Exposure

her to precede me and she does. As her fingers twine with mine, I sense seriousness in the gesture.
“I lied to you about something,” Caroly says, staring down at our hands. Her voice is quiet, warmed by an unseen smile. This is no stark confession.
“What lie is this?” I tilt her chin up so her eyes meet mine.
“I told you the lab work wouldn’t be done for two weeks.”
We both took blood tests shortly after I kissed my final client farewell. Caroly’s was a bit of a formality, considering I’m the only man she’s been with, and always with a rubber. Mine was a routine matter, as professional courtesy demanded I have them done every few months. Ignorance is not blissful, in prostitution. Trust is both a necessity and a calculated risk, and I didn’t take my clients’ faith in me lightly. You can’t sleep with as many women as I have, careful or not, and remain as unsullied as a blushing virgin. Though neither can anyone realistically enjoy only a couple of sex partners without signing up for at least the odd, benign impurity. A steep tax for some, a pittance for others. To me, a perfectly reasonable price to pay for physical pleasure. For the deepest human connection I know of.
I’ve been eager for the results. If all is well, Caroly will choose a method of birth control and our days of suffering the formality of condoms will be over. No pause before penetration, no limit to how long we can wallow in a messy heap after the deed. And of course, the sinful moment of release itself. The mere thought of it makes my brain fog and my cock swell. Few sex acts remain a delicacy to a whore, but that is one. Forbidden fruit. I crave it constantly.
“So the results are already in?” I ask, rubbing her knuckles.
“Mine came the other day. And I took yours from your mailbox.”
“Postal theft is a serious crime,” I chide. “Nothing worrisome rewarded your snooping, I hope?”
“No, nothing.”
“Good. And yours?”
“Squeaky clean.”
“No surprise.” I do the math in my head, calculating what this means for our countdown. Depending on what she chooses, we might be free to enjoy this new intimacy by the end of the month.
“I lied about something else though.”
“Oh?”
A shy, mischievous smile, and I’m officially antsy.
“What? Tell me.”
“I told you, once we had the all-clear, I’d go on something.”
“Yes?” Yes, yes, yes?
“I did that weeks ago. Went on the Pill.”
My eyebrows shoot so high I swear I hear them ricochet off the ceiling. “I see.” My heart is beating hard, nothing like the way it did on the train or in the car. Blood flees my head, snaking south. I swallow, feeling pleasantly bleary. “So…”
She nods, smirking.
“It’s been long enough?”
A full-blown grin now. “I timed it so it would be. For this trip.”
I sit up straight, frankly shocked by her genius and treachery. “Wicked girl.”
“So whenever you want to, we can.”
I rub her knuckles. “I’ve wanted to for months.”
“Then I imagine tonight’s the night.”

Chapter Two
I’m drunk on so much more than wine. On lust and surprise, and just a trace of residual anxiety.
“We have to finish the bottle, at least,” Caroly had said, and now I’m tapping an invisible watch, standing beside her in the kitchen as she refreshes our snifters.
“You’ve waited ages for this,” she teases. “What’s a few more minutes?”
“It was never within my grasp before.” I accept my glass and drain it in a gulp, set it down gruffly. “Okay. Now.”
She laughs, still sipping.
I joke of course. This moment has been too long in the making for me to possibly rush it now. I drop the impatient act and kiss her cheek, leaving her to finish her drink while I head for the living area. I find what I’m after in a closet, a faded quilt folded on the top shelf. The perfect surface on which to make a picnic of Caroly. I grab a throw pillow from the couch and exit through the front door.
The night air is brisk, and I wish I knew how to do something as primitive and outdoorsy as build a bonfire. Caroly told me once that she’s turned off by rugged men, though. Having grown up in New Hampshire, she says she’s had her fill of “beer-swilling rednecks on ATVs”. Luckily for me, she wants a man who can pair wine, not construct her a log cabin. Someone groomed and genteel and housebroken. A pedigreed indoor cat, that’s me.
Circling around the cottage and down the hillside a few dozen paces, I scout for the right place. A view of the moon, a soft patch of ground. I locate such a spot and the overgrown grass flattens beneath the weight of the blanket, the perfect mattress.
I find Caroly still in the kitchen, rinsing the glasses. I shut off the tap for her. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
“Let me find my sweater.”
While she does, I switch off all but a weak reading lamp in the bedroom.
As I lead her outside, she rubs her arms, smiling. “It’s chilly.”
“I’ll have you warm in no time.”
“What have you got planned?”
“Nothing so sleazy or premeditated as you plotted for me.”
She laughs softly, and I take her hand as the light of the cottage fades completely, the fields frosted ghostly blue in the moonlight. I imagine coming back when it’s warmer. When the dark brings relief from the heat of long summer days and the night flashes with fireflies. I imagine a life in which I can move without fear through the open air, and I realize with a physical bolt that I’m living it.
Right now.
It shocks me so much, my feet lose their rhythm for a pace.
“I see what you’re up to.” Caroly’s words ring clear in the pure, natural darkness. No city glow slipping between the curtains, no ambient hum of sleeping electronics, no shouts or car sounds rising from the restless streets. Just the faint light of the moon, the