Exposure

of my slow, passive decline into inevitable hermitdom, from a reality I hadn’t stepped back from enough to even fully see. I’d enjoyed the sinking, the snug safety of my descent. Had we never met, I’d have eagerly drowned in all that reassuring immobility. But she made me choose my life instead, and I took hold of the rope. It seems I’d rather stand shaking beside her than atrophy in comfort, all alone.
Since I’ve rejoined the outside world, I’ve found there are benefits—benefits beyond keeping Caroly in my life, which can’t be discounted by any means.
I’ve noticed that the days are longer. Not simply because time passes more slowly when you’re distressed, but because the world is suddenly bigger. There are so many things to see and hear, so many new faces to study. Staying inside, it was like eating nothing but chocolate for three years. Reliably lovely and pleasing, yet my palate grew lazy. Each meal blended into the last. Outside, it is like a buffet. So much variety it shocks the senses, and though I don’t love every flavor I’m fed, the choice is dizzying. So frightening, often, but also so rich.
We rinse the soot and wood flecks from our hands in the kitchen, switching off all the lights as we make our way back to the bedroom. She tosses two pillows before the crackling hearth and takes my hand. We sit cross-legged side by side, the fire nearly too hot but all the more exotic for it, with the cool air at our backs.
After a long, spacey silence, I ask, “What are you thinking of?”
“I’m thinking how lovely it would be if life was just like this.”
“Like what?”
“Just this.” She rubs my thigh. “Sitting in front of a fire at night, drinking wine. Someplace so quiet.”
“You’d miss the city.” This place suits me more than I’d ever imagined, but Caroly loves culture and shopping and events, cafés and parks with interesting people to watch. She likes the bustle, content to quietly observe, curator that she is. We’re not compatible that way. If this love stays in bloom, what shape might a compromise take? A home on the outskirts of a smaller city? Where she could leave in one direction for the activity when she wished, I in the other, seeking calm and relative solitude. It’s not such a terrible arrangement, as long as we each play tourist in one another’s outer lives now and again, and keep our time together inside stoked and glowing.
“I wouldn’t be so opposed to leaving Paris.” She turns to meet my gaze. “As long as I could find a satisfying job somewhere. Maybe we have a few more places to visit in the next year or two. See what it’s like in Nice or Lyon.”
“Your career should come first.”
“My career’s about being part of the art world, and making enough money to live. It’s important, but I don’t want it to the exclusion of you being happy.” Saying the words makes her bashful, I can tell. She’s not used to baring her heart to people, especially not men. Some wounded child inside her fears she’ll be mocked for admitting she cares for someone. Instead I kiss her mouth, proving her earnestness will always find a welcoming ear with me.
“We’ll stay in Paris for the foreseeable future,” I tell her. “If I can acclimate to the outside there, get back to how I used to be, when I was functioning…”
“Then you could make it anywhere,” she finishes. “Well, except maybe Bangkok or New Delhi.”
I laugh. “Yes. I think Paris is as frantic as anyone can be asked to suffer.”
“But in a few years, who knows?”
Who knows, indeed? Who knows where we’ll be sitting, what view beyond the windows? Who knows if it’ll even be just the two of us, or if…
I let the thought trail off. A curiosity for another night, another month, another year or more. Tonight there’s enough fire to foster between our bodies, by the glow of the one we’ve laid in the hearth.
I study her smooth complexion, gilded in the flickering light, the shadow of the screen’s lattice dancing across her face.
“Yes?”
“I remember the first night we met.”
“So do I.”
“There was a screen then too, only we sat on different sides.”
She smiles, her blush all but lost in the firelight.
“Oh yes, so shy once again. Like I haven’t seen a much different smile on those lips since March.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” she says, feigning innocence.
“You’ve changed. You’ve opened like a flower.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“You’ve hatched. I’m more like a weak bear after hibernation, stumbling half-blind out of its cave.”
“No wonder we’re both so shaky sometimes.”
A soothing silence settles between us. As much as I’d like to freeze the moment and linger in it for ages, my body grows restless. It hasn’t forgotten what’s still to come, and with my nerves silenced, my libido’s whispers rise to insistent murmurs.
I turn to Caroly, closing her hand in both of mine. “Let’s go to bed.”
She smiles, nodding. “Let’s.”

Chapter Three
I stand first and help her to her feet.
She looks so beautiful, my chest tightens. Her eyes dart to the bed, but I stay where I am and reach for her face, cradling her jaw, my focus darting between her eyes.
“Yes?”
“You look different.”
“Oh?”
“You look… I don’t know. I look at you and I think, she’s mine.”
Unable to drop her head, she averts her eyes instead.
“I’ve never looked at someone and felt this before. This mix of recognition and surprise. Like I understand you so well, yet there’s so much I still want to know.” I pause, laughing. “I’m not making sense. But I mean every word.”
Her gaze returns to mine, eyes shining from more than the firelight. I wipe away a tear and lean in to kiss her forehead. Her arms close around my waist and I fold her in a tight hug, planting another kiss on the crown of her head.
The bed sits