“Yes,” he said urgently. “I think next time you should keep your pants on until there’s been a certain amount of kissing.”
“What?”
He patted my hip. “You have very… distracting thighs.”
“And here I thought I had very large thighs.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Nah. I used to hate them when I was younger. I thought they were huge. Well, I got told—usually by men—that they were huge. But I got over it. I’m pretty neutral on my thighs these days.” I guess one thing that being of midlife crisis age was good for was body neutrality.
“But you didn’t get over it with regard to your breasts.”
“Huh?”
“You told me yesterday that normally you’re insecure about having small breasts.”
That was true. I shrugged. “I contain multitudes.” That was my standard line for when I was contradicting myself.
He smiled. “You sure do.”
“Well”—he ramped up his thigh-patting—“there’s something insanely hot about muscles that exist for a purpose. And when you layer on that the purpose of these muscles is dancing?” He blew out a breath.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you could have muscular thighs if you were, say, a powerlifter. They would still be hot. But dancing is so… delicate. No. That’s not right. Precise. Like, the thighs power these intricate, specific moves.”
“Weirdo.”
“I do kind of sound like John Cusack with a boom box now, don’t I?” I made a laughing noise of agreement, and he gently slapped my outer hip and added, “I can’t help it. You have superhot thighs.”
“Well, you have superhot hands.” It was out before I could think better of it.
“Really?” He sounded mystified as he held his hands up.
I grabbed one and examined it. “Yeah, the nail polish remnants, the cool rings, and I think these calluses are like my thighs—sexy because they’re in service of something delicate. Not that Concrete Temple is delicate. But you know, guitar playing also seems like an exercise in precision.”
“Mm.”
As before, I wanted to stay. But even with my relaxed rules, staying was a no-go. There wasn’t any amount of mental gymnastics that would make sleeping in Teddy Knight’s bed, draped over his body, a good idea. I started to heave myself out of bed to go back to my place, but he grabbed me and pulled me back. “What are you doing?” I shrieked. I was laughing, and trying to get away from him, but not very hard. He grunted and maneuvered us so we were arranged in reverse order from when we’d first landed on the bed. I was on my back and he was on top. “I have to go!” I mock protested.
“I know. I know. I’m just getting a jump on the work order for next time.”
“What?”
Oh.The light, bantery air around us evaporated, and I knew he was going to kiss me. He tilted his head as if he were contemplating the right way to go about it. He floated a hand down and brushed a strand of hair off my cheek, which, tomy embarrassment, made goose bumps rise. He lowered his head slowly—this was the opposite of our mad, frantic coming together earlier—and when his mouth met mine, it was such a strange, profound relief that I sighed into it. His lips were gentle, and chapped. It was a relatively chaste kiss, given what had just gone down, but it felt… important.
Important? What was I on about? I shook my head, breaking the contact between us. But I flashed him a small smile to show that the kiss hadn’t been unwelcome. He rolled off me, and I got out of bed.
He didn’t speak, just watched me lazily as I got dressed, his long hair fanned out over the pillow. When I had my hand on the doorknob, he said, “‘Lemon Tree’ is kind of delicate.”
I understood that he was talking about the sorts of songs that would give him calluses, but also about something bigger. Something he was reckoning with. I was measured in my response. “On the one hand, yes, ‘Lemon Tree’ is delicate.” I paused, thinking of the lyrics. “But it’s also kind of savage.”
I’m not going to lie, I pretty much walked around camp the rest of the week on cloud nine. I used my apparently superhot thighs during the day to dance, working on recital stuff for my studio and working with the girls onLittle Women.
At night I wrapped my apparently superhot thighs around Teddy, who had procured a box of condoms from Target. I was in a sex haze. As last hurrahs went, it was pretty great. And happily, my sex haze did not seem to be interfering with my actual work. The dance girls continued to be a source of inspiration and creative energy. Everything felt like it was feeding everything else.
Out of all this creative cross-pollination, something was happening. I didn’t know how to put it into words. Maybe words were not the point, because it—whatever “it” was—was coming to me in images. Fragments that would rise up through my mind when I was swimming, or sitting on the porch, or lying next to Teddy in the aforementioned sex haze. Eventually they started assembling themselves into… not a story, but little vignettes.
