Page 116 of Bad Words

“One second,” I whispered. I hurried to the bathroom and cleaned myself up, not looking in the mirror. I looked down at my hands on the edge of the sink, at my thighs. I redid the clasp of my bra. The apartment was so quiet.

He’d felt so good. The warmth and certainty of his hands. I wanted to walk back into them. I wanted to shy away.

I brushed my hair over my shoulder, then returned to the sofa, where Parker levered himself upright, watching me. I perched on the seat beside him, my thighs pressed together.

“Hey. Was it all right?” Parker said.

The question felt so ridiculous that I looked up, startled. “All right?” I repeated. “Parker.”

I saw tension ease in his face, and there was something amused in his voice when he said, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

He leaned closer and stroked a lock of hair back from my face. “Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

I couldn’t help a laugh. “That you’re good in bed?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, maybe that does something for me.”

I licked my lips, which still tingled, swollen. I looked at his disheveled hair and the lean slopes of his body and his talented fingers. Obviously, I thought. Obviously.

His hand found my thigh, and it was downright unreasonable the way my breath caught all over again. “You are,” I said unevenly.

He met my gaze, and I breathed through the intense feeling of exposure, finding that freckle in his iris, examining the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “Really?” he said.

“The best I’ve ever had.” I leaned toward him and brushed a kiss just on the edge of his mouth. “Honest.”

He cupped my face in his hand. Kissed me gently. His hand splayed over my thigh and squeezed. “Can I take you to bed?”

“Please,” I said.

Deep into that night, when we were both exhausted, lying in bed, I killed the light. I didn’t know the time. We might have moved outside time completely. He faced me in the dark and stroked my hair behind my ear, away from the sticky nape of my neck.

“I haven’t slept with anyone in a while,” I told him.

“How long?”

“A little over two years.”

“Want to make up for lost time?”

I felt momentarily wordless with relief. It was the first indication he’d made that he wouldn’t leave in the morning, say he’d had a good night, and move on with his life.

“Sorry,” he said, “did saying ‘lost time’ activate your death thing?”

I half smiled. “Oh, I was already thinking about that. Sex and death go together.”

Parker sighed. “Is this where the rack comes out?”

“Yeah. Hands up. Stretch out for me.”

He draped his arm over my waist. My bedroom was always cold. I pulled the blanket higher and moved toward his warmth, shifting one of my legs between his. I watched the curves of his neck and shoulders move as he breathed.

“Do you have any idea where that comes from?” he said in a sleepy murmur. “The death thing, I mean.”

I considered a while. “I guess sometimes I have these disconnected feelings. Like other people have some innate tie to the world that I don’t. And that’s a morbid feeling, I think.” I hesitated. “But when I read something really beautiful, that does make me feel connected. I read Asylum Piece and think, you know, somebody felt this, or … somebody knew me, even though she died sixty years ago, and feeling that way just suffuses everything with meaning. I don’t think my parents ever understood that reading is one of the only things that makes me feel that way.”

“How long has this been going on with them?”