I think it’s the gift of being us. We’ve expected, examined, chased each other’s instincts on the page so often we’ve internalized them. We write like we’re one. Now, we’re moving like we’re one.
“Yeah,” she pants, nodding. “Fuck.”
I laugh while I figure out why this is funny, pausing only to join her in quick, deep kisses. “I’m glad we agree on the word choice,” I say.
She grins, then pretends to contemplate, leaving me to continue kissing her neck. “Hmm,” she says. “Now I’m not sure. Could we try a few synonyms?”
“I’ll have you trying plenty of synonyms when I get these off,” I say, tugging her underwear up teasingly from her hip. She laughs, spontaneous and real, and it’s the greatest sound I’ve ever heard. It makes me crush her to me, feeling her small body shake with the echoes of humor and delight—which of course change to a pleased whimper when skin meets skin down the whole length of our chests.
She pulls away from me. From the spark in her eyes I know instantly she’s not done with the joke. “No elaborate metaphors, okay?” she demands. “When you talk dirty to me, I want it normal. No trying to win the Pulitzer Prize. Just sexy. Got it?”
“Good note,” I reply with faux-fancy respectfulness, imitating the tone everyone would use in creative writing courses. “Just sexy. I’ll workshop it in.”
“Yeah.” Kat nods. “Workshop it in, Van Huysen.”
We’ve separated for this repartee, her fingers still interwoven with one of my hands while my other holds the inside of her thigh. Her eyes smolder into mine.
I feel the moment when we realize we really, really want to return to kissing. We rush forward with new fevered intensity, everything sweeter for the pause. She reclines flat on the comforter, her hair splaying out while I shower her with kisses, over her collarbone, her stomach, the upper hem of her underwear.
I feel dizzy. Dizzy from the impossibility of the dream I’ve walked into, from how this passion is past every romantic scene we’ve written together. This is what’s left out of the idiom. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction, but sometimes it’s incomparable in other ways. Sometimes it’s a heaven that the false fire of imagination could never capture.
The strip of smooth skin between Katrina’s hip bones and the tops of her legs isn’t just real. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever felt, forcing me to run my hands over it once, twice, up her thighs, before hooking my thumb in her underwear to drag them off. She responds, exhaling unconsciously, tipping her head up.
Then she’s pushing herself back toward the pillows, hurriedly. I remember the conversation we had four years ago, writing Only Once, on precisely this subject. The first time . . . she’d said. After all the waiting, I wouldn’t want to wait longer.
I move fast, shucking off my shorts and underwear, practically vaulting to position myself over her. “Um—” she interjects quickly.
“I know. No metaphors,” I exhale.
“No.” She puts one hand on my upper chest. I look up. I feel like she holds my entire world in the dark pools of her gorgeous eyes. “Do you have a condom?”
I digest the question, worried for a moment—I do not want to put this on pause, although for her I obviously would. “Yeah,” I say, remembering.
Katrina nods. Her expression doesn’t change. “Get it,” she instructs me. Part of me notes how perfectly Kat the request is. It’s like her writing. Direct, efficient. I love her for it.
I’m suddenly enormously grateful for this thought. I love her for it.
I love her.
“Hold on,” I say. I scrounge in my shorts for my wallet, unfolding the scuffed leather to pull out the single wrapped condom inside. Flush with relief, I return to her, half kneeling on the bed while I open the wrapper. I’m surprised when she reaches forward.
“I want to,” she says. She grasps the latex in her fingers.
Wordlessly, I nod. She does.
I reach one hand to gently sweep her hair from her cheek. The other runs the length of her—the mesmerizing reality of her, from the slope of her breast to the stretch of her exposed side to the curves farther down. I feel charged, unsteady. I’m not in control, and every single second my eyes wander over the soft subtleties of her naked body, I’m pushed further past myself. Her hand lingers on me, and then she reclines once more while I position myself over her.
She looks up, her lips parted softly, her eyes saying now.