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“Thank you.”

“Anything else?”

“One more.” He reached into the paper bag and took out something and set it on the table, and I saw it was a small, thick paperback with a cartoon on the cover. A very earnest cartoon. Two men in cardigans. Across the top it said The Loving Manual: A Practical Guide for Men Who Love Men.

It had at least thirty colored sticky tabs.

“Oh my God. “

“I have read it twice.”

“You highlighted it!”

“With a ruler. In three colors. Yellow is anatomy. Green is communication. Pink is—”

“Do NOT tell me what pink is.”

“It is aftercare. “ He said it with dignity. “It is important.”

I bent over and put my forehead on the table and wheezed.

“I must ask,” said Maksim, with the air of a man who has decided to die on this hill, “whether you would like me to go first. Or whether you would prefer to lead.”

My laughter stopped.

I sat up. The lamps threw gold across his cheekbones, and he was so completely, terribly serious that I felt something in my chest give way. He wasn’t teasing me, he was asking, really asking, in this room, with this book, with a loaf of bread I’d never in my life deserved.

“I want you to,” I said.

“Which?”

“I want it to be you. I want to try it your way first.” My face was on fire, but I looked him in the eye. “Part of me wanted to be on top, I’m not gonna lie, that’s just how my brain works. But I’m scared, Maksim. And I want it to be you who’s— who’s inside me. I don’t know why. I just do. It’s like I know it should be.”

His eyes had gone dark.

“And then?” he said.

“And then next time we swap. That’s a rule. Item six.”

“I accept the rule.”

“Say it.”

“Next time we swap,” said Maksim, solemnly. “I swear it on my mother’s bread.”

I got up. I walked around the little table. I stood in front of his chair, and he looked up at me, and I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him, softly, on the forehead.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Here is what nobody tells you about being nervous: it never goes away, it only changes shape, and sometimes it turns into something so hot that you forget what you were afraid of.

He did not rush me, and I thought I would lose my mind. He stood in front of me at the foot of the bed and took my face in both hands and kissed me, slowly and deeply, his tongue sliding against mine and his mouth tasting faintly of wine. One of his hands slid down my spine and spread across my lower back, and he pulled my hips against his until I could feel him through his trousers, thick and hard against my hip. I groaned into his mouth, and I rocked against him without meaning to, and he made a low rough sound in his throat that went straight to my cock.

“You are shaking,” he murmured against my jaw.

“I’m not cold.”

“I know.” His lips found my ear. “I can smell exactly what you are.”