You (You #1)(107)

And less than an hour later, my predictions prove accurate. You leaf through Great Expectations. “Wow,” you say. “So you really did know what my half siblings look like.”

“Yep,” I say. “I bought a beard, you know, just in case.”

You toss Great Expectations in the drawer. “I think you’re a genius.”

I pull the drawer and take Dickens out. “You ready?”

You grin. “I thought you’d never ask.”

We settle into our spots and it feels like we’re holding hands and running off the dock, holding our breath as we jump back into the deep, consuming water that is The Da Vinci Code. These are the happiest moments of my life, looking up at you and waiting for you to feel my eyes as you give me what I want. “Two forty-three. You?”

“I’m on two fifty-one.”

“Well, take a break and let me catch up,” you say and you remark once again that I am both a fast reader and a thorough reader which is special because most people, men especially, are just one or the other.

We cry when Robert and Sophie make it to the chalice. We know what’s to come as they cross the landscape and enter the church. You put your hand on the drawer and I put my hand on the drawer and the drawer is designed to keep our hands apart, but I feel your pulse, I do. You sniffle. “I don’t want it to end.”

“This is like the end of The Corrections,” I say and the problem with books is that they end. They seduce you. They spread their legs to you and pull you inside. And you go deep and leave your possessions and your ties to the world at the door and you like it inside and you don’t want for your possessions or your ties and then, the book evaporates. You turn the page and there is nothing and we are both crying. We are happy for Sophie and Robert and we are jet lagged from travel. We journeyed. At times we were so in the book that you were Sophie, descendant of Christ, and I was Langdon, savior of Sophie, and we are easing back into our bodies, our minds. You yawn and I yawn and your back cracks. We laugh. You ask me how long it’s been.

“Three days, almost four.”

“Wow,” you say.

“I know,” I say.

“We should celebrate.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know,” you lie, you nymph. “I could go for some ice cream.”

The Da Vinci Code is the greatest book in the world and someday, when we live together, we will have a shelf—brand-new, not used, I know you and your new things—and there will be nothing on the shelf except our Da Vinci Codes, nestled together, merged forever by the supernatural force that is our love.





50


I run out to buy you ice cream and I hear Bobby Short singing in my head—I am your prince—and I am on air on the way to the deli and on the way back. I bound down the stairs, can’t get to you fast enough, with the ice cream you wanted, vanilla. You are simple again; three weeks ago you would have wanted some fucking gelato you read about in the Sunday Styles. I want to tell you about the funny dude in the line at the deli but when I reach the bottom of the stairs you are different. You are naked. I am still. “Beck.”

“Come over here,” you command, low. “Bring the ice cream.”

I do as I am told and your right hand moves over your collarbone and onto your breast and you have another demand. “Give me my dessert.”

I tear at the bag and the spoon falls on the floor but fuck it and I tear off the lid as well as the plastic lining. The ice cream is soft and my dick is hard and I know why Bobby Short felt like a racehorse; I am a racehorse.

“One second,” I say.

“Ticktock,” you say, you purr.

I play the song on the computer. You like it. You command, “Put it on repeat.”

I obey and I return to the drawer and you kneel before the cage, your nipples hard. You want to know if I can pull the drawer out and make an open window. I can. You tell me to take off my pants. I do. You reach both hands through the new open space where the drawer used to be and I pick up the ice cream and approach the cage. You touch yourself and your finger emerges wet, glistening and I know to bring the pint closer. The ice cream is hotter because of our heat, melting. You immerse your other hand in the magnet between your legs and you don’t let go of my eyes. Both of your hands are covered in your juices and you dip those wet fingers into the melting vanilla. You tease me. You tell me you want my mouth and I give you my mouth and your fingers fill my mouth and your other fingers are touching skillfully, mysteriously, her first rose. My dick. Your hands are The Da Vinci Code and my body is yours. I suck the life out of your fingers and you pry them from my mouth. I look down at you and you are in the vanilla. You dig, deep. Your vanilla hand joins your other hand on my hard cock, and I am cool and hot and hard to your soft. Your hands can dance and they lead me to your mouth and you swallow me and I moan and we are the world and there is barely room for the three of us, my cock and your hands. I belong in your mouth, and when I open my eyes you are staring at me, wide, whole. I need you, all of you. You want all of me. You know all my secrets and your mouth has teeth. You take me out of your mouth and hold me in your hands. You look up at me, pleading, “Fuck me.”

I don’t consciously decide to trust you. My body takes over and I can’t unlock the cage fast enough. You rub your hands over your body and you wait. I jam the key into the lock and I miss your touch and I enter your space, you. You do not run away; you run at me, lust. I lock my hand around your neck and inject my tongue into your mouth and you take it. You scratch me. I could kill you and you know it and your nipples are harder than ever and your pussy never felt this sweet, this tight—just vanilla—and we could go on like this forever. You orgasm truly, you’re exploding and it’s an exorcism and an exclamation point. You’re speaking in tongues and I own you and I’m in you and I loosen my grip and explode and you own me, you do. Your back arches, wow. I have taken you places better than the Upper West Side, superior to Turks and Caicos and Nicky’s beige room. I have taken you to France, to the chalice, to the moon, and you cease to move and a smile rolls over your entire body and you’re a lily pad, sun stroked and floating, rooted to the floor of the lake, me, dark, above you.