Agata opened the veranda and we ran outside, like children on midsummer night. We didn’t feel the cold, only the embrace of the night air on our skin. It was like swimming, dipping into the air. Our arms outstretched, reaching for the moon.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek!” cried Hania, taking a cloth from the garden table, blindfolding Maksio. We turned him around and around, our fingers on his waist and hips, his penis swinging along with the turns, our hands slapping his backside.

“Count to thirty!”

We ran into the garden, into the forest. The girls in one direction, you and I in another. Grass and twigs tickled our feet.

“You can take off your blindfold now!” Hania’s voice called from far away.

You and I behind a tree, somewhere by the edge of the forest. Our hands on the bark, beginning to freeze, and then finding warmth, our arms around each other. Our bodies formed one, protecting each other from the cold, perfect in the night. We kissed. You were mine. I realized then that this was the only thing that counted. Nothing else had ever existed. Just our lips and hips and sighs. I fell into different galaxies through you, your mouth a porthole to a better universe, and then the cracking of twigs behind us and there was Maksio, standing naked a couple of meters away, looking at us with his mouth wide open. His eyes dilated, his body frozen.

I could sense a quiver of fear run through your body. You tried to say something, but Maksio, completely out of nowhere, started to laugh. He laughed out loud like a crazed bear. It seemed like his laughter would bring the forest down, make the pines shed their needles.

Your face lightened up suddenly, and you laughed too. “It was a joke!” you cried, concentrating, looking at him. “Ludwik challenged me. I lost a bet.”

Maksio stopped laughing, his eyes flickering between you and me.

The girls emerged from behind the trees. “What happened?” asked Agata. “Why were you laughing?”

Maksio turned around to them and started walking away. “Nothing,” he said. “A hallucination. I won.”