Her ears, her nose, her chin, her brows—he studied them, using his tongue as a blind man would a finger, gliding over them slowly … pausing … retracing … then moving forward only when he was sure that he could sketch them in detail from memory. She kissed him as he licked her, dabbing his face as if he’d been in a fight and her lips were a pair of cotton balls soaked in healing oil. She nuzzled his chin, licked his throat, and nibbled his ears before kissing him, consuming his lips hungrily, trailing her fingers through the curls at the back of his head. His tongue searched the walls of her mouth for the soaked-in memories of other men, other kisses, which he tried to cleanse away with hot saliva.

She opened his shirt, peeled it away, and began to lick his shoulders, following trails of salt to his armpits and discovering a musty sharpness like the smell of cloves. Then she took his nipples in her mouth and traced extravagant flourishes on his skin. He stood up and removed his shirt, his eyes twinkling like slices of lime in ginger beer. He had the body of a laborer. Muscular. And hard. His muscles were like crocodile backs in muddy water.

“Tell me,” he said, kneeling in front of her and undoing her dress, beginning at the hem, “how do you want me to love you?”

She’d never been asked this before. Had always thought she’d want this. But now she didn’t know what to say. Self-pleasure had become such a part of her because of the failings of men.

“Do anything you want,” she said. “Explore me … teach me about myself.”

She let out a gurgle when his hands touched her thighs, gliding steadily toward her hips, shoving before them a thin wave of flesh, which broke over her pelvis. He withdrew his palms to her knees then struck out again, continuing to massage her as he spoke.

“When you touch yourself,” he began, “what do you imagine?”

She closed her eyes. “I’m a three-hundred-year-old mahogany table … and I’m being polished, and the slightest scratch would ruin my value.” She licked her fingers and stroked her belly.

“Okay,” he whispered in her navel, “my tongue is a length of silk.”

He began with her toes, each one, separately, then worked his way over her instep, around her ankles, over her shins and calves to her knees. He used his hands to wax her breasts as he trailed kisses up her thighs, oiled them with kisses, all the way up to the dampness where they lost a bit of their firmness and became soft, almost chewable—there, in the crevice where the smell of sweat, piss, and feminine lotions combined to make a powerful aphrodisiac. Insinuating his hands beneath her, he took the offer of her upthrust hips and rolled her panties beneath her pelvis. Waiting for him was his supper—what looked like a wet mango with a narrow gash where it had smacked the ground after falling from the tree. Nectar was pooled around the nick. He licked it.