Page 45

"Off," he says. His fingers hook the waistband of my sweats. The command voice. The Pavlovian response that I don't understand yet, the way his voice drops and my body goes liquid.

My sweats come off. His boxer briefs come off. Bean lifts her head, noticed the movement, puts her head back down. The twelve-pound chaperone unbothered.

Skin to skin. The full length of us, face to face, his body against mine. His cock is hard against my hip. Mine is hard against his. The contact sends a pulse through my stomach, my thighs, the muscles in my lower back that are still sore from last night.

His hand wraps around both of us. Together. The grip is firm, his fingers long enough to hold us both, and the sensation of his cock against mine inside his fist makes my hips jerk forward.

"Stay still." His mouth against mine while his hand moves. "Let me."

I stay still. My body shaking with the effort of not moving. His hand stroking us both, the friction building, his cock hot against mine, the pressure concentrated in the space between his fingers. His eyes are open. Mine are open. We're looking at each other from three inches away and the eye contact during this is more intimate than the sex last night because last night had momentum, had urgency. This has nothing but the gray light, his hand, the slow deliberate rhythm.

"The dream," I say. The words come from somewhere deep. "Six nights ago. The pressure. The weight. The body I couldn't see."

His hand doesn't stop. His eyes don't change.

"Was this it?" My voice is breaking. "Was the dream about this? About you? About someone being this close?"

"Yes." His voice is steady. His hand tightening. "The dream was about this."

"My body knew." The realization is moving through me in a wave, cresting. "My body knew before I did. The soreness. The proximity. My body was already there, craving you, needing you. That’s why this feels so right."

"Your body has been there since the first call." His mouth on mine. His hand moving faster. Pressure building at the base. "Your body knew what it wanted. Your brain just needed to catch up."

The orgasm starts in my spine and travels up. My mouth opens against his. My hips push forward into his grip despite the instruction to stay still, my body breaking the command, his hand holding me through it. I come against him, against his cock, the spill between us, and his grip tightens, his hips push forward, and he follows. His forehead presses against mine. His breathing stops for two seconds. Then the exhale, long, my body releasing.

His hand stays between us, holding us both for a moment before he lets go to examine the damage. The mess on our stomachs, our hips. The gray light on the bed, the sheets tangled, Bean's collar jingling as she repositions at our feet.

"I need to walk Bean," I say.

The sentence is so ordinary that it makes him laugh. The laugh is short, surprised, he wasn't expecting the mundane to arrive this fast after the intimate. His forehead is still against mine. His hand is still between us, just touching my skin. Not sexually, just intimately.

"I'll come with you."

"You don't have to."

"I want to walk your dog, Milo." The sentence is simple. Walking Bean means going outside. Going outside means the street, the decorations, the morning-after debris of Halloween. Candy wrappers on the sidewalk. A deflated ghost on someone's lawn. The skeleton on Ellis's property, powered down, silent, just bones and wires in the morning light.

He's offering to be there when I walk past it.

"Okay."

We shower. Separately because I don’t think we’d make it if we showered together. The man in my apartment is real. The night was real. The morning is real. The voice from the phone calls. The face from the coffee shop. The body in my bed. All the same person. He's in my living room putting on his jeans while my dog watches from the couch.

Clean clothes, one of my many plain gray shirts. The one I've been putting on for phone calls for two weeks, the absurd ritual, except now the ritual has a witness.

He's dressed. The black jacket. The boots. Bean is at his feet, leaning against his ankle, her body oriented toward him with excitement. He bends down and scratches her ears. She leans harder.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Ready."

Handle. Deadbolt. Handle. The three locks opening instead of closing. My hand on the knob. The door swinging out into the stairwell, the November air coming in, cold, clean, the smell of it different from October. November air doesn't carry the same charge. November air is just air.

We walk. Bean between us, her leash in my hand, her body weaving between our legs. The street is quiet. The morning after. Candy wrappers in the gutter. A smashed pumpkin on the curb outside the Andersons'. The Delgados' skeleton hangs above us, motionless, the jaw still wired open.

I don't look up.

His hand finds mine. His fingers lace through mine. My hand is holding a leash, his hand. Both of them keeping me from drifting.