Page 91 of Another Day (Every Day 2)

“Well, with the spare key.”

He lies back. I feel the center of his chest. The exact center. Then I move my hand to the right, heartbeat territory.

“That was quite a welcome,” he says, his own hands unable to leave my body.

“It’s not over yet,” I assure him, turning his way as he immediately turns mine.

Closeness. That’s what this is. Sex should have closeness.

Now there is closeness. Not just of our bodies. Of our beings. A is careful, but I am not careful. I don’t want anything between us. So I take off his clothes, and I take off my own. I want all of him, and I want him to have all of me. I want our eyes open. I want this to be what it’s supposed to be.

Naked and kissing. Naked and needing. Naked and here. Moving in the inevitable direction. Sometimes moving quickly, but then slowing down and taking our time. Enjoying it.

It is dangerous, because I will do anything. But I will only do anything because I know it’s not dangerous.

“Do you want to?” I whisper.

I feel him against me. The heat, the breath. I feel the momentum. I feel how right this is.

“No,” he says. “Not yet. Not now.”

Suddenly I feel the colder air around me. Suddenly I feel the world around me. I feel all the parts of it that aren’t us.

I tell myself he’s being considerate. I look at him and say, “Are you sure? I want to. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I want to. I…prepared.”

But he’s pulling back, too, now. One hand still holds my side, but the other settles in the small space between us. “I don’t think we should,” he says.

I say, “Okay,” even though it’s not, because I don’t understand.

“It’s not you,” he tells me. “And it’s not that I don’t want to.”

Exit dream, enter nightmare. “So what is it?” I ask.

“It feels wrong.”

He says it’s not me, but who else could it be? I’ve pushed it too far. He must think less of me.

“Let me worry about Justin,” I say. “This is you and me. It’s different.”

“But it’s not just you and me. It’s also Xavier.”

“Xavier?”

He points to his own body. “Xavier.”

“Oh.”

“He’s never done it before. And it just feels wrong…for him to do it for the first time, and not know it. I feel like I’m taking something from him if I do that. It doesn’t seem right.”

This seems more in line with the way the universe has treated me all my life. Send the perfect guy in the perfect body. But then make him a virgin whose first time I’ll be taking away without him knowing it. There’s no vocabulary in my head for dealing with this.

Closeness. I got so caught up in sex that I forgot what I was really after, what I really wanted. Even if we’re not going to have sex, I don’t have to give up on everything else.

That’s what I wind up telling myself.

After a spell of being only in my mind, I return back to my body and press it closer to his. Turning so we’re knees against knees, arms around backs, face to face.

“Do you think he would mind this?” I ask.