That tilt comes back to Ross’s mouth when they whisper, “Your turn.” Before I know it, they’re slowly unbuttoning each button on my own shirt, a kiss to my lips every time a button comes undone.

It feels excruciatingly slow until finally Ross has my shirt fully open. They stare at my chest and my stomach, running their thin fingers through the hair that covers both. They lean in and kiss my neck, then bury their face in my chest, exploring my body with their lips and tongue.

Every atom in my being goes on overdrive when Ross touches me. The frenzy is gone now, no longer rushed or hurried. Ross is taking the time to savor this, to experience this, to connect to me. With Dominic, it felt like there was one thing and one thing only on his mind, and that was getting to the finish line. With Ross, it seems like they’d be okay if we were like this until the end of time, staring at each other’s chests, using our fingers to explore each other’s body.

After I don’t know how long, Ross laces their fingers in mine, then guides my hands just inside the waist of their pants, under the top of their underwear.

“Can we do this?” they ask. They push down on the tops of my hands just slightly so that the fabric slides a bit farther down their waist.

I nod, and they guide my hands to pull everything off.

     Ross     

It’s the weirdest yet most nerve-racking yet most exciting moment of my life. Technically, I’ve gone my whole life naked. We don’t wear clothes in Pacifica, don’t have parts that merkind has deemed inappropriate and need to be hidden. We wear our emotions on our scales, our happiness, sadness, attraction too. It never feels vulnerable, it just feels like living. We are always on display, all the time.

But now, standing here in front of Sean with nothing on is the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Everything is out in the open. Sean knows with one look at me how my body very pointedly feels about him, and without me having to ask, he pulls off his own pants to show how he feels about me too.