Jack responds to the sounds like we’re connected by a silk thread, like the more I feel, the more she feels. “Elle,” she whimpers as she licks me slowly, teasing out these lingering feelings, my name in her mouth a sacrament. “Elle.”

I say her name back. It feels like dark chocolate melting on my tongue, like cutout cookies with homemade frosting, like waffles with whipped cream. Jack. Jack Jack Jack.

“Come up here, please,” I beg, and Jack obeys, climbing up onto the bed, climbing on top of me, until our naked bodies are folded together like starched sheets. This is where I want her most. She kisses my mouth, and she tastes like me, and she tastes like her, and I kiss her back like I’ve forgotten how to protect myself from hurt.

Both hands in her hair, pressing her tightly against me. I wrap both of my legs around her waist and pin her to my body. Her pebbled nipples skate across my skin, and I explode in goose bumps and renewed yearning. She rubs herself against me, our bodies moving in some beautiful rhythm of pleasure while she hovers above me, watching my face.

“I’m so glad I found you again,” Jack says.

She practically shouts it.

I wake up under an itchy quilt with Jack’s arm around my shoulder and Jack’s leg over my legs. It takes a minute for me to remember where we are and how we ended up like this, but for a moment, I revel in her body, her heat, her heartbeat against my back.

Then: skiing, snow, Gillian, the Singhs’ cabin, six fingers of whisky, Celine Dion, sex. It all comes back to me, and a cold sweat breaks out across my naked skin. I feel trapped by Jack’s body, unable to move my limbs. My heartbeat falls out of rhythm with hers.

This isn’t a heart attack, I quickly chant to myself as I climb out from beneath her. You are not having an unprecedented cardiac event.

“Whatsa—?” Jack strings together some incomprehensible syllables as I slide out of the bed. She blinks up at me with sleep in her eyes, and for a second I get lost in those eyes, in their fiery intensity, even half-asleep. She tries again. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

I’m not okay, but I’m not sure why I’m not okay. I feel fluttery and panicked, like I have an itch inside my internal organs that I’ll never be able to scratch. And why, why? I just had the best sex of my (admittedly pretty sexless) life. I got to kiss Jack without guilt. I got to wake up in her arms. The sound of her sandpaper voice against my skin. I am so glad I found you again.

How could that beautiful night lead to these ugly feelings twisting inside of me?