I’d reacted, of course, with fake operatic indignation: one, that she would get me such a thing in the first place, and two, that she would suggest with an impish smile that we discuss it and look at the photographs together. She knew full well I would hide the book, devour the book, find roundabout ways to bring up the book, take the book as not exactly a green light but an understanding of some kind between Mama mia and me. Which I did, thinking: Wow; disgusting; thrilling; bizarre. One day, one day.

“It’s supposed to get better,” Jack informed me solemnly, and his face did this thing that made me scoot up and kiss him in different places. As if he knew anything about it!

“It was great,” I said, and sank back down with a sudden pang. “You were great.” Late afternoon was my least favorite time of day. Neither one thing or the other. Unnaturally still. Dingy light. When? When, for me, was it going to get better?

“Your mother gave you a book about sex?” asked Jack. “My mother would never do that.”

“What about your father?”

“My father gave me The Talk. Once when I was ten, on a camping trip. One a few years later. Final one last year. That one covered contraception and STDs.”

I raised my head, smiling a little. “Did it cover the female anatomy?”

Jack reddened and looked away. “Are we supposed to be talking about our parents at a time like this?”

I nestled down and kissed his neck to fend off the late-afternoon feeling. You’d think having nothing between you but skin would bring you to the true center of a person. You’d think. But the fact was, I felt closer to Jack kissing in the kitchen than I did later on. Mouth first, I had all of him. I would not tell Vicky this, or even Fiona, but it wasn’t just having something inside me that belonged to someone else. It wasn’t that the setup was obviously five-star for him but how on earth was it supposed to work for me? No, the thing was this. When he was pressing the mattress on either side of my head and whimpering in ascending notes that made me think of a blind dog scaling a cliff, it was as though Jack went away and left me and I had no idea if he would return or what he’d be like if he did. True, he was lying there now speaking to me in his everyday voice. But once they’ve emptied themselves out like that, isn’t it easier for them to walk away?