The distance between us is a physical ache when she’s saying the things I’ve dreamed of hearing, reflecting the words that have been locked away in my heart for years. Treasures I thought would rot, would fade with age, but never have. Our love is as bright and real as the day we were made together. I plunge into her body, and she wraps herself tightly around me, arms and legs clutching me to her. I brace one hand on the headboard, curl my arm under her knee and push in deeper, finding no resistance, only a warm, wet, tight welcome.

I surrender to every primal urge I’ve checked. I fall through the trap door to my basest desires, biting her neck, her breasts. Slamming into her with such force that the headboard bangs the wall and the bed slides.

“Oh my God, Ez.” She drops her arms behind her, over her head, giving her body to me completely. “As hard as you want. As long as you want. Just keep fucking me like that.”

I seize the fullness of her ass in one hand, squeezing, pushing in deeper, urging our bodies beyond the limits of flesh and bone. That place where we’re joined is a gateway to what I want more than anything. I’m desperate to reach her heart, her soul.

We claw and bite and sigh and snarl until her body trembles beneath me with sobs and shudders. Even after she comes, I go on, needing to release, but not wanting this to end in case it’s all a dream. When I come, it’s with a primal roar that ricochets through my marrow and tears at my throat.

We lie there in the dark, our bellies pressed together, a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs and hurried heartbeats. I can’t imagine leaving her body right now, so I don’t. Our skin cools and our breathing evens into a quiet that doesn’t need breaking. We rest in our own thoughts and in each other’s arms.

“I need to tell you something,” she finally says.

“Okay.” I find her hand, link our fingers. “What is it?”

“I’m in…” Her fingers tighten on mine and I hear her swallow. “I’m in perimenopause, Ez.”

I don’t know what peri in the front of it means, but I do recognize menopause.

I reach over to turn on the light, but she stops me. “Don’t.”

Reluctantly, I pull out and lie down to face her, making out the shape of her face in the moonlight slanting in through the window

“You’re too young for that, right?”

“It is early, but it happens for different women at different times. This is when it’s happening for me.”

“So what does this mean?”

She hesitates. An uncharacteristic uncertainty hangs around her. She’s always sure, but right now, even in the dark, I see that she is not.