* * *

Eleanor and Daniel lay in bed Thursday night, their last night, with their arms and legs wrapped around each other so that it was nearly impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Tomorrow morning the car would come for Eleanor and take her back to the outside world and to him who she missed with every other breath and cursed with every breath in between.

“What will you do after I’m gone?” Eleanor asked, not knowing how else to keep avoiding the topic.

“What do you think I should do?” Daniel asked as he pulled Eleanor even closer than she already was.

“I don’t know. You’ve got money, no job, and it’s fucking freezing outside. Go to Tierra del Fuego or something. I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

Daniel laughed and the movement of his chest from the laugh against her back nearly sent her reeling again. Could he stop being sexy for one moment? “Tierra del Fuego is nearly the southernmost tip of South America, a stone’s throw from Antarctica. It snows there in summer.”

“Wow. Anyway, you should be used to all that cold. I bet it’s pretty there.”

“Yes, I imagine it is. The natives burned fires constantly to ward off the cold—hence the name Land of Fire.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Librarian, remember?”

“I keep forgetting.” She reached between his legs and stroked him. “I’m really going to have to renew my library card when I get back.”

“You should,” Daniel said pressing her onto her back and sliding into her. “Watch out for those overdue fines.”

Eleanor laughed softly as she wrapped a leg over Daniel’s back to coax him in even further. “Oh, I think I can afford them.”

* * *

Morning came too early for both of them. Eleanor awoke with her stomach pressed to the mattress and Daniel inside her, gently thrusting. He was too desperate for her to even wait for her to wake up on her own. They made love in silence, mute from the pain of having to part too soon.

Daniel pulled out of her at last with a reluctance they both felt. He ran a hot bath for her and with soap and his bare hands washed all traces of himself off and out of her. Eleanor shivered in the water despite its near scalding temperature. She would have preferred to have gone home dirty from him, stained and marked by him. She was grateful for the few black bruises he’d left on her back and inner thighs and the bite marks on her neck and breasts. She knew in a day or two this strange week with him would fade like a morning dream. She needed the marks to remind her it had happened—Daniel was real and she was more than just a seven-day loan. She had belonged to him. She had.

Daniel packed her things while she dried her hair and dressed. She felt odd letting Daniel pack up her stuff but she let him without any protest. She knew that he needed to feel in control of the situation, that her departure this morning was as much his doing as hers.