At night I would lay spooned beside him, listen to the sound of his shallow breathing, somehow in the same tempo as the waves outside, and wonder if all lovers knew this happiness. Surely we alone experienced this. With Terrence I let my emotions loose in making love, all sorts of emotions, the fine and socially acceptable ones and the ones I never guessed at, emotions that brought me to the edge of everything I had ever known or hoped to know. Our lovemaking could be tender love or rushed love, rough love, sweet love, rollicking, frolicking love; every time we made love, we deepened the bond between us. I taught him French, words, phrases best murmured in darkness, or by candlelight, and under the covers. He taught me things I never guessed at.

That little Malibu cottage itself seemed to throb with the happiness we created. Buddy Collette’s version of “Over the Rainbow” became my new favorite song. Terrence pounded out infectious high-spirited tunes or old hymns on the upright piano, improvising, especially lively variations on “Little Liza Jane,” for which he and I both made up verses, and soon Liza Jane came to be his sweet name for me, radiating so much warmth and easy affection that I glowed just to hear him say it. His tunes wove in and out of our daily lives, like “Wade in the Water” when we’d take naked midnight swims. In the mornings we would shower together, wash each other down and leave each other breathless. Then, my hair still wet, I stood behind him, my arms around his chest while he shaved; I laced his back with kisses while he smiled into the mirror. When he left in the morning, I stood on the porch wearing a robe, my hands wrapped round a coffee cup, and Terrence gave me a final swift pat on the ass and a kiss on the cheek and popped down the stairs singing, “‘O little Liza, little Liza Jane!’” By the time our respective shiners had healed, we had declared our love for each other, and I had given Terrence a key to the Malibu cottage. Home.

I liked the sound of it. Home. I enjoyed a little frisson of happiness every time one of us said the word we. In our working lives we each kept odd, nonstandard hours, and I would find myself looking at my watch when I had meetings or events that went late into the evening, finally begging off, popping into the MG, and racing up PCH, delighted to see the Porsche parked there behind my house and knowing that Terrence was home. If I came home and he wasn’t yet there, I waited to hear the rumble of the Porsche behind the building, when I would run down the stairs and he would catch me in his arms, and we would go inside, closing the door on the rest of the world.