Page 103 of That Last Summer

I drop my head to his chest and close my eyes. Alex’s heart is racing. I curl up there, needing to feel him closer, and his arms wrap me tighter. I smile. He must think I’m cold.

“This is... no strings attached sex, okay?” he says then.

I know him well. That statement is a question and an arrangement at the same time. It’s a “we’re going to continue having sexual relations under this tacit agreement and we will stop having them when you return to the States” kind of deal.

I don’t answer; I’m not sure if I’m okay with it. Having sex with Alex for the next... ten weeks? Without getting emotionally involved. Leaving afterwards as if nothing had happened. Can we really do that?

The image of Adrián with the redhead’s sister comes into my mind.

“What about them?”

“Who?” Alex asks, confused.

“My brother and the redhead’s sister, is theirs strings-attached sex?”

Alex sighs, puts a finger under my chin and raises my head. He looks at me, weighing whether to tell me what he really thinks, or not. The first option wins.

“You have four brothers and Adrián is the only one I don’t know like the back of my hand, so I can’t be sure. But from the apologetic look he gave her when he got up at full speed to go after you... yeah, I think there’s a strings-attached thing.”

“Great.” I get up carefully, pulling his sex out of me.

I enter the house naked and go upstairs, straight to the bathroom to wash up. When I’m done, I open the top drawer of Alex’s closet and grab some clean underwear; I put them on along with a T-shirt I found on the bed and lie down, curled over myself, to think about what’s happened. And what’s going to happen. Dark lies at ease at my feet; I’m sure that’s where he sleeps every night.

Hearing footsteps and the creaking of the wood floors, I turn around and stare at Alex standing in the doorway. He watches me intently but doesn’t dare move any further.

Minutes pass. We keep staring at each other and he still doesn’t enter the room; we look like a frightened gazelle and a hungry lion. I am the lion. I try to break the ice somehow. “You let the dog sleep on the bed.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, it looks like this is his place. Does Alex let you sleep here?” I ask the animal affectionately.

Dark barks by way of an answer.

That’s a clear yes to me.

“He just said he sleeps here,” I say.

“I doubt it.”

“Are you coming in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I don’t know.”

I get up and walk to the door. Just when I’m about to cross the threshold, he holds out his arm to stop me. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s his answer to whether he wants me to leave or not, and it’s a “no.” I caress him, take him by the hand and lead him to the bed.

Without speaking, we climb under the covers and turn off the light. We lie there, facing each other, looking at each other, not touching. There’s so much space between the two of us, so much we could almost fit two more people in there. The Alex and Priscila from the past wouldn’t have allowed such a thing. The Alex and Priscila from the past would dynamite the space between us and touch each other, embrace. But we’re not the Alex and Priscila from the past. We’ll never be. And I feel very cold, despite the high temperature outside. The kind of cold a blanket won’t take away.

It’s only mid-afternoon, but my eyelids are heavy, and I start to close my eyes. Alex’s outline fades as I slowly fall asleep. The last time I’m aware of us, we’re still lying on opposite sides of the bed, neither touching nor brushing against each other. But at midnight, when I briefly wake up, I feel a breath next to me. I roll over and with my eyes still half-closed in sleep, I see Alex is closer now. I also notice the bathroom light is on, and I feel for my Alex, my Alex from the past, but it also breaks my soul to see that he still needs to turn on the damn light to be able to sleep peacefully.

My need to send everything to hell is so strong, the need to hug him tight and shelter in his warmth... that I succumb. I put my arms around his waist and one of my legs on top of his. I sigh in pure pleasure and fall asleep again. And this time, I don’t feel cold at all.

* * *

When we wake up the next morning, I’m not the only one curled around another, it’s both of us. We’re all over each other, legs and arms tangled. Alex’s head is tucked into my neck, as if it’s the best, warmest and most pleasurable nook in the entire world, and my chin rests on his hair.