“In his eyes, there was no trace of what had happened earlier, and I could feel something inside me break. So that was that. We were finally, finally over.”

“And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up - and I smiled.I smiled, thinking, The hunger, because I knew it all too well.The hunger.The desire.Then, slowly, as we walked on, I felt the beauty of it, and I could taste it, like words inside my mouth.”

“Finally, I felt him, exactly where he was meant to be. Barely nudging inside, just the feeling of him entering me was earth-shattering. My own needs quieted for the moment, I watched his face as he began to press inside me for the first time. His eyes bore into mine as I cradled his face in my hands. He looked as though he wanted to say something, and I wondered. What words would we speak, what wonderfully loving things would we say to commemorate this moment?"Hi.""Hi.”

“Where did feelings go when they disappeared? Did they leave a chemical trace somewhere in our minds, so that if we could look inside ourselves we would see via the patterns of neurons some of the important things that had happened to us in our lifetimes?”

“I think that's what finally stopped me. I slid right to the edge. My legs were hanging over. And I could feel it too. I don't know how. There was no wind, no sound, no change of temperature. There was just this terrible emptiness reaching up for me.”

“Selfish as this sounds, I meant what I said earlier,” he finally says.I try to remember what he said, but everything is kind of a blur. “Which part?” “The ‘I’m glad you came tonight’ part.” So I’m not imagining the nudging or the sparks or what I could have sworn was his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand while we walked to his car. “Mmm. Well in that case, I meant what I said, too.”He kicks a rock I’m two steps from tripping over out of my path. “You said the potholes in Leslie’s driveway suck.”