Even after all these years (and yes, you can argue that twenty-three years is not that many, but the perception of time is the most goddamn relative thing in the world) I knew nothing of my mind. I could never predict its movements, the arcs it would follow and where it would land me up. I had yet to know my own mind, yes, but I did know my body. I knew it intimately. I knew it to be stubborn when it came to getting warm, resilient when I asked it to pull through forty hours before a deadline, and quiet, too quiet, when left to itself.

So I called to mind the first time we kissed, the bridge that unfurled ahead of and behind us, the sound of baying wolves,

the lights dusting a Piccadilly sky. The memories set me ablaze, as always. They reddened my cheeks and brightened my eyes, tightened up my body and brought out the bones that lay at the base of my neck. This was instant make-up, and I made myself up with the memory that moved me most, for the person I loved the most.

‘Jay.’

‘How could you do that?’

‘Won’t you come to me?’

When we kissed, I felt so much of myself drain into him that for a while it was just my empty body, soulless and weightless, pressed to his mouth, clung to his chest. Have you ever felt like that? Like the person you’re holding is all that’s holding you together?

His lips worried around mine, and he pulled away.

I kissed him again. He pulled away again, looking scared, like he knew.

‘Do you know that when you walk into a room I can feel all the great dreams and desires of my life collapsing into the sum of the space you occupy?’

And his eyes clouded over, like they should, like they had to.

It’s the headiest rush in the world, this look. It says, quite simply—I want you. There are a million other things to be thinking about right now, a billion other people out there, but I can’t even acknowledge anything else for wanting you so badly, dear girl.

Jay’s hands were cushioning my head against the wall. They would bruise, and I revelled in knowing that he didn’t care. The concern in his lips had been replaced by an irreverent need and we kissed deep, teeth and tongues greedy to taste, to feast. The momentary breaks to breathe were unbearable, so his fingers tightened fistfuls in my hair and I put my face into his neck and smelled him underneath soap and cologne and his mouth bruised a line along my collarbone and I folded a leg up and around him and we couldn’t have made it to the bedroom. Hell, we didn’t even make it to the floor.

Letters

March 2014

There were two letters in the mail, postmarked from Berne.

Dear Love,