We both leave our shoes on the cliff—no time to go back for something so maudlin and
unimportant—and stumble back to the flat, hand in hand, then both my arms wrapped around his, then his arm around my neck and mine around his waist, tripping each other and laughing at nothing as the desire to get back to the flat and touch each other as much as possible do battle.
We leave sandy, soaking footprints all the way up the cobbled hillside path, riding an exuberant wind that’s making us both giggly and wild. It feels like being drunk on the sweetest wine on earth.
“Is anyone here?” he whispers as we creep into the still-silent courtyard, the sunlight just beginning to curl its fingers over the walls so that everything looks soft and bright, a fresh oil painting.
“HALLO?” I call, then without giving anyone adequate time to respond, turn to him. “No, no one.”
“Be quiet.” He claps a hand over my mouth, nearly tackling me but also grabbing me around the waist and lifting me off my feet. I let out a shriek of surprise, which shatters into a laugh, and I have just jumped off a goddamn cliff into the goddam ocean and we are tough and stupid together and we are going to be tough and stupid together for the rest of our lives. I twist around in his grasp and press my mouth to his—colliding with perhaps too much teeth to actually be 43
romantic—but then he crooks an arm around my neck and pulls me against him. He must have shaved this morning, because the skin along his jawbone is fawn-soft, still damp and sandy from the ocean. My hands find their place on the small of his back, then lower, pressing our hips together. I can feel him lean into my grip, his head falling backward, and when I move against him, he grips my shoulder, like I’m holding him up.
“We should . . .” His words tumble into a sharp breath when I slot my knee between his legs.
“Inside,” he gasps. “We should go inside.”
We stumble into the entryway, unable to release each other for something so pedestrian and dispassionate as walking upright. I’m the one moving backward, and I trip on the step up. Hero that he is, Percy not only catches me, but somehow manages to maneuver that catch into pressing me against the wall. It’s like a goddamn magic trick how smoothly he does it. My soaked shirt makes a wet squelch against the plaster, and I start to laugh, and he starts to laugh, and I can’t remember intimacy ever involving so much happy laughter before. He hoists me up, my legs around his waist so my head is higher than his, and I get the rare treat of leaning down to kiss him. I card my hands through his hair, pulling his mouth up to mine and sucking on his tongue as my shirt rucks up around my rib cage.
Somehow we get up to the bedroom. Smashing into everything. Cracking our elbows on
every inch of the banister and tripping on the stairs and leaving puddled footprints and collapsing against each other into the walls until we stumble into my bedroom, the door clacking against its frame behind us.
My hands go under his damp shirt and peel it up like shucking the skin off a fruit, our mouths together until we are forced to so that I can pull his shirt over his head. I wrestle my own off, 44
then let them drop to the floor. When we come back together, it’s his bare chest against mine, skin dewy and my hand on his waist and then slipping against the buttons of his trousers.
Percy stumbles, the backs of his calves colliding with the bed, and he sits down with too much momentum, dragging me after him. The frame thuds into the wall so hard I actually think for a moment we might have snapped the ropes. Percy starts to laugh again, a little shier this time, and the sound makes me feel like sunlight.
We’re all tangled up, and then suddenly he’s lying on his back and I’m on top of him, my legs around his waist. I pull myself up, straddling him with my knees pressed into his sides, our skin slick and sticking everywhere we touch each other. I’m still wet, and already so sweaty from the heat and the exhilaration that there seems a good chance I will accidentally slide straight off.
But every inch of me that isn’t against him feels cold and incomplete.
I take his hands in mine. Our fingers twine, and I pin them above his head on the bed before pressing my lips against his chest. I like feeling the way he moves against my mouth, the in and out of his breath, the way his muscles clench in response to my tongue. He brings one of our linked hands down to wrap around the back of my neck, pressing me against him as I suck at his skin, and I can feel myself starting to lose control, so I pause, surface for air, and ask, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Why?” He looks rosy and flushed, and I swear I can see the throb of his pulse in his throat.
“Do you not?”
“No I’m just trying to . . . .” I take a breath, which comes out more of a dramatic gasp. “Pace myself.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, really? I mean, really, yes, now?”
45
He licks his lips, then nods. I reach for the buttons on my trousers, but he cries, “Wait!” And I pause. “Just . . . slowly, yes? Maybe not . . . a full game of backgammon just yet.”
“Percy Newton.” I sit up over top of him and cross my arms. “What erotic leaflet did you pick up that terminology from?”
“None!” His mouth twitches. “Some.”
“Some?”
“Some erotic leaflets.”
“May I have their titles?”
“Stop it.” He pokes me in the stomach. “I wanted to prepare.”
“Well your vocabulary is spectacular,” I say. “So you’re not ready for backgammon yet. You want to start by playing bagpipes instead?”
I expect a laugh, but instead his cheeks pink. Clearly we’ve been reading the same leaflets.
“Yes, please.”
“All right then.” I kiss him on the tip of his nose, or rather I aim for that, but we’re both a little shaky and I more sort of smash my teeth up his nose, which we both pretend is fine.
It is not technically necessary for both of us to be entirely naked for this particular duet, but there’s a vulnerability that comes from being the only one completely undressed that I don’t want to put him through. And, though I’ve lost some weight and still have lingering patches of skin peeling unflatteringly from the sun, I want him to see me. I want us to see each other.
I try to get my trousers off without actually climbing off him, but when I lift up one knee, I snag my foot in the cuff and pitch face-first into his chest, ending up collapsed flat against him with my trousers half on. Percy’s heavy breathing breaks off into a laugh. I feel his back arch 46
under me with it, and before I can collect myself, he wraps his arms around me, pinning me to his chest. “You are such a goose, you know that?”
I bury my face in his neck, and we lie like that for a minute, breathing together, our skin gritty from sand, and sticky with sweat. He’s so warm against me, and the frantic pounding of wanting suddenly calms, then deepens, and with a breath I feel myself settle into him like lying in soft earth and leaving an imprint the shape of your body.
And then he says, “Are you going to take your trousers the rest of the way off?”
“Why?” I prop my chin up on his chest, suddenly feeling languid and teasing. We have time.