New Wonders

"Was that...okay?" he asked, his voice sounding half hopeful, half apologetic.

I shook my head in disbelief.

"You've been holding back all this time."

He smiled, sitting up fully and pulling me with him. He touched my cheek and drew me into a hug, pressing his lips to my ear.

"I knew being with you would cause my undoing but I didn't expect the experience to be so...palpable."

"I believe the word you're looking for is palatable", I mumbled against his shoulder.

He drew back to face me.

"We're going to try that again." His words were a promise- an assurance that marked the beginning of new experiences. He continued, "But you" he pressed a finger to my nose, "You need to be more vocal about what you want. I will go to lengths to embarrass myself but I don't want to hurt you or do something incredibly stupid". He paused. "I didn't do anything incredibly stupid, did I?"

I shook my head, smiling.

"How do you feel?" I gestured to the floor beside us, "about all that?"

He put his thumb and finger to his temple, bowing down.

"As an unperfect actor on the stage, who with his fear is put besides his part."

Of course he would follow kinky sex with Shakespeare.

Of course that would make me love him more.

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you - is not that strange?" I teased, gratified that some semblance of academia lingered somewhere in my brain.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his face turning soft and gentle.

"Stranger than any poem."

Against the backdrop of night his obsidian eyes seemed fuller somehow. As though, being purged of sunlight, they resolved to concoct their own luminosity.

I leaned against his chest and we fell back to the floor.

During moments like this I wondered how many people in the world felt the same way as I did. Whether all humans had the capacity for the same level of devotion, and if it was just a matter of finding the person who would flip on the switch. Our relationship was not rooted in the extraordinary or fantastical. More often than not we spent our time planning mundane tasks like cooking and studying, or arguing about the pronunciation of a difficult word. But there was nothing mundane about what we were to each other. Nothing trivial or monotonous about how we kissed before bed, the way we spoke in our own secret language, or the nights we lost track of the world as the hours spilled over midnight. He was mine; I, his. I would explore the ends of the earth with him, if only there were enough time.

Pressed against Aiden's chest with one ear, I used the other to listen as the cicadas announced their nocturnal dominion. The sounds of the night secured a steady rhythm, and our breathing joined in shortly thereafter.