Chapter 7
SEVEN
LENNON
The thing about really good sex—and I am going to need a minute to process the fact that I finally know what really good sex feels like—is that it turns your brain off completely.
Not numb. Not checked out like a night of mindless TV.
Off. Like a light switch.
There’s this amazing quality of silence that comes after something intense just happened, full of peace and full body relaxation and relief and—
I’ve never had that before.
I didn’t know this was a thing that could happen. I thought it was just a thing people say, like how they talk about seeing stars or losing track of time—technically possible but mostly metaphorical. Or just aspirational, not an actual event that happens to real people in real life.
And yet here I am.
Really.
I’m lying on August’s chest, which is warm and solid and still slightly damp from the shower and the little workout we just performed with each other’s bodies as we chased simultaneous climax, and my brain is—
Buffering.
Attempting to reconnect to normal cognitive function after whatever that was.
I listen to August’s heartbeat slow down.
I think about nothing.
I haven’t thought about nothing in years. My brain doesn’t do nothing. It spirals about seventeen things simultaneously and calls that rest.
But right now, in the warm wreckage of this completely insane night, I am thinking nothing and it feels like floating. But like I’m floating inside my body, not out of it, if that makes any sense?
After a while I become aware that I’m tracing the lines of the gargoyle on August’s chest. Just following the ink with one finger, not thinking about it, the way you’d follow the grain of wood on a table. I don’t stop when I notice. I just keep going.
“You’re quiet,” August says.
“My brain turned off.”
A pause. “Is that good or bad?”
I consider this with the seriousness it deserves. “I genuinely don’t know. I’ve never experienced it before.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment.
Then: “Yeah. I get that.”
I tilt my head up to look at him and he’s looking at the ceiling, and there’s something in his face that’s—
Well, it’s different from how he’s looked all evening. Like, earlier, sure he looked unruffled. But more like he’s the kinda man who’s made peace with most of the things you have to make peace with to get through a day.
Right now, though, there’s something quieter in his face. Like he’s genuinely at rest and not trying to look at ease. He just is.
He notices me staring.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing.” I put my cheek back on his chest.
“I didn’t know it could feel like that,” I say to his sternum.
“I genuinely thought— I don’t know. Maybe that sex was a little overrated.
By everyone. You know, like carbonation.
Everybody talks about loving carbonated drinks and I’ve never understood it.
The little bubbles bite at your tongue. So I thought maybe I was just a person who doesn’t get the appeal. ”
A pause.
“You compared sex to carbonation,” he says.
“I’m saying I didn’t know sex could be like that.” I lift my head again. “That sex isn’t overrated after all. That was extremely rated. Underrated, in fact. I just never knew—”
I break off, because clearly, everyone was trying to say it could be like this. I just didn’t believe them before now because I hadn’t experienced it before.
August looks at me for a second and then laughs.
It’s the real-from-deep-inside laugh, the same laugh I got from him on the pool deck when I said approximately swimming.
And something about being the reason for that laugh does something in my chest that I’m going to put very firmly in the don’t examine tonight category.
“Underrated,” he says.
“Significantly.”
He shakes his head, still smiling, and I put my cheek back down because the smile is doing things I don’t have bandwidth for right now. This is just a one-night-stand and I’m basking in the fabulous afterglow while it lingers.
Still, I never imagined there could still be the pleasant togetherness-quiet after sex.
We’re quiet for another long while.
I become aware of my phone on the nightstand. I haven’t looked at it since we got back to the cabin.
There’s a reason I left it behind when I went to the hot tub. Even from a distance I could feel the notifications accumulating all night like a physical presence: Jake’s name appearing over and over in the dark of the screen.
So I reach out and flip it face-down without looking at it.
The silence in the cabin felt unbearable before August came inside.
Now I lie with my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat beneath my ear, and the quiet feels like something else entirely.
It isn’t empty.
It’s two people not talking because neither of us has to perform.
I spent nine years beside a husband who made me feel lonely whenever I took up too much space.
One night with a stranger, and I finally understand that the right person can make silence feel like being held.
“I’ve never lived alone,” I whisper.
I didn’t mean to say it out loud, and if it were any other day, and any other person, I might feel embarrassed about how vulnerable it sounds. Talking is probably breaking the afterglow spell and will make him leave, but today I’ve lost my ability to keep true things on the inside.
“Not one night,” I just keep going, saying the things you’re not supposed to say out loud.
Because fuck it. What if I don’t want to keep anything bottled up inside anymore?
“I went from my mom’s house to my husband’s apartment and I’ve never— There’s never been a night where I was just—” I stop.
“I know that’s weird. For someone my age. ”
“It’s not weird.” August’s voice rumbles through his chest, his fingers casually running through my hair now. I like how that feels. I like it a lot.
“It’s a little weird.”
“It’s whatever it is.” He says it matter-of-fact, with no judgment attached. He’s not performing comfort. Just also saying the true thing.
I look at the dark window.
“I always hated the dark,” I say. “Even as a kid I needed… something. Music or a podcast or the TV on in the other room. I never thought there were monsters under my bed or anything. It can just get so—” I don’t have the word for it.
August doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Heavy. I know what you mean.”
Not that’s so interesting or have you tried meditation or maybe drink some milk or chamomile tea before bed.
Just: I know what you mean. Like it’s a perfectly ordinary thing to understand about silence, that it can feel like something pressing down on you.
I look up at him, and just catch sight of his throat, because he’s looking up at the ceiling.
“I should probably head back…?” He says it like there’s a question mark at the end.
Like he’s opening a door and then standing back so I can decide whether he should walk through it or not.
I think about the cabin after he goes. The dark and the silence and the phone face-down on the nightstand and the fact that tomorrow I have to begin the actual logistical project of having to adult really hard—
“Stay,” I say impulsively.
Just that. He can say no. I’ve survived enough today that I can survive him saying no.
Jake’s always saying how too much I can be. I’m pretty sure trauma dumping on a stranger both before and after fucking him counts as too much, even if we did have spectacular sex.
August and I both understood this was just a one-night stand between strangers, and while there’s no script for this, I figure convention says he gets to get up and go after the sex part—
But he doesn’t say no to my request to stay.
He doesn’t say anything. He shifts slightly, resettling against the pillow, and pulling the covers over us.
We’re not actively wet anymore, so I don’t complain. And then his arm adjusts around my shoulder, cuddling me to his big, warm chest.
And then he’s… just still. Like staying wasn’t a complicated decision. Or even barely a decision at all.
“I’ll be gone before seven,” he says with a yawn. “I’ve got an early thing.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“You’ll be okay in the morning.”
It’s not a question exactly, or even a reassurance. More like something in between—like he’s stating a thing he believes to be true and is offering it to me to hold onto if I want it.
I pull the blanket up.
“Yeah,” I say.
I fall asleep faster than I have in months. Maybe years.