“No corset, thank God.” He smiled against my cheek.

I followed what he did, unbuttoned his shirt and ran my fingers through the hair of his chest.

“I aint sure what to do,” I said.

“You’re doing just fine. Do whatever you want to do.”

“I dont want you to think I do this all the time, just with anybody.”

“Honey, I know better than that.” He lifted my skirt, caressed my thigh. “You want me to stop?”

For a moment Aunt Becka’s face was close to mine, frowning in disapproval. I was astonished this was happening so fast, that I was letting it happen. But then I tasted his mouth again, so sweet.

“No. Dont never stop.”

He tugged off my skirt, my blouse, pulled my shift over my head. Then he stood up, leaned against the sofa, and awkwardly undressed. Together we struggled to pull his pants over the cast on his foot. Then he lay back down beside me and slipped off my underpants. I marvelled at the smoothness of his skin, the smell of him, as though I had never encountered a human being before. I clung to him with a fervor I had not known I possessed.

“You are a hugger,” he said, and I held on all the more tightly.

He encircled my wrist with his finger and thumb. “So small.” He guided my hand to his groin. The skin was softer than a baby’s. I thought I must be the first to make such a discovery, that I had stumbled onto something precious. I longed to cry out that I loved him, but the words would not come. We had not yet spoken of love. I knew a moment of pain, but it was fleeting, and I balanced on a great promontory, I scaled the heights to be touched by God and would never be the same again.

He was spent, his hair damp against my cheek. His heart fluttered wildly in his chest, like a bird trying to escape a cage.

“I feel your heart beating,” I said.

He raised his head languidly, propped himself up on his elbows. “That’s what you done to me.”

“It was my first time,” I said shyly.

“I never would have knowed it.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. Then he kissed the tip of my nose.

“I reckon you’re just a natural.”

“I think hit’s because I’m with you. You was so gentle. I felt—I aint never felt this for a man before. Hit was so special.”

He kissed me as though to quiet me. He had remained inside me and now he rose, moved, came again, affirmed what had gone before. Later we stood naked in the moonlight. He was just tall enough for me to bury my face in the silk-smooth skin of his neck.

“I want to wake up beside you,” he said.