Love & Other Disasters(59)

London had always found cooking to be a form of art, of therapy, an expression of love and intent. Without all of their nanny’s cooking lessons, their kitchen warm and humid from hot stoves and boiling water, London’s childhood would have been a far lonelier landscape. Even today, cooking lent London a sense of control that they often lacked in the rest of their life. They couldn’t control their father, or how their genes had been configured in their brain, or the breathtaking inequality of the world.

But they could make soufflés, and cakes, and the most tender steak. They could make anything they wanted.

It made sense to London that cooking had helped Dahlia through her divorce. Of course it had. They had watched how it calmed her, whenever she had a knife in her hands, a set of ingredients in front of her, and a plan in her mind. It calmed them in much the same way. They understood each other in this, an understanding London had never quite shared with anyone else.

And so as Dahlia’s hands worked on their back, as she spread what they thought was melon along their skin, they knew, without having to see it, the look of concentration that was on her face, relaxed and focused all at once. Ever since they had seen Dahlia Woodson gut a fish, they had wanted to feel those hands on them, peeling back their own prickly layers. Perhaps Dahlia had been uncovering their scales, sneakily, one sharp edge at a time, bit by bit over the last month, until this very moment, their body pliant and smooth in her hands, when they finally felt fully washed clean.

Dahlia leaned down and used her mouth. She started at the back of their neck, making her way along their shoulder blades, down their sides. She made a satisfied hum.

“London,” she said. “You taste delicious.”

London smiled. “This was a good idea.”

Dahlia’s hands had lulled London into an almost meditative state, but her tongue reawakened other sensations in London’s core. After a few blissed-out moments, they spread their legs apart.

“Touch me.”

London raised their hips off the bed to give her better access. Dahlia’s fingers touched them, just right, while her tongue continued to caress their back, their shoulders, her nipples grazing against their spine, and it was all London needed, everything they wanted, to start spiraling inside, tighter, lighter, until the sensations condensed into a column of heat. They blindly shot an arm behind them, pressing Dahlia to their back. She kissed the spot where their neck met their shoulder, murmuring their name, and they thought, through the heady haze of their mind, they could hear themself saying hers in return.

And then London crashed, curling suddenly off their stomach into a ball, and she fell onto her side with them, sliding her arms around them, holding them tight, the skin between them still sticky and sweet.

Dahlia stood under the hot flow of water for a final second before, with reluctance, she leaned over to shut it off.

Brushing aside the shower curtain, she gazed at London in front of her, vigorously rubbing a towel over their head before wrapping it under their armpits. They looked at her, that damp bit of strawberry hair sufficiently mussed and lovely, their skin red and dewy from the hot steam.

“Hey.” London smiled. And then, their eyes narrowing an inch, they said, “You okay?”

Dahlia grabbed the towel they handed her, wrapping it protectively around herself.

They were always asking her that, at the precise moments when she had no idea how to answer.

The night before had been, alternately and sometimes simultaneously, the funniest and most erotic thing she had ever experienced. She had loved every single second of it. Every moment with London was a new experience in letting herself go. An exercise in being vulnerable. A trial run of true, exhilarated happiness. Last night, she had felt . . . free.

The only logical course of action when they woke up with tangled limbs akimbo in very messy sheets had been a hot, thorough shower together. And while Dahlia had at first thought this could be an equally sexy venture—she had always wanted to try shower sex!—both of their bodies had been too exhausted to contemplate it.

Instead, the scene in the shower ended up being almost embarrassingly gentle.

London had washed off every square inch of Dahlia’s skin in the confines of the shower, bending down awkwardly to get between her thighs, behind her knees, the bottom of her heels and between all of her toes. She kept yelling at them, worried they would fall on the wet tile and smack their head, but then they’d touch her with such reverent attention that she’d go speechless again.

There were patches of herself, sore from how determinedly London had sucked sticky sweetness off of them, shocked at being seen and adored, that she wasn’t sure she had even been aware of before.

She had attempted to return the favor, scrubbing down London’s back and shoulders, all of their hidden crevices, wanting to make them feel clean and renewed and cared for.

And now, as she stood dripping in the shower, watching London dry themself off and brush their teeth, such ordinary, intimate things, Dahlia felt frayed at the edges. Like she felt too big for her body, suddenly, like she didn’t know how to proceed without her limbs falling apart.

“I’m going to need another towel for my hair,” she said eventually, motioning limply to her head. “This is a two-towel affair.”

“Of course.” London handed her another towel and she scrunched her hair in it, grateful for a practical, normal action.

“You didn’t answer me,” London said as they watched. “Are you okay? You seem . . . a little shaky.”