“Why are you down here?” I hear Matthew’s voice.

“Vivienne called. She thinks she’s sick,” Karrie says, and now I hear Matthew’s breathing.

“Does she have a fever?” he asks close to the phone, so I know he’s hugging her.

“No, more like a stomach bug,” she tells him. “What woke you up?”

“I missed you,” he says, and I fake barf in the phone, making Karrie laugh.

“I’m going to let you go before I get more nauseated,” I tell her. “I’ll let you know what the doctor says tomorrow,” I say and hang up after she says goodbye.

I put my phone down and tie my long hair on top of my head and start my bath. I need to soak in the tub. Maybe since I haven’t had sex in so long, my body didn’t know how to react to him. I slip into bed, and my dreams are of him all night long, and when my eyes finally flip open the next morning, it is right before he fucked me. I groan and close my eyes, hoping to be taken back to that exact moment in the dream, but instead, my bladder starts to wake up, and I have to go to the bathroom. Grabbing my silk kimono robe, I slip my arms through it and make my way to the kitchen to start coffee.

I press the button to open the shades and then turn on the television, switching it to TF1, a French television station, then open my laptop. I grab my coffee and sit at the table while I go through my emails. Then I open my blog page and start something that I was thinking about last night.

Can one kiss give you butterflies, or does the fluttering in your stomach mean you have food poisoning? I kissed a man last night, or actually he kissed me, but I let him. I mean, there is just something about that first kiss that everyone talks about. I’ve had the lead in kisses many, many times before. You know the one when you spend the night eye-fucking each other and then actually kiss just so you can get naked? But that isn’t the kiss I’m talking about. At least not this time.

This time, all I did was have dinner with him, flirted with him as per usual, and then at the end of the night standing in the middle of the sidewalk, he just kissed me. There was no lead-up. I mean, maybe there was, and I had no idea. But regardless, he just kisses me, one kiss. Maybe it lasted a minute, or maybe it lasted five minutes, but the only thing I knew was that my stomach had the bizarre flutter. Even on the whole ride home, my mind played it over and over again. I even thought I was sick, but Google confirmed I wasn’t.