Page 92 of So Thirsty

My back hits the mast, and I reach behind me for it, slip around to the other side of it.

“Where are you going?” he asks, circling.

He gets to me, and moves to kiss me, and I slip away again.

“I thought you didn’t like to play games?” he asks, darting after me as I swing around the mast. I smash into him, burrowing my head into his chest. He puts his hands on me, sails them up from my hips to my waist, to my ribs, chest, neck, jaw, hair.

“If it’s me,” I say. “It’s only me.”

“It’s only you.”

—

On our walk back from the ship, however much later, I try to remember the last time I talked about sex with Naomi, or with any friend. The day after I lost my virginity, she took me out to her favorite tapas restaurant and I gave her a play-by-play as we split a pitcher of sangria that we were legally too young to drink, but Naomi flirted with the waiter, so he served us anyway.

She’d already lost hers and had been giving me explicit details for years. It was silly fun to sit there and giggle and blush. It was novel to us then. But by the time I got with Joel, and she got with Lee, we were past all that.

I’d never seriously considered cheating on Joel. I wasn’t motivated, and I wondered who would want me anyway. I thought decent, routine sex once a week was just part of being married, part of what I’d signed up for. I’d made my peace with that, and over the years, sex became an obligation, something I did because it was part of life, like haircuts and taxes. I’d hear pop songs on the radio and wonder why everyone was so obsessed, then think, Because they’re young. Because these pop stars are young, and sex is exciting when you’re young.

But just moments ago, I was on my back on a fake ship in the middle of a deserted Renaissance fair, staring up at the stars as Henry pulled off my jeans and kissed up my thighs. He spread my legs, and I dug my nails into his back as I felt him move inside me, his dirty-blond hair hanging in my face. And I took my hands from his back to his chest, where I could feel his heart beating, alive, alive. Then I touched his face, his grinning, magnificent face, and he kissed my hands, dragged his teeth across their flesh, took my fingers into the softness of his mouth. We melted the snow, and we were wet with it, wet with sweat.

And then he bent me over the ship’s railing to take me from behind, and I was eye to eye with the sea monster and I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh, and I bit my lip for other reasons. Hard enough to draw blood, which stung but was worth it just so I could deliver it to him, to his lips, his mouth, his perfect tongue.

My body was new to me, new again. Capable of this new, transcendent satisfaction.

After we both came, we carried on kissing, with our hands in each other’s damp, tangled hair, and I realized that wonder isn’t reserved for the young. That maybe my best years aren’t behind me, after all. Only my human years…

I want to share this with Naomi. I want to tell her everything. I want to pull her aside, throw a blanket over our heads so we can gossip and swoon. But what I don’t want is for her to think that because this happened I’m fine with the rest. That because I slept with someone, had an incredible night, the ugliness that came before is absolved.

The ugliness I hold her accountable for. Along with the others. Henry included.

Living is complicated and messy, she said to me at the rest stop. “Messy” is an understatement for whatever I feel now, as I subtly slip my wedding band out of my pocket and drop it into the snow.

Henry and I pass by the fairy-tale tower. I can see the tavern up ahead.

“Do we have to go back right now?” I ask him.

“No,” he says. “We can keep walking, if you aren’t cold.”

“I’m not cold,” I say. “Or maybe I am, but I don’t get cold like I used to.”

“That happens.” He takes my hand to hold, like we’re going steady. Like we’re walking through the halls of our high school. Only I doubt he’s ever been to high school.

“Do you read books?” I ask him.

“No, I hate reading,” he says, and I experience a moment of acute panic before he starts to laugh. “What else would I do with all this time?”

“What your friends do,” I say.

“They’re more family than friends. Brothers and sisters.”

“They don’t act like brothers and sisters.”

“I meant, to me. Not to one another. There’s no enjoyment in food or drink. There’s sleep. There’s sex. Material things. Books. Films. Art. Fashion. People—though rarely.”

“You can be around people without…”

“Without draining them? Yes. You’ll see.”