Epilogue
On Wednesdays, after they had met their word count on the book they were writing together or had his sister over for lunch and the love he should have known was always still there, they went out.
Not to the diner, although secretly she was starting to love it more than he did.
And not for a walk in the woods that usually wound up with them doing some very inadvisable things while surrounded by poison ivy.
No—they went to the theater, in the center of town.
The one that was not seventeen blocks away.
She could walk it from their house, no problems at all.
But it was better on Wednesdays when they went together. Like in college, only without the three rows between them. Hell, sometimes they didn’t even let the arm rest stay between them. It really depended on how bad the film was.
And how much better they could make it by making out.
Though it had kind of taken them a while to get to that point.
The first time they had decided to go see a zombie double bill, he had sat beside her.
And that had seemed like enough. A bold step, somehow, in a way that all the frantic fucking wasn’t.
I can see now why he could do one and not the other, she had thought as they sat in the darkness.
The tension slowly rising, rising, until the air around them felt hot. Everything electric.
When she had finally broken it with a hand over his, half telling herself that this was weird and silly, he had moaned her name. And he had done it more heatedly than he had during their last fuck. The one that morning, when she had woken to the realization that he was jerking off next to her.
Then she had ridden him so hard it had shoved him into orgasm, without any of the usual things that really got him. Sometimes it was a hand in his hair. Sometimes it was a kiss. Sometimes she whispered I love you in his ear, and he came so copiously it was all over her thighs when she stood.
But it had still not been anything like that first touch in the theater.
And she kind of understood why. All that time they had spent in that dark little space, never getting so much as near to touching.
But deep down, oh, deep down, always wanting to.
Always wondering what it would be like, in some dark, half-hidden part of themselves.
We made it almost forbidden, she thought that first time.
But truthfully it was even more than that.
I’ve never done this before, he had said the first time she’d gone to kiss him through the darkness.
And she’d realized he didn’t just mean that.
He meant ever, with anyone, in a movie theater.
Never any making out in the back row with his sweetheart.
He had never had a sweetheart to do it with.
Just her, pressing her lips against his.
Tentatively, for the full effect. The exact sense of some new girlfriend, trying out a kiss for the first time.
Nervous about it.
But eager.
Oh, she knew he felt how eager she was. Knew he could feel her trembling, trying to hold it back a little.
She still remembered the shock of arousal that had gone through her when she had first felt the flicker of his tongue. No longer really a new thing to her at all, but in there it had been. In the dark of the movie theater it was.
They rewound the clock, and got to have all the things they hadn’t anew.
And it wasn’t just that place. It wasn’t just that day. On Fridays, they drove up to the bluff. Ate picnic food, listened to music, got to second base during the chorus of something sexy. It’s not as exciting for you, though, he had said when she’d asked him to slip a hand inside her top.
Then she’d had to explain.
That, sure, she had parked up someplace with someone.
But they had never made her feel good the way he did. Never made her feel loved the way he did. I’ve done some of these things, she’d said. But none of them were anything more than the kind of sex you had before me. They were perfunctory things, just going through the motions.
Then she had shown him how little it could ever feel like that with him, when every single thing about being there with her thrilled him. He got hard over her snuggling into the crook of his arm. Over a kiss on his cheek. Over her saying oh, is this for me, and then rubbing him between his legs.
Though that was not the very best.
No, the very best was the food.
He started out very cautious, of course. Because the thing was, he hadn’t just denied himself good food. He had grown used to the denial. Reliant upon it, in some ways. It was stability, a reminder to him that he was in full control, and never tempted by anything, not even food.
But after the third night of watching her sucking popsicles and licking sauce off herself and spilling things over her almost bare breasts, she could see he was starting to relent.
First by shoving the table between them aside and licking all the mess off her.
Then by starting to make a mess himself.
He split a plum, and licked into the slit.
And after she was done shoving the table aside and licking all the mess off him, he seemed to get bolder. Next a peach, then a mango, and finally and most blessedly, a passionfruit. Oh, she had loved watching him make love to a passionfruit with his mouth.
Mostly because it was hot.
But also because of the way he’d started to smile when he did things like that. Just a curl of amusement around the corners of his mouth, like he knew exactly what he was doing to her, and was glad it was being done.
It usually meant frantic sex on the table.
Though after a while, it led elsewhere. A month into their relationship she found him down in the pantry at four in the morning, eating canned peaches with his fingers, syrup all round his mouth.
I’d forgotten they were so good, he had explained.
And a lot of things had been like that with him after that.
They were like that now, in the theater once more.
She fed him buttered popcorn until her fingers were glossy. Then he licked each one, long and languorously. Kissed her, tasting of something salty and something sweet. Finally free to love the way he wanted to, she thought, as he pulled her close, closer, closest.
Finally free to be.