“I like the way you taste,” he said as she freed herself into nakedness.

He immersed his face, smearing his cheeks, loving the wetness, inhaling the aroma, peeling away the flesh, exposing the melting pulp to his fervid breath, eating as much for his delight as hers.

As she bucked and trembled, he reached for his condoms, his tongue as fluid as a stream of water.

“Do you want to be inside me?” she asked.

He shook his head, pulled back her legs and tickled the rim of her anus, throwing a vault in her back, causing her limbs to stiffen.

“I want you inside me,” she grunted. “But I want to taste you. Will you let me taste you. Fire? Please say you’ll let me taste you …”

She kissed his torso as it passed her face, then gnawed at the hardness behind his fly, at once excited and afraid of the idea of penetration. She wanted to please him. The excitement came from this—the sweetness of surrender.

She undid his zipper with her teeth as she’d learned from movies, then leaned back a bit to appreciate the size of his wood, a sight as arresting as a macanudo clamped in the jaws of a child. She flicked her tongue over the tip as if it were the wheel of a lighter, then rubbed the whole length against her face, over her neck, marveling at its smoothness.

Tightening her lips like a vulva, and maneuvering her jaws to cushion her teeth, she placed a hand on his buttocks and drew him into her mouth, anticipating the fullness of having him all inside her. But he was too big. So she lavished her attention on the head, a scoop of guava sorbet—sucking it, lapping at it, using it to cool the muscles of her tired tongue.

“Let’s do it now,” she said as she found herself remembering Syd, as she often did while making love. “I’m worried that I might get uptight.” He undressed completely and took her to bed. She opened her legs when her skin touched the sea green sheets, and she reached for him, her palms upturned, calling him home.

He cupped her head and stroked her side and began to love her up, his bottom undulating fluidly like a fist directing a pen across a page, the movement subtle, the pressure slight, a grand expression of thought and feeling, like a poem or an essay, or a preliminary sketch for a painting. But still her skin broke out in beads of fear. She began to stiffen beneath him and she asked if he could hold her for a while.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She explained her anxiety.

“Do you know those stories about heroes slaying dragons?” he asked. She shook her head. “They’re metaphors for beating fear. You can’t keep running, Sylvia. You have to meet it head on and destroy it. Tonight, sweet girl, if you want, we can fight this one together. Come … come here … lie on top of me.”