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“Let’s stay here.”
“All right. Do you want to look up lodging on your phone, or shall I?”
They carried on that way, peacefully, rationally, as the boat churned to the shore and docked. One decision point after the next until they had found their hotel and checked in, located their room, navigated the key into the lock and their luggage into place. Kal decided to take a shower. Rosemary decided to flop onto the bed and study the plaster rosette on the ceiling.
It should have helped to have a plan.
It shouldn’t have made her feel as though she had to push down hard against her chest with both hands to prevent herself from bursting into tears.
She turned on the television. When he came out of the shower, flushed and damp, with a towel wrapped around his waist, he laid down beside her on the bed. “Look.” She gestured at the screen. “It’s our friend the survivalist.”
The producers had dropped him on top of a snowy ridgeline this time, with only a length of rope and basic survival tools. He
wore shorts and seemed delighted by his predicament.
Kal extended his arm along the back of her pillow. Rosemary settled into his nook and draped her arm across his bare stomach.
“What do you think this guy was like before they gave him a TV show?” Kal asked.
“Exactly like this. Probably he never had any mates in school, because he spent all his time crouching in the corner of the school yard trying to make fire with a flint and steel.”
“At school lunch, the other kids were like, ‘Trade me for peanut butter and jelly?’ and he was like, ‘No way, I’m going to eat this Korean War ration I bought at the surplus store.’?”
“Or he would supply his own lunch. A brick of suet sprinkled with nutritious seeds, perhaps.”
“Which was actually a finch feeder he stole from some old lady’s backyard.”
“A finch feeder he foraged,” Rosemary corrected.
“Right, foraged. How much you want to bet he forages dinner from the crew’s luggage while they’re sleeping?”
“He should forage himself a sleeping bag so he doesn’t freeze his ballocks off.”
Kal was grinning at her—the old grin, almost, with the old lightness in his eyes. Nearly. Rosemary smiled back, because she loved him. For whatever it was worth.
He muted the television, then threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged her closer.
Their kiss was hunger and relief. His body still hot from the shower, smooth skin over hard muscle. They’d avoided a fight, found a way to lighten the space around them enough to make room for this. A physical confirmation that everything would be okay.
She gave it her all. Straddled him, kissed him deeply with her hand on his neck. When he sat partway up to urge her onto her back, she let herself be flipped, let him take control, let desire lead the way.
This part, they’d always known how to do. Two bodies in peak form, two adults with plenty of practice. He moved down between her legs, showing her what he could give her with his mouth, as she showed him that she knew how to surrender. He brought her to orgasm with his tongue and his fingers, took the condom he’d placed on the table by the bed and rolled it on, moved inside her body slowly, his eyes on hers, his expression a demand that she feel with him, be with him, take him in.
Rosemary was sweat-slick, knees trembling beneath his hot palms. She pulled him down to lie on top of her, to kiss her as he thrust, until neither of them had the presence of mind to do more than breathe together, until it became impossible to breathe and she had to bite.
She bit his lip. He put his thumb in her mouth and she bit that instead, the callused pad against her tongue as she squeezed her eyes tight shut and focused on friction, sensation, pressure, to bring herself to orgasm.
She held on to it for as long as she possibly could, urged on by Kal’s moans, his hurried final thrusts, his need.
She couldn’t make it last forever. She wished she could.
Rosemary wished she knew a way to keep her body from cooling, her pulse from slowing, the heavy weight from settling back over her heart—twice as heavy now, because as the sex hormones banked she felt more certain than ever that everything would not, in fact, be okay.
One decision at a time only led to bad decisions.
If she kept this up with Kal, she would make one bad decision after the next. She would give him her body and her heart, and she would tear herself to pieces in the process.
It should have helped to have a plan, but it didn’t. Sometimes love wasn’t enough.
