“But I’ll be late for the fair!” I object. “It takes an hour on the tube.”
“I’ll drive you later. You’re mine now. I’ve waited so long for this moment, I don’t want to give up even a second of it.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes,” I insist, resisting his hands.
“Go naked, the stand will be mobbed.”
“Would you really like the whole fair to see me like that?”
He scrutinizes me with a long lascivious look, in which I read all his bad intentions. “On second thought, no, that’s a privilege I should reserve for myself.”
“Then I’ll need a change of clothes.”
“You could skip today. Foliero’s there,” he insists with a kiss, his caresses also succeeding in their intent to convince me.
“But I can’t,” I reply with difficulty. “I have to go now.”
But when I feel him inside me, my last glimmer of reason is extinguished. “Are you sure?” he murmurs in my ear, his pelvis still as I writhe with the need to feel him move.
“Michael ...” My voice is barely a whisper.
“Are you really sure?” he tortures me by pushing deeper inside, and the moan he manages to extract from me provokes a smile that announces his victory.
“To hell with it! We can stop at H&M.”
Thanks to Michael’s inexhaustible imagination, the shower lasts longer than I could have possibly predicted, and now, even afterward, we keep playing with abandon: I shave him, he dries my hair, I tie his tie, and he ties my dress.
“I’m hungry,” I say, returning to the living area, the kitchen counter as we left it last night. “Shall we make breakfast?”
But when I open the fridge, I’m disappointed to find only bottles of water, wine, beer, Gatorade, and protein bars.
Even the cupboards are bare. “Sorry, Michael, don’t you have anything to eat?”
He shrugs as he absentmindedly scrolls through incoming emails on his phone. “No. I usually eat out.”
“Really?”
He looks at me with an expression of pure innocence. “I wasn’t joking when I said we were inaugurating the kitchen. Until yesterday, I’d never even turned on the vent.”
“Okay, so I guess flour and milk are out of the question too.”
“But I have this,” he says, opening a door and taking out a mocha. “I can’t drink coffee from the machine anymore.”
“Better than nothing, but I have to eat something; otherwise, I’ll pass out. Is there a café nearby where we can go?”
“There’s no need; we can order in on the app. What would you like? Sweet or savory? Why am I even asking? I’ll get a bit of everything,” and in two clicks, he sends the order.
We use the delivery time to continue our exchange of affections, which, if it weren’t for the buzz on the intercom, would have become inappropriate for minors.
We dive into the avocado toast, and between one bite and another, I look around, noticing details I hadn’t seen last night when I was wrapped up in Michael.
One thing in particular strikes me: On one of the shelves there’s a framed black-and-white close-up of a beautiful girl. It seems like a very personal photo, and even though I trust Michael and the fact that there’s no one else but me, if he keeps a photo like that in his house, then that person must have been important to him.
I don’t know if I’d be able to hold up against an immortal beloved. In the end, I give in to my fears and ask him. “Who’s she?”
“She who?”
“The girl in the photo.”
