All the People in the World

Chapter 12: You Know What

It's always awkward the first time. Not that it was my first time with a man, I mean the first time with someone new. And I guess you'll want me to say that it wasn't so with him because, of course, we were star crossed, destined. We anticipated each other's every need both in life and in bed. But that just wasn't the case. I will say that he was with me the whole time and that is more than I can say for any other man.

I woke to his hands on my skin. Immediately I worried that he'd been watching me sleep, found me grotesque, and was now contemplating how best to tell me he'd never like to be near me again. Much less sleep with me. I turned to him, conscious of my breath and not to get it on him. So I smiled.

"Hey," he whispered, then kissed me. He wasn't scared of his breath. He knew I'd love him anyway. He was right of course, but I didn't know such a thing to be true. So I kept my breath to myself.

I sat up, then spoke. "Hey." The sheet slipped off my breasts as I did so. I grabbed them, tucking it tightly into my armpits. I felt like Eve, the morning after the fall, suddenly aware of her body. Her shame. Why was I ashamed?

I heard Luca laugh. He reached out and tugged at the sheets. "What? Are you hiding?" I didn't answer. He sat up, his kisses crawling up my back, up my neck. He was in my ear. "I've already seen everything, you know." I felt him watching me, waiting for me to smile.

I nodded, "I know."

I felt him tighten. "Are you upset? What's wrong?"

Finally I turned to him, offering up the smile he so desperately wanted. It wasn't good enough. He didn't buy it for a second. He stared quietly into my eyes for a long time. I felt more vulnerable then than when he had been inside me. "Do you regret it?"

He was speaking of more than the past night, more than having slept together. He meant the whole summer. He meant the entire reunion. The yellow sweater on his couch and the dusty library and the tension on the train. No, it was even more than that. Every summer, the paint on the wall, the tree house in the woods. Everything. Did I regret everything? Did I regret him?

"Never," I whispered, letting my breath reach him. I knew he didn't care. I didn't believe it, but I knew it. I grabbed his face gently, pressing my forehead into his as I said it again, "Never."

It was the truth. I didn't regret it. I was just nervous he would. "Do you?" I asked quietly.

A smile formed in the corner of his mouth. My stomach leaped. I wished it wouldn't. I wished I was in control, at least half as much as he seemed to be. "I'm not even gonna answer that." He kissed me on the mouth. I caught his chin and held him an atom away from my lips. "Do you?", I laughed. He pulled the sheet from my armpits and crawled on top of me.

As our skin met again, I realized how much I had missed him. It did not feel awkward anymore. It was essential. Critical. That he be around me, beside, in, on, everything. With me always. Maybe it has been the night that threw me off. The fact that I had loved many men at night but when the sun returned they were gone. More often I was. And even if we weren't gone, the feelings always were. Night meant nothing. Night was filled with faulty emotions and fleeting delusions that seemed like dreams the next day. Night was no test of love, just dark shadowy figures, desperate to keep their loneliness at bay. Not so with the morning. In the morning you saw everything for what it was.

And I wasn't lonely. I loved him. That's what it was.

His head was buried in my neck. "Sorry, what did you ask?" His kisses crept down my chest, onto my stomach.

"Do you regret it?" I asked again, my breath quickened.

He moved lower and answered me. I let out a gasp. Okay, I believe you.