“Come,” she whispers in her velvet deep voice, emphatically, giving me permission to explode. It’s the first thing she’s ever said during ***** that she’s meant, meant on a level that was deep and primal, and that knowledge explodes in me at the same time as I scream and cry and shake.

After, she untangles her leg from mine, and her iron hold relaxes. I lie bonelessly; I stare and gape at the ceiling like a dumb fish, mouth dry, my breath taking a long time to return to normal.

It seems like five minutes before I even have the presence of mind to look at her.

The look on her face is complicated and foreign, and when I try to figure it out, she kisses me, tangling her hand in my hair. I feel like a raw nerve from all those days of losing her, and her kiss makes fireworks explode behind my eyes. Her kisses are sloppy, rough, emotionless, and I’m not sure I even care. I kiss back roughly, voraciously, as not to frighten her, and it is good.

My hands tremble as they clamber to touch her, because I know she’ll leave soon. So I touch the places I’ve missed the most, the curve of her waist, the delicate point of her hanging breast, the furrow of her *****.

She comes quickly, pressing the warm slick groove of her ***** against my hand. I want to watch her as she comes but she kisses me wetly all the while, so instead of seeing it bloom on her face I get her hot breath on my face, the inelegant press of her lips as she shivers and comes and humps my fingers.

I’m not sure what to do as she comes down. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe she’s not even aware of me. I want to touch her, sooth her ragged nerves. I want, most selfishly of all, to stroke her hair and trace the lines of her face. But I wouldn’t dare.

She presses her hand to her chest. Her lips are parted, slick with our saliva as she pants and slowly learns to breathe again. I have no idea what to do, no idea what comes next, if it is over or if it’s just beginning. So I lie there.

Then she turns and looks at me, hair messy and dark on my white pillowase. “I’m *****’ starving,” she says. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

So we go to a Chinese Buffet that is deserted, being three in the afternoon, and eat obscene amounts of dumplings and vegetables and crispy noodles. It never ceases to amaze me that someone so thin can stuff her face the way that girl does.

We talk about neutral things, trifling things, our friends, where she’s been working, whether or not to go to Milk tonight.

There was a time when the neutrality of it would have chafed me, hurt me, but now it’s good. Because we’re still together. She hasn’t rushed off to tend to some “thing.” We’re chilling.

I feel like we’ve accomplished something, wordlessly, delicately negotiated a new truce, a structure, and I sense that she is as thrilled with it as I am.

I can’t help but broach the subject of the ***** we just had, however. “Shane?”

“Yeah?”

“I think that was some of the hottest ***** I’ve ever had in my life.” I grin. I’m a little wobbly in my thighs just thinking about it.

She grins. “You were amazing,” she says, then takes a long drag of her iced tea.

I sit there, baffled. I was amazing? All I did was lie there and let her have her way with me.

And in that second, everything I thought earlier about what Shane needs and what Shane wants is confirmed. And I don’t feel so lost in the face of this huge, crushing, powerful thing I feel for her. It’s good.