We were inseparable after that. We spent a lot of time in my dorm room or hers when our roommates were off studying or in class. Despite the liberality of the Harvard campus, it was still a time when interracial couples were rare. We didn’t mind staying in. I came to know her body better than I knew my own, better than I have ever known another’s flesh. When one is young, every inch of the loved one’s skin is a new joy, a new source of pleasure or a pain so sweet that it becomes pleasurable. I could not keep my hands out of her hair. I’d never felt anything like it, elastic yet soft and slightly silken—I spent hours brushing it, wrapping it around my fingers when we were hiding out in her room, supposedly studying but really just trying to touch each other as much as possible.

The first time we made love, I remember we were both very shy, easing out of our clothes without looking at each other, as though we were readying for a shower alone in our rooms. I remember that the first thing I touched was her hair, then her hipbones, delicately ridged under freckled skin. I remember how warm it was, the feel of her hand on the back of my neck, and that it was over very quickly. I remember knowing that I had crossed some bridge. That I could be killed for what I was doing in some states, my hands all over this white woman. That made it all the sweeter, more intense. When we were done, she looked at me steadily for a long time, then leaned her head down and licked my arm. I laughed, a little uncomfortable. “What are you doing?” I said.

She turned her face to me. “I just wanted to know if you taste as sweet as you look. Like chocolate.” She smiled. I smiled back. She could say anything to me then. Nothing she could do would offend me. I absorbed it all. I was utterly hers, devoted, in the way of young men. In the moments we were together, I silently made my pledge. She, however, did not.

A few weeks after we made love for the first time, and four months after our first kiss, I met her, as we had arranged, at a small dark local café, one we frequented. But this time, when I arrived, she was still wearing her coat, hunched tensely over the table. “Jerome,” she said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I … I mean, we can’t … It’s best if we don’t see each other anymore. There’s …” She trailed off, sweeping her hand fiercely over her eyes.

“There’s what?” I said. My voice sounded tinny and loud to me.