“Oh no. It will always be different now. I promise,” he said, walked to the bed, and leaned over to kiss me.

I seized his shoulders when he started to pull back.

He sat beside me to stamp smaller kisses on my cheeks and my closed eyes, holding me confidently in his arms. I lowered my head against his chest, and he kissed my neck before he rose, pulled back the thin blanket, and undid his pants. Naked from the waist down, he slipped in beside me.

“My swan,” he whispered. “My own precious swan.”

“Yes, yes,” I said. This was what I had waited all day to hear, to feel.

As he carefully removed my nightgown, taking his time to kiss and stroke me, pausing to kiss my neck and whisper his love, I glanced up at the swan. Its red ruby eye seemed fixed on us. I felt as if we were making love under its wing. His gaze followed mine, and suddenly, I felt his hesitation.

“What’s wrong?”

“Dr. Ross told me to be careful,” he whispered.

“Graceful, not careful,” I said, and he laughed and then kissed me the way I wanted him to kiss me, romantically, lovingly, his lips wet with passion, his tongue grazing mine.

Nevertheless, he hovered above me and moved almost like someone I imagined doing this for the first time, tentative all the way. I didn’t sense that overly self-confident manner. For a moment, I thought he was in some pain. He looked like he was frightened, agonized. Instead of looking at me and bringing himself closer to kiss me, he gazed up at the swan, pausing and seemingly mesmerized. For a few moments, I felt as if it didn’t matter if I was there or not.

“Garland,” I whispered.

A puzzled look came onto his face. He looked like he had just realized what he had been doing. I could feel his hardness softening. It was an odd feeling, like his phallus was losing air.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. He started to pull away.

“No, I’m not complaining,” I said, my hands reaching for him. I seized his arms. “There’s nothing wrong, no pain.”

He continued to retreat, breaking my grip. “It’s all right. I understand,” he said.

“Understand what? What did I do?”

He nodded as if he had heard a different voice, different words. “We’ll be fine. I need to give you some time. I understand.”

“What? No. There was no discomfort. It was exactly the opposite.”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he was dressing quickly.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“It’s all right. I’ll let you sleep. You need your sleep. My mother had a miscarriage, you know, after I was born. They worried about her getting pregnant again.”