In the beautifully decorated bedroom, Anna locked the door and ordered Alexia to get undressed. After he had, she slowly slipped out of her own clothes and stood just out of his reach. When he touched himself, she commanded him to stop, telling him the only person who could touch him was her. When she crawled up onto the bed, she teased him until he squirmed and begged for more. She felt powerful and free. Gone were her fears that their passion had been extinguished by their recent separation. If anything, she was even more enraptured by the beautiful boy who lay naked below her.

She forced herself to go slow, wanting to make it last for as long as possible, offering up the measured ache of their pleasure to the gods who’d fated them to meet, to kiss, to fuck in secret, and who had seen fit to rip them apart, so they could right their wanton ways and come together properly as two people who could belong to one another without anything standing in their way.

When he was inside her, she refused to let him move and instead buried her face in his neck, whispering she wanted to lead this dance. She started moving her hips above him, and she felt him gasp beneath her. “Alexia, my Alexia,” she whispered as she grinded against him. She was already at the peak of her excitement and wanted them to ride down the waterfall together. “Now, now, now,” she cried out.

“Oh god, I love you Anna, only you!” he cried out as they came together. He imagined the plane falling out of the sky, ready to accept death in this moment of bliss, better to die entwined with the girl he loved than die alone in the distant future.

They lay in each other’s arms for the next hour, basking in the ecstasy of their new life together. Anna told him she wasn’t going to be his girlfriend, because she needed to be her own woman for a while. She stated that she had no interest in anyone but him, and if he had outside interests in anyone else, well, too bad for him. He laughed and readily agreed to her terms. They were together now and that was the only thing that mattered to him. He didn’t need to label her. She wasn’t his to own. And he would gladly work each day to earn her affection if that was what it took. They made love once again and fell asleep, lulled by the roar of the engines, not waking until the plane landed at Palm Springs International Airport in the California desert.