Exposure

perfect, deafening pleasure. I moan, out of control. Behind the noise and sensation is Caroly. Her soft voice chanting, “Good, good.” Her arm angled back and her hand on my hip, riding my bucking spasms. The way it shakes, I know she’s there. Orgasm still ringing through me, I make her join me with a flurry of practiced strokes.
“Come.”
I feel when she does—feel it more explicitly than I ever have, like two dimensions becoming three. Her breath, her smell, those most intimate contractions pulsing around the point of my own release, then easing. I’m shaking all over, still moaning even as the wave of my orgasm recedes.
“Didier.” Her voice is like cool palms cupping my face, soothing me.
My groans quiet. The world stops spinning and slowly I float back to the earth, back to the bed with the softest thump. Then…
Bliss.
No rush to withdraw and shed the condom. I can stay in her warmth as long as I like, wallowing in the beautiful, silly, mammalian mess we call sex. I wrap my arm tight around her ribs, push her hair aside with my nose so I can press my lips to the back of her neck.
I hope I never take it for granted, how close she feels at this instant. How difficult the journey was, getting to where we are now. So often I envy the careless way other people move through the world, but I don’t ever want to forget how hard I’ve worked for this. This moment is my reward. A gift to pale all of the material ones she’s given me. And for once I feel truly worthy of her offering.
Another kiss behind her ear. Another. “You’re much too good to me,” I whisper.
She clears her throat. “I doubt that. You’re the nicest man I know.”
“Am I?”
“And the most romantic, and the most sensitive.”
“Sensitive, yes. I believe that. Sentimental.”
She turns, just enough to make eye contact. “And the bravest.”
I don’t blush easily, but I feel my face warm as though I were peering into the fire. “You’re too kind.”
“No one could ever be too kind to you,” she says, and clasps my wrist at her waist.
We lay wordlessly for a long time, the silence filled by the fire’s crackling and the night noises drifting from the open window. Caroly twitches, roused from the edge of sleep. She yawns deeply and shifts against me, my cock finally slipping free between her thighs.
I peel my body from hers and toss a small log on the dwindling flames, and shut the window on my way out of the room. I find a clean washcloth and we tidy ourselves. Freeing the covers, we wriggle between the sheets.
“I don’t know if I can fall asleep without the sound of pigeons cooing,” she says, adjusting the pillow beneath her head. The moment she’s settled, I curl my body alongside hers once more.
“Crickets will have to suffice. Or you could fall asleep with the snores of an extremely satisfied man at your ear,” I suggest, and hug her tightly, settling my lips against her neck. Her skin tastes clean, only the faintest trace of sweat. I kiss her there for as long as I dare. Any more and sleep’s spell will be broken, and surely she’s too drowsy to wish to be pawed by some restless, lusty creature. I choose to behave, nestling my face against her shoulder.
“I love you,” I tell her, barely a whisper.
“I love you.” She turns in my arms, smiling broadly, sleepily. She kisses my nose, my forehead, my chin. “I can’t wait to see what life will be like when we get back to the city. Us living together.”
The idea tenses my arms around her. “I can wait.”
Another press of her lips to my chin.
“I’m excited as well. But I hadn’t imagined I’d be as relaxed here as I have been. In fact, I’m shocked.”
“I wondered how you’d…” The thought catches on a yawn. “How you’d fare. Maybe you were born in the wrong province, all along. Maybe you should have been a winemaker’s son. Maybe I was supposed to meet you during some vineyard tour on a trip to the Mediterranean.”
“You wish I were born a cheese monger,” I tease her. “Admit it.”
“You’re too good to be true already. Don’t overstimulate me by adding cheese to the equation.” Another mighty yawn.
I stroke her hair and kiss her temples in turn, and nudge her to roll back over. She softens in my arms, but my worries are never so quick to let me go.
“What are you thinking of?” she whispers.
“Are my thoughts that noisy?”
“Your breathing’s all tight.”
I kiss her ear. “Sorry. I’m melancholy.”
“After all that?” she teases, stroking my hand where it lays against her belly.
“About all the time I wasted, inside. Three years.”
She doesn’t reply right away, but after a minute or more, she says, “I wasted over a decade, not really dating or even letting myself like anyone too much. Being a stubborn, fussy coward. But you know what?”
“What?”
“I didn’t waste it. Because I couldn’t have met you if I’d done it differently. And I can’t imagine anyone I could possibly want to be with more than you. So it wasn’t wasted, it was just the way it had to happen for me to get right here. Right now.” She lays her arm along mine, hugging us both.
“That’s true.” I wouldn’t have met her if I’d stayed as functional as I was in my twenties. She wouldn’t have met me. Might we have passed on some street, me going through the lonely motions of a man pretending to be at ease in his city? To hear her tell it, she’d have cast me the briefest glance then feigned utter disinterest, her old way with handsome men. Two anxious strangers passing on the sidewalk in some alternate Paris. That, compared to having her in my arms now…
“You’re right,” I say, and kiss her again. “This is just the way it had to happen. And I’d sacrifice another three