I did, but I had to say no. Had to hope Jack knew what he was doing in relation to the work habits of his father. We reached the doorway to his bedroom. Maybe he hadn’t planned this in advance? Maybe he didn’t wish to tempt fate by being prepared, for instance, by disinfecting his room? It smelled of feet and old apples. Half-closed curtains created a maroon twilight. Single unmade bed against the far wall. I gave him a playful shove to the chest. We tumbled onto the bed, wrestling. When he was on top, he peeled up my T-shirt, and seeing I had no bra on, he stopped and murmured something I did not catch. It was a one-syllable word he kept repeating in a confused, slurred voice, before he lowered his head to kiss me where I had never been kissed. “What?” I demanded, to keep him talking. “What?” Though by that time I didn’t need to know.

When he raised his head, our eyes met. That was hard to bear and we could not keep it up for long, but for me it was the defining moment that made sense of our bare skin, the shock of his mouth on my breast, the sensation that I was levitating off the bed and at the same time sliding down it. Jack looked as if he couldn’t quite place me. Now was the time to put my hand on his zipper. He shimmied his jeans and boxers down, yanked off his socks and shirt, and came to a halt on his knees in front of me, where his features were instantly seized by the terror of being naked and in plain view. More buff than he looked in clothes. Thing flipped up tight to abdomen from nest of hairs. I had seen erections online and in this book I had, so I was familiar with the overall design. Even so. Strange beyond strange seeing one in the flesh, attached to someone who chewed his pens flat and could solve quadratic equations.

He hunkered down next to me, making loud shivering noises, pretending to be cold instead of shy. His skin was hot along my legs. Into my ear he whispered, “Do we need to use . . . you know?” I shook my head, and as I shook my head, a thought intruded that pretty much brought things to a halt. Had my mother and Antonio really forgotten in the passion of the moment, or had they secretly wanted me?