Page 45 of Every Step She Takes

Sadie

“I get why it’s called la petite mort,” I tell her as I stare up at her ceiling, spread out like a starfish in her preteen bed, relishing in the body that just allowed me to experience that . “You killed me. But, like, in a good way.”

Mal sits up in a flurry of black sheets. “I am death, destroyer of worlds and Sadie Wells.”

I bark out a laugh.

“La petite mort.” Mal turns the words over in her mouth, her tongue visibly curling. The heartbeat between my legs sputters with little aftershocks from nothing more than watching her tongue touch the roof of her mouth. “What’s that from?”

“Um… the French?”

“I mean, what’s its history?”

I try to prop myself up so I can look at her, but my limbs are made of Jell-O, and I sink right back into the pillows. “Are you asking me to recite the Oxford English Dictionary definition for you? Because I learned the term from Emily in Paris .”

“Little death…” There’s that tongue again. “I don’t think orgasms feel like death. They feel more like… a little life .”

“Ah, well, you know the French.”

“ Dramatique .” She finishes in an exaggerated accent.

And Mal’s right. It doesn’t feel like death. It feels like rebirth. Like creation . Naked and completely unashamed while Mal stares at my body, I feel like I’m learning more about myself, becoming more of myself.

I’m learning how to listen to my body, how to trust it. How to be at home in my skin without feeling shame for the things it wants. I’m learning what I want, and what it feels like to get it.

“I need a pickle,” I blurt.

Mal looks visibly taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“I’m starving .” On cue, my stomach gurgles in demonstration. “I want a post-sex pickle.”

Mal somehow waggles her black eyebrows independently from her stoic expression. “What would Dr. Freud say about that?” An exaggerated German accent this time.

“He would say not everything is about penises.” I sit up in a flourish of mock outrage. “Pickles are crunchy, tangy, juicy… the perfect post-sex snack.”

“She’s an expert now, folks,” Mal announces to our audience of Beanie Babies. Then she playfully smacks my thigh. “Come on. Let’s go.”

She rolls off the bed, and I’m briefly distracted by this new view of her body. The topography of her ass, the place where it meets the curve of her lean thighs as she bends down to grab her discarded underwear. When she covers that ass with her black briefs, I snap back to attention.

“Go where?”

“To find you a sex pickle.” She cranes her head to glance at me over her shoulder, and the heartbeat in my chest and the heartbeat between my legs both sputter.

We put on just enough clothing to leave the room, and Mal presses a finger to her mouth to silence me as we creep down the hall.

We pass a window, and there’s faint sunlight coming through the blinds.

I briefly think it’s morning, and that we somehow had sex all night long, but my Apple Watch quickly confirms it’s 10 p.m.

“Fun fact,” Mal says as she tiptoes toward a secret servant’s staircase at the back of the house.

“The reason it stays light out so late in Spain is because during World War II, Franco wanted to be in the same time zone as his buddy Hitler, even if it meant having wacky daylight hours, and the country has been in the ‘wrong’ time zone ever since.”

“There is nothing fun about that fact.”

Once we’re downstairs, we can hear the overlapping voices of Ari and Vera, Stefano and Inez, floating from the dining room.

The rest of the tour group is still eating dinner, but Mal has no intention of letting them see us.

We skirt around back hallways until we arrive at a huge, restaurant-style kitchen with bespoke appliances: four ovens, twelve gas stovetop burners, an entire wall of refrigerators.

“That’s the biggest fucking kitchen island I’ve ever seen. ”

“The Greenland of kitchen islands,” Mal says, running a hand along a butcher’s block the size of a Buick. “Drew and Jonathan could never.”

Mal walks toward a pantry with purpose, and I can almost picture childhood Mal coming here in the summer, sneaking out of her room for a late-night snack.

She flings open the cupboard door, and I expect to find a few shelves with dry goods.

Instead, the cupboard doors disguise an arched walkway that leads into a separate pantry room at least a thousand square feet in size.

“What in the Property Brothers,” I grumble as she leads me to a room with shelves up to the ceiling. It’s like shopping at a Supermercado Froiz, and Mal grabs two cans of Fanta Limón, a bag of Sabor a Jamón Ruffles, and several Kinder Bueno bars.

“Are we allowed to just take this stuff?” I whisper, even though I’m pretty sure this pantry is soundproof and could easily double as a bomb shelter. Or a murder room.

“Technically, since my dad died, these Bueno bars now belong to me.” She tosses me a Fanta, and I fumble to catch it.

Even after everything she shared with me—even after letting me hold her while she cried—she still sounds so flippant about her father’s death.

When we finally arrive at the section of the pantry housing jarred food, the only pickles we find are half the size of my beloved dills and floating in a jar with olives, peppers, and jalapenos.

“Should we try them?” Mal asks, posing like the woman on the front of the Kanna jar.

So, we take them back upstairs with the rest of our treasures.

The pickles are spicy as hell, but the chips are better than anything “ham” flavored has the right to be.

We sit on the rumpled bed sharing the snacks and watching Forever Home on the fanciest television 2005 had to offer.

“My dad was usually busy with work or with his latest lady friend,” she tells me.

“So whenever we were at the vineyard in Porto, I would get up in the morning and walk into town to go to the library. I would return my stack of books and check out new ones, and then I’d buy a bag of Ruffles to eat on the way back.

You should try the Ketchup flavor. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it really does. ”

“You went to the library every day ?”

Mal nods as she takes a giant bite of Bueno bar. “Yeah, my summers were usually lonely. I could easily get through two or three books a day. I think that’s part of why I love to travel. Books taught me the beauty of escaping to other worlds.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m not sure how else to respond to the heartbreaking image Mal has painted for me. But sorry obviously isn’t right, because Mal’s expression switches from open and unguarded back to her cool-girl facade.

“Don’t be sorry for the sad little rich girl.”

A new silence chomps at the previous easiness between us. It’s dark outside now, and for some reason, all my self-consciousness comes flooding in with the night.

An hour ago, in this bed, I felt so comfortable with Mal that I was able to let go, to feel, to scream obscenities with abandon. To orgasm with another person for the first time in my life.

But now that we’re dressed again, that vulnerability feels tenuous.

Mal has given me so much of herself, and it feels like at any moment she could take it all away again. I can either let her pull away or…

“I have something I need to confess,” I burst out, and Mal turns back to me with her surprised eyebrows and that staggering widow’s peak.

“What is it?”

I bite down on my upper lip. “I actually think your mullet is very sexy.”

“I fucking knew it!” She tackles me backward onto the bed, climbs on top of me, drives me down into the mattress, and kisses me hard. She tastes like ham and chocolate, like sunshine and escapism.

I can’t let her pull away.

“You made me coffee?”

I sit up in bed to find Mal perched on the edge wearing a ratty Dashboard Confessional T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts from what appears to be an old school uniform.

She has two large white mugs in her hands, but her eyes were on me when I woke up.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think she was watching me sleep.

She thrusts one of the mugs into my hands. “I didn’t make the coffee so much as I watched Felipe make it and then brought it to you. I’m just the Door Dasher in this scenario.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re secretly one of those rich people who can’t even boil their own water?”

“More like one of those rich people who can’t operate an expensive Italian espresso machine.”

“My preferred kind of rich person, then.” I take a sip from the offered mug.

The coffee has cooled to the perfect temperature, and it tastes decadent, almost divine.

A bold, rich dark roast tempered with steamed milk and something sweet.

There’s a subtle hint of spice too, and it almost reminds me of— “Is this a pasteis de nata latte?”

“I had Felipe add vanilla and cinnamon for you.”

Mal made me a pasteis de nata latte. I’m fairly certain if I opened my mouth right now, thousands of butterflies would soar out and fill this entire room. This room that contains so much Mal.

It’s a faint morning light streaming through the French doors, and I finally risk speaking. “What time is it?” My butterflies stay where they belong, in my stomach and chest and throat.

“Too early,” Mal answers with her eyes on her own mug. “I-I couldn’t sleep.”

I climb out of the sheets and scoot closer to her. “How come?”

My question is met with heavy silence. Mal takes a drink of her coffee, and then another, and maybe the raw emotional honesty from yesterday is gone, buried deep inside her again.

Or maybe not. “I have a bit of a vulnerability hangover… from yesterday. I-I don’t usually talk about that stuff.” She’s staring at her coffee again when she adds, “I’ve never talked about most of that stuff with anyone, actually.”