I can’t decide what part of her face is my favorite. Right now it might be her lips. She’s holding the bottom one in her teeth in what I think is her the-agony-of-too-many-choices face.
Finally she chooses. Instead of picking up the remote, she bends over the table to reach it and enter the code. Her dress pulls up a little and I can see the back of her thighs. They have little crease marks from the couch. I want to wrap my hand around them and smooth the marks with my thumb.
She turns to look at me and I can’t even pretend I wasn’t staring. I don’t want to. I want her and I want her to know that I want her. She doesn’t look away from me. Her lips part (they really are the nicest lips in the known universe) and she touches her tongue to her bottom one.
I’m going to get up and I’m going to kiss her. No force on earth can stop me, except that her song starts and crushes the moment with melancholy.
I recognize the opening chords. It’s “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden. The song starts with the band’s lead singer, Chris Cornell, telling us that everything he’s feared has come to life. It goes all the way downhill from there until we get to the chorus, where we learn one billion times (give or take) that he’s fallen on black days. It is (objectively speaking) one of the most depressing songs ever written.
Nevertheless, Natasha loves it. She strangles the mike with both hands and squeezes her eyes shut. Her singing is earnest and heartfelt and completely awful.
It’s not good.
At all.
I’m pretty sure she’s tone-deaf. Any note she does hit is purely coincidental. She sways awkwardly from side to side with her eyes closed. She doesn’t need to read the lyrics because she knows this song by heart.
By the time she gets to the final chorus, she’s forgotten about me totally. Her awkwardness melts away. The singing is still not good, but she’s got one hand over her heart and she’s belting a lyric about not knowing her fate with real emotion in her voice.
Mercifully, it ends. It’s a cure for happiness, that song. She peeks at me. I’ve never seen her look shy. She bites her bottom lip again and scrunches up her face. She’s adorable.
“I love that song,” she says.
“It’s a little morose, isn’t it?” I tease.
“A little angst never hurt anyone.”
“You’re the least angst-ridden person I’ve ever met.”
“Not true,” she says. “I’m just good at pretending.”
I don’t think she meant to admit that to me. I don’t think she likes to show her soft spots. She turns away and puts the mike down on the table.
But I’m not letting her get away from this moment. I grab her hand and pull her toward me. She doesn’t resist, and I don’t stop pulling until the full lengths of our bodies are touching. I don’t stop pulling until she’s in my breathing space.
“That was the worst singing ever,” I say.
Her eyes are shining. “I told you I was bad,” she says.
“You didn’t.”
“In my head I did.”
“Am I in your head?” I ask her.
She’s so close that I can feel the slight heat from her blush.
I put my hand on her waist and bury my fingers in her hair. Anything can happen in the breath of space between us. I wait for her, for her eyes to say yes, and then I kiss her. Her lips are like soft pillows and I sink into them. We start out chaste, just lips touching, tasting, but soon we can’t get enough. She parts her lips and our tongues tangle and retreat and tangle again. I’m hard everywhere but it feels too good, too right to be embarrassed about. She’s making little moaning sounds that make me want to kiss her even more.
I don’t care what she says about love and chemicals. This will not fade away. This is more than chemistry. She pulls away, and her eyes are shimmering black stars looking into mine.
“Come back,” I say, and kiss her like there’s no tomorrow.
I CAN’T STOP. I DON’T want to stop. My body absolutely does not care what my brain thinks. I feel his kiss everywhere. The tips of my hair. The center of my belly. The backs of my knees. I want to pull him into me, and I want to melt into him.
We move backward and the back of my legs bump into the couch. He guides me down until he’s half on top of me but with one leg still on the ground.
I need to keep kissing. My body is hectic. I can’t get enough. I can’t get close enough. Something chaotic and insistent builds inside me. I’m arching off the couch to get closer to him than I already am. His hand squeezes my waist and travels up to my chest. He brushes lightly over my breast. I wrap my arms around his neck and then thread my fingers into his hair. Finally. I’ve wanted to do that all day.
Observable Fact: I don’t believe in magic.
Observable Fact: We are magic.
HOLY…
…SHIT.
WE CANNOT HAVE SEX in the norebang.
We.
Can.
Not.
But I’m going to go ahead and admit that I want to. If I don’t stop kissing her I’m going to ask her to, and I don’t want her to think I’m the kind of guy who would ask a girl he’s just met to have sex in the norebang after their first (quasi) date, even though I’m totally that kind of guy because Jesus Christ, I really do want to have sex with her right now right here in the norebang.
MY HANDS CANNOT STOP touching him. They slide themselves out of his hair and down to the hard, shifting muscles of his back. Of their own volition they slide over his butt.
As I suspected, it is spectacular. Firm and round and perfectly proportioned. It’s the kind of butt that requires holding. He should never wear pants.
I palm and squeeze it and it feels even better than I’d expected.
He pushes himself up, arms on either side of my head, and smiles at me. “It’s not a melon, you know.”
“I like it,” I say, and squeeze again.
“It’s yours,” he tells me.
“Have you ever considered wearing chaps?” I ask.
“Absolutely not,” he says, laughing and blushing.
I really like making him blush.
He lowers himself and kisses me again. It feels like there’s no part of me that’s not being kissed right now. I drag my hands away from his butt and up to his shoulders to slow us down. If I kiss him anymore, it’s just going to make it harder on me later.
So.
No more kissing.
I FEEL THE HESITATION in her lips, and to be honest, I’m a little freaked out by how intense this is too. I push myself up and pull her up to seated. I palm the back of her neck and rest my forehead against hers. We’re both breathing too fast, too ragged. I knew we had chemistry, but I didn’t expect this.
We’re kindling amid lightning strikes. A lit match and dry wood. Fire Danger signs and a forest waiting to be burned.
Of all the ways today could’ve gone, I couldn’t have predicted this. But now I’m sure that everything that’s happened today has been leading me to her and us to this moment and this moment to the rest of our lives.
Even Charlie’s academic probation from Harvard feels like it’s part of the plan to get us to this point. If not for Charlie and his fuck-up, my mom wouldn’t have said what she did this morning.
If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have left so early for the haircut that I have not gotten yet.
I wouldn’t have gotten on the 7 train with the theological conductor looking for God.
If not for him, I wouldn’t have left the subway to walk, and I wouldn’t have seen Natasha having her religious musical experience. If not for the conductor’s talk of God, I wouldn’t have noticed her DEUS EX MACHINA jacket.
If not for that jacket, I wouldn’t have followed her into the record store.
If not for her thieving ex-boyfriend, I wouldn’t have spoken to her.
Even the jerk in the BMW deserves some credit. If he hadn’t run that red, I wouldn’t have gotten a second chance with her.
All of it, everything, was leading us back here.
When we’re both breathing normally again, I kiss the tip of her nose.
“Told you,” I say, and kiss it again.
“Nose fetishist,” she says, and then: “What did you tell me?”
I punctuate my words with nose kisses.
“We.”
Kiss.
“Are.”
Kiss.
“Meant.”
Kiss.
“To.”
Kiss.
“Be.”