Page 55 of The Love We Make

She guides my bra off my body and pins her gaze on my breasts. I’m sixty-five and I’ve had four children so it would be an exercise in complete futility to compare my body to Nora’s. I’ve never been in a situation like this—I’ve never been in bed with someone as blatantly fit as Nora, someone who looks so perfect. But even though this town, and the heartless machine that Hollywood can be, is a constant reminder of the opposite, I’m not one to hold the course of nature against myself. You can’t raise children in good conscience, teach them to be happy in their bodies as well as their minds, if you’re going to let that nonsense dictate how you feel about yourself. My body is the result of sixty-five years of living, of all the ups and downs, of all the nurturing it has done, of the tiny bodies that grew inside of it. It still serves me very well because, right now, my flesh is pining for Nora’s touch. My clit pulses in sync with my amped-up heartbeat. And I’m ecstatic we’re doing this instead of talking.

Nora runs a finger over the C-section scar on my belly. Some women may hate their scars, but mine will always remind of my beautiful son. It’s because of that scar he’s been brightening up my life for twenty-six years now, so how could I possibly hate it? Nora doesn’t say anything. She caresses me in the half-dark of her bedroom. I’ve been in this room a while now but I still have no idea what it looks like—I only have eyes for Nora. And yes, her body is spectacular, but it’s not what has bowled me over the most. Nor was it taking her into my mouth, or even that magnificent climax. It was the fact she surrendered. That we’re in her bedroom in the first place. That she asked me here with the purpose of doing this. That she let me in and showed herself to me completely. That she trusts me on some level.

That’s another reason not to have any qualms about my body, or compare it to Nora’s. This isn’t a competition. This isn’t even just sex—not by a long shot. We are here to express with our bodies what is too early for our mouths to say. There’s a commitment in what we’re doing, in the act of it, that defies words or promises. It’s intimate and special.

I’m trembling under her touch, but it’s the good kind of trembling. It’s anticipation mixed with desire and a lot of emotions. And it’s easy enough to claim I like the version of Nora that the world doesn’t get to see—and I do—but she’s still, also, very much Nora Levine.

Right now, Nora Levine’s finger is slipping inside my panties. I gasp at her touch. She doesn’t let it slide all the way down. I look up at her, into her sparkling eyes. She kisses me while we work in tandem to slip my panties off me, and then I’m naked on Nora’s bed.

She takes my hands and pins them above my head. She slides her body on top of me and kisses me, her tongue hot in my mouth. All those divine sensations blend together into a cocktail of pure pleasure. Nora’s all over me in a way I hadn’t expected, although I’m not quite sure what I had expected. Walking through her bedroom door was like taking a leap into the great unknown.

One thing I do know. I haven’t been this turned on in years. If it’s like this for me after only two years of celibacy, what must it have been like for Nora? Although that, too, I don’t know for certain. Yet, I kind of do. Still, we have so much left to discover about each other, a long journey to go on together.

Nora’s going on her own special journey right now. She kisses her way down my body. She licks my neck, tugs at my nipples with her teeth, slides her warm hands across my belly. Until she settles between my legs.

We haven’t asked each other what we like—my bad for forgetting earlier. For getting too carried away by the circumstances. I wonder if Nora’s going to ask me. I glance at her from underneath my eyelashes. She looks like a different person now, like yet another version of herself. More free and uninhibited than I’ve seen her before. Like she’s in it, fully sunk into this moment with me. And she doesn’t have to ask me anything.

Nora bows down. I feel her breath between my legs. Her hair tickles my belly. At the very first touch of her tongue, I’m about to implode. Heat flares up in my belly. My clit ignites. My body tries to hold on because I don’t want this to ever end.

Nora’s tongue is gentle and soft. She’s in no hurry. Neither am I, but my body doesn’t agree. My body can’t wait to release all the tension it’s endured since I met Nora. That massage. Her drunken attempt at kissing me. All the mixed messages. It has all led to this, to her tongue between my legs, and an inevitable climax roaring through my bones.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to bust out the lube,” Nora says after she has crawled up and wrapped her arms around me.

I can only laugh. I can only be over the moon, and thrilled to my core, by this moment—and by her.

* * *

It’s the middle of the night when a hell of a noise starts blaring in my ear. My brain has barely caught up with where I am when the light switches on. Nora sits up beside me in the bed. She doesn’t look alarmed at all, just very tired.

“What the hell is happening?” I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“It’s morning,” Nora says matter-of-factly. “But please, do go back to sleep.”

“What time is it?” Judging by the fatigue in my body, it must only be two or some other ungodly hour.

“Five. Marcy will be waiting for me.”

None of this makes any sense. “Who’s Marcy again?”

“My personal trainer.” Nora flashes me a smile. The dogs shuffle around the bed. “This body isn’t a fluke of nature, Mimi. It’s two hours of hard graft every single morning.”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus has nothing to do with it either.” Nora kisses my forehead. “Go back to sleep. Come downstairs whenever you feel like it. My chef arrives in an hour. We can have breakfast together at seven thirty.” She hops out of bed. “Unless you want to join me. I’ll ask Marcy to go easy on you, although she’s ex-army and she really doesn’t have an easy mode.”

For a second, I wonder if I’m in the middle of a nightmare. This is how our night together ends? No warm snuggles in bed. No hot morning kisses underneath the sheets. None of that, apparently.

“You can’t take a day off?”

“No.”

I crash onto my pillow. I need to get some more sleep. How is she this awake?

“Enjoy your workout.”

“I will.” Mercifully, Nora switches off the light before she disappears into the bathroom.

* * *

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