You smelled of water and pines. There was softness, and there was hardness. I could sense your tan under my fingertips, and with your strong, solid hands you drew me afresh, creating me, the small of my back, my inner thighs . . . and you. Your back, your chest, your stomach, your thighs, your cock. Hard and impossibly close beneath the softness of your briefs, caressing my palm, obvious, world-shattering, demanding. We moved fervently, struggling. There was so much I could not get enough of, so much I would never be able to grasp or possess, no matter how much I tried. And I tried, we tried. Covering ourselves with each other, merging into one, pulling, following the pull, letting its current take over. Our sighs were shared, refused to release us. The night reminded me of the Easter bonfires I would watch as a child in the park nearby, where the pyramid of wood burned from top to bottom, chasing the ghosts of winter, bringing a thaw, releasing the warmth from the dormant, the resting. The flames would hypnotize me. I’d merge with them, with their dancing, destroying, and bearing. We played this struggle, breathless and elated, heads light and filled and spinning, until exhaustion, until we released ourselves onto each other and fell asleep entangled like weeds.

I don’t know how many days we stayed at the lake, because each one was like a whole world, every moment new and unrepeatable. In a way these felt like the first days of my life, as if I’d been born by that lake and its water and you. As if I’d shed a skin and left my previous life behind.

The lake and the forest became our territory. We fished, making rods from branches and using bits of bread as bait, and we grilled the fish—flat and gray and delicious—over the fire and ate them with our fingers. We walked into the forests behind the lake and found berry bushes and small clearings the size of living rooms, where branches hung over beds of white flowers. We’d lie down and make love, falling asleep afterward. We’d wake in hazy happiness with the sun still above us, and when we’d walk back to the tent, the only thing we’d leave behind was the shape of our bodies in the flattened grass.

The lake cleaned us every morning and evening. It washed off the sweat of summer and of lovemaking, maybe even the fingerprints on our bodies. And every time I swam I experienced the same elation I’d felt the first time I stepped into the lake, devoid of struggle, a feeling of weightlessness I hadn’t thought I could feel. During these days the shame inside me melted like a mint on my tongue, hardness releasing sweetness.