Page 110 of The Pairing

In the absence of thought, my body supplies,glissando.A half-remembered term from classical compositions. The smooth, continuous slide from one pitch to another, low to high, down and then up. An evocation of magic or emotion or grace, written into odes to the sea in summer.Thatis what’s happening between our bodies.

It’s so good I can’t imagine ever needing more, until Theo shifts and I feel a new, wet heat against me, the familiar shape of their sex still messy from my mouth. They snap their hips, finding the friction they need, dangerously close to letting me slip inside. As they finish again, their gaze lands on my face like a comfort, like a command, and I’m done. I’m beyond recovery.

I’m so ruined that I don’t realize until later, in a half-awake moment in the middle of the night, that we nearly broke the only two rules we have left.

The next morning, Theo’s head is on my pillow and three new texts from Maxine are on my phone.

saw guillaume looking despondent at the cafe this morning. i think he misses you. at least parts of you.

And,you owe me updates on the theo situation. what happened after monaco?? if you’ve gotten your heart broken again i’ll kill all three of us.

And,dinner on monday night?

I switch off my alarm before it wakes up Theo and reread Maxine’s texts while I brush my teeth, puzzling out which Monday she could mean. Then I realize: She’s talking aboutnextMonday. As in, less than seven days away. As in, the tour is almost over.

For two and a half weeks, I’ve lived in this bubble outside of reality, where I spend every day eating and drinking and touching and looking at art, dazed from too many languages and not enough sleep. Where Theo is beside me, and we’re friends again, and we share a pillow and wake up with the taste of each other on our tongues. I almost forgot that my life in Paris has been going on without me, and now it’s so close that dinner with Maxine at our usual bistro is something I could be doing in a matter of days.

I spit and rinse, but the fizz of slight panic stays in my mouth. I count the time left. One more day and night in Rome, Naples tomorrow, and then the two-day finish in Palermo. Four days and four nights until I fly home to France, and Theo gets on a plane to California. There’s nothing to stop them from blocking my number again if they want to. I feel certain that won’t happen, not after all this. . .but what if it does?

Where have I been hoping this would lead in the end?

From the bed comes the rustle of sheets and a low, stretching grumble.

“Kit?” says Theo’s voice, hoarse with sleep. “You here?”

“In the bathroom.”

Another grumble and the creak of bedsprings, and Theo is shuffling into the tiny bathroom, pulling a T-shirt on backward. Their hair is wild, their eyes half closed, a streak of dried drool on their chin. I don’t know how I could survive losing them again.

“Thought you left like yesterday.”

“At the villa? Did it bother you that I got up early?”

They nod, fumbling for their toiletry kit. I place their hand on the zipper before they knock their deodorant into the sink.

“Wanted to wake up together,” Theo says, which strikes me momentarily speechless. They rest their forehead against my shoulder, letting me prop up their weight.

I try to tell my heart to settle, that they’re being tender because they’re half asleep, but it clenches anyway.

Our packs are against the wall by the bed, mine repacked and zipped up neatly, Theo’s tipped over and spilling half-folded clothes onto the carpet. I huff a laugh and begin arranging Theo’s shirts into a more orderly pile, when my hand brushes something solid inside a ball of socks.

Part of a label pokes out, one I’d recognize anywhere. The little bottle of whiskey I gave Theo for our first anniversary, distilled the year we met. The one we were supposed to drink at the end of our tour four years ago.

They kept it. I thought they would have drunk it by now, or thrown it away, but all this time, they kept it. And when they were choosing which things to fit into their pack, they made room. They made the choice to bring it here, not even knowing they would see me.

“Where are we going this morning again?” Theo asks from the bathroom.

I cover the socks back up and move away from Theo’s bag before they poke their head into the room.

My voice is admirably normal when I answer, “Galleria Borghese.”

An hour and a half later, Orla drops us off at the Spanish Steps. Fabrizio takes us up into the huge green sprawl of the Villa Borghese Gardens, once a vineyard until Cardinal Scipione Borghese turned it into his personal party destination in the 1600s, as is an evil gay cardinal’s right. His collection of art—some obtained by abusing the pope’s funds, others by abusing the pope’s influence—still fills the villa at the center of the gardens. Now, it’s a public museum.

Fabrizio walks us through an introductory tour of the most famous pieces, then lets us explore on our own. When I ask Theo where to start, they say, “Show me your favorite Bernini.” So I lead them toApollo and Daphne, and when I ask what they wantto see next, they tell me to go on without them.

It’s easy to imagine this place as Rome’s hottest destination for fruity seventeenth-century art parties. Inside, it is the highest of high camp, from the trompe-l’œil fresco covering the ceiling of the salon to the thousands of gilded flourishes in the Room of Emperors.

I open my sketchbook and scavenge for details to bring home: the silly little face of the unicorn in the arms of Raphael’sYoung Woman,the eyes of the bejeweled woman in Titian’sSacred and Profane Love,the affectionate strokes Caravaggio used for the face of his lover Mario as theBoy with a Basket of Fruit.But every time I pass the room withApollo and Daphne,Theo remains, fixed to the same spot.

---