There’s a place I want to try in the Village. I’ll text you the address.”
When you come to sit beside me on the bed, you smell of sage and mint.
“Thank you,” you say.
“For what?”
“For sharing yourself with me. You won’t regret it.”
“Run while you can,” I quip with a confidence I don’t feel.
You kiss me long and deep, then reluctantly pull away, hand lingering on my hip.
“I’m late,” you say with a groan. “See you tonight.”
And then you’re gone, and I am alone with my confession, my past, all the voices in my head.
I spend the day working, my escape hatch, the place where I bury myself and all my own problems. The day passes quickly. You don’t call at lunch, but around two in the afternoon I get a text with the address, a restaurant I don’t know.
My stomach flutters with butterflies, as if it’s our very first date. Maybe in a way it is. Because now you know.
What do you want to ask me, Adam?
I arrive at the restaurant, butterflies reaching a crescendo.
The space is dark and glittery. Private booths and candle-lit tables. A golden buddha sits in the center of a dark fountain where lotus flowers float. I look for you, but I don’t see you.