“It’s fun,” I insisted.
“I want you to think coming here was a good idea,” he said, and there was a catch in my chest, less from swooning than from being startled. “I want you to think I’m not boring, even though I don’t work at TNO.”
I could tell that he wasn’t being sarcastic, or even flirty. He was being completely unguarded and sincere, and I tried to be equally sincere as I said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but no one has ever made anything like this for me. It’s so, like, premeditatedly sweet. And I want you to think my visit was a good idea. In your room just then—” I trailed off and looked at him uncertainly.
“No, that was awesome,” he said. “That was great. To be honest, I was afraid of going too fast and I just—I want to let you get settled here and get comfortable. I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
“I’m actually pretty comfortable.”
“Don’t get me wrong, that’s definitely what I want. But I worry that I’ve spooked you in the past.”
I could feel my forehead wrinkle. “When?”
“At the bar after the after-party.”
“Oh—I was really confused that night. I almost thought—well, I wondered if you were about to kiss me, but I couldn’t believe you’d want to.”
“I was planning on asking you out. Of course I wanted to kiss you, but I wouldn’t have done it there.”
It was slightly easier to summon my courage this time. I said, “Do you want to kiss me now?”
We were standing with a corner of the island between us, and he stepped around it, leaned his face into mine, and kissed my lips. “Does that answer your question?”
I smiled as I said, “Have I mentioned that I’m very comfortable right now? And not at all spooked?”
And then we were making out in the kitchen, and this time he was a tiny bit more familiar, the taste of his mouth and skin and the feel of his body, and I was a tiny bit more relaxed, and again it was overwhelming and exhilarating. And again, after a minute or two, he stepped back, this time with his hands holding my upper arms. He nodded down once with his chin and said, “See? I just—I don’t want to jump the gun or, like, freak you out.”
I understood, as I hadn’t before, that he meant because he had an erection; even before he’d said anything, I’d been able to feel it. And I’d been delighted. Looking at him, I thought that he was so handsome, but also so endearing. “You know what?” I said. “Let’s go back to your room and jump the gun.”
* * *
—
We did not end up eating the salmon. We didn’t end up eating at all until after midnight when we went out to the kitchen with him wearing nothing and me wearing only my black T-shirt, when we both ate a handful of cashews, split a banana, and chugged water from the same huge glass that he then carried back to the bedroom.
First we’d had fast, ravenous, pulling-off-each-other’s clothes, first-time-with-each-other sex that was also there’s-a-pandemic-happening-and-we-might-be-in-the-twilight-of-humankind sex. I didn’t expect to climax and certainly not while we were in the missionary position—for Christ’s sake, it was still light out at that point and I was sober—which may have been why I did. In fact, I did before he did, and as I moaned, with his right shoulder by my mouth and his mouth by my left ear, he said in a low, quiet voice, “Oh, Sally,” and then he pulled out and ejaculated all over my stomach and I thought about how Jessa, the older daughter of my mother’s best friend, had told me when I was thirteen that when you didn’t like a guy, the disgusting things about sex were disgusting, and when you did like a guy, the disgusting things about sex were sexy. I tugged Noah onto me, and he said, “Am I too heavy?” and I said, “You’re perfect,” and we both lay still for a long time, my arms wrapped around him, his full weight on me, his face pressed against my neck, his left hand fiddling with my hair. My mind wasn’t racing; I wasn’t nervous; there was nothing other than this that I wanted.
After some number of minutes—eight? Or twenty-five?—he rolled off me, onto his side, and pulled me so I was on my side, too, so we were facing each other and he looked at me from about three inches away with such intensity and affection that I had to avert my gaze; I couldn’t help it. But then I looked back at him and said, “You’re definitely worth driving twenty-six hours for. And definitely not boring, even though you don’t work at TNO.”
He laughed. “And you haven’t even tasted my pan-seared salmon yet.”
“By the way I have an IUD. In case next time you want to—” I paused and raised my eyebrows, aware again of the strangeness of how the most precise and succinct way of saying something could feel splendidly obscene. I continued, “In case next time you want to come inside me.”
“I’d love to come inside you next time.” He grinned. “I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess before.”
“It was a good kind of mess,” I said. “And I also have, uh, a clean bill of health. Sexually.”
“Good to know and same for me.”
He leaned in and kissed my mouth and the sex we had that time was slower and calmer before it reverted to clawing and devouring each other.
After the second time, before the third time, when it became apparent there was going to be a third time, he was on his back, and I was straddling him, and I didn’t care about the pooching of my stomach because I’d decided I was beautiful just as I was. Just kidding! Because it was getting dark and also because presumably sex hormones were coursing through me. He wasn’t yet inside me again though I could feel his erection, and I said, “Did you take Viagra?”
“Wow,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”
“That wasn’t an insult. It was a compliment.”
“To which one of us?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Sorry that I’m really turned on by you. No, I didn’t take Viagra.”
Sincerely, I said, “I apologize if that was rude.”
It was hard to read his expression—he seemed to be analyzing or assessing me almost distantly, though there was also a new haze of closeness between us that no doubt arose from being naked together, our skin smelling like the other’s skin, our bodily fluids mixed on his sheets. Even if the knowledge wasn’t comprehensive, we abruptly knew each other much better, more thoroughly, than we had a few hours before.
“I think I can forgive you,” he said, “under the circumstances.” He thrust up once then stopped and said, “Is this okay? Do you need anything?”
“Like what? A vaccine? An overall deal with a studio?”
“I was thinking of lubricant.”
As with being gazed at tenderly, as with being given a personalized Mad Libs, I had never before been asked if I needed lubricant. And as when he’d inquired on my arrival if I needed a bathroom, I was touched by both his thoughtfulness and his lack of fear about the biology of the human body.