My eyes are rolling up in my head as the beads of warm water roll down my back. Soon I’m panting along with Drake, whimpering as he grunts, the silent slapping of skin on skin adding to our shared trance. His broad back shields me from the force of the shower-jets, and I feel totally protected in the burrow of his body, perfectly secure in the safety of our coitus.

“Oh, Drake,” I groan as he drives into me with a bit more force than perhaps he intended, immediately restraining himself to make sure I’m all right. “It’s OK, you can . . . you can go harder.”

Drake rumbles in delight, his strong fingers kneading my upturned ass as he tightens his grip and then pumps into me harder. My entire body vibrates in approval, and soon Drake is going faster, his cock moving in and out of me like a heavypiston, his balls slapping against my wet underside with each pounding thrust until we’re once again merging into a single organism, our motion in perfect synchronicity, our whimpers and moans harmonizing with the roar of the shower and the hiss of the steam.

“I’m going to come inside you, Wanda,” Drake pants, his mouth close to my ear. “I fucking need to explode all the way inside you. If you want me to pull out, then I’ll pull out. But you need to tell me now, Wanda.”

“Yes,” I mumble through the steam. “I mean no. I mean yes.”

“Yes, what?” Drake mutters through gritted teeth as he fucks me deeper, pounds me harder, his fingers clawing at my upturned ass, palms slapping my burning butt-cheeks. “Yes pull out or yes come inside you?”

But I’m coming again and I have no idea what he’s asking, no idea why he’s even asking it. It seems clear that he needs to come inside me, and my pussy clenches tight around his cock, milking him as I feel Drake try to pull back, try to pull out.

“No, don’t!” I scream through my orgasm, trying desperately to crawl backwards. I have no inhibitions left after today, and my body is fully in control, my pussy overruling anything and everything. “Don’t pull out, you bastard. Damn it, Drake. Don’t pull out or I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you if you pull out, Drake!”

In my madness I suddenly see with crystal clarity the foundational truth of every major psychological theory that sexuality is the core of human behavior, that everything we think and do and say and feel is rooted in that most primal of energies, that most physical of needs, that most urgent of desires.

The desire to fuck and be fucked.

And right now I need to be fucked.

Fucked all the way home.

And as I think it, it happens.

Drake rams into me and holds himself all the way deep, his hands reaching around and grasping my boobs, pinching both nipples hard as he comes inside me with the force of a fire-hydrant.

“Oh, fuck!” Drake shouts as I feel his cock unload against the farthest reaches of my vagina, thundering blasts of hot semen that almost drown me from the bottom up, break me from the inside out, own me from the cradle to the grave. “Wanda, I’m dying in you, babe.”

“Me too, Drake,” I whimper, gasping as Drake finishes in me and then collapses on top of me from behind, his hands reaching out to cushion my head so I don’t hurt myself on the tiles. “I’m dying too, Drake.”

We lie together in silence as the strange choice of words echoes in my head. But then I remember reading something about how the French term for orgasm translates as “the little death,” and so maybe there is something to the transcendent feeling of the sexual climax, the ironic insight that to transcend the flesh you have to completely give yourself to its demands.

Neither of us speaks for a long time. Eventually Drake raises his head, then carefully helps me to my feet. I’m dazed and dreamy, in total bliss, but exhausted and drained.

Drake holds me beneath the shower to get clean, then turns off the jets and wraps me in a big fluffy towel. Moments later I’m back in bed, warm beneath the comforter, safe beneath the sheets.

Drake joins me a minute later, kisses my forehead, whispers those words as I drift away from one dreamworld to another.

“I love you,” he whispers.

I think I say the words back to him but it doesn’t matter. My body has already said it, is still saying it as I fall into exhausted slumber, will say it for ever and ever, whether I’m awake or asleep, alive or dead.

Because I’m his.

His now.

His forever.

10

WANDA

But although I’m exhausted enough to sleep forever, I jolt awake while it’s still light outside, my mind already spinning into high gear. Drake is snoring beside me, and I try to slide out from beneath his heavy arm which is draped over my bare breasts.

“Hey,” Drake says, raising his head and smiling warmly. “You all right? What time is it? Oh, it’s still late afternoon. What’s up? You need something?”

Sitting up in bed, I try to smile but already the anxious ruminations are taking over. Everything about the day comes back in a rush, and I’m hyperventilating now, the fact that Drake and I are together suddenly making everything way more complicated.