When my eyelids flutter open I feel the secret joy of a new world, even though it isn’t really. I’m just waking into the same life from a different perspective — Nick’s bed. My side of his bed. Maybe even our bed, because documents from the Korea Textile maquiladora archive are spread all over my bedroom. The office, I’m going to start calling it today. Because if I start calling it the office, then maybe he’ll start calling it the office too, and then maybe it’ll be for real. Maybe this will become the only bedroom, and my place will always be here with him.

Wherever he is.

I slide out of his queen-sized bed and pad barefoot across the cement and discover him in my bedroom — oops, the office. Dawn is flooding through the barred window and painting Nick in pink striped light. He’s contemplating the documents with a face like a storm front. The contents of the cardboard fruit box have been sorted into messy piles of paper on my twin bed, which I’m guessing are indexation categories.

“If this first box of documents is any indication, it’s going to take a year just to organize the goddamn archive.” He looks at the bed instead of me, arms folded implacably across his chest. “I tried to sort them into categories, but…”

Nick doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I know what a mishmash the documents are. I’m the one who scanned them, after all. My Spanish is still a long ways from fluent, but even I could pick out the headings like Operaciones — Operations — and Recursos Humanos — Human Resources, all jumbled together.

“Hey,” I say, hanging in the doorway. “You want some breakfast? I can make whatever you want.”

“Liar. We’re out of everything.” He softens and turns his stubbled chin my direction. “I’m not hungry right now. Maybe later, okay?”

“Okay.” I wait a while, then say it again. “Okay…” This is how it always felt with Saman, staring across these horrible interpersonal chasms that I can’t broach with my words or cooking or even my body. “Well, I’m going to take a shower.”

In the bathroom I strip off my only article of clothing — my sleepshirt. Normally I wear panties underneath, but not lately. They just get in the way. Draping the fabric over the edge of the sink, I’m suddenly curious why Nick hasn’t tried to replace it with something sexier, the way he’s been upgrading my clothes and footwear. Maybe because my sleepshirt never stays on for long anymore.

I’m running water in the shower, testing it for rust and temperature, when I hear the door creak open and shut behind me. The bathroom fills with his presence. I glance over my shoulder and find him stripping off his boxers. My gaze descends his naked torso — from the sculpted curves of his upper body, to the washboard taper of his cute waist, and then…and then I avert my eyes, because I’m embarrassed to want him like this.

Nick laughs and grabs me by the wrist and pulls me into the spray. His embrace is sexy and smothering. Even though I can open my eyes and stare evenly into our kisses, he still seems to tower over me, around me. The only water cooling my skin is a fine mist deflecting from his shoulders.

We paw at each other, gasping. His strong fingers are doing blissful things to my womanhood and I brace a foot against the tiled wall, trying to open myself to him even more. Through half-lidded eyes I realize my toenails need painting again.

Suddenly I’m impaled on his hardness. The ecstasy makes us both cry out. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Nick moans, thrusting slowly. “You’re the perfect height for stand-up sex.”

I should angle my hips away and let him slide out of me, but I don’t. The sensation is too exquisite. “Go get a condom,” I finally whisper, and immediately wince. “Sorry, I forgot we’re out again.”

He leans his face into the spray, still moving inside me. “I’ll get more condoms today.”

“I could just go back on the pill.” The words pop out before I can even think about them.

“Don’t. Nooshin. Just…” Nick shakes his head, thrashing water everywhere. “Just don’t, okay?”

There’s a painful elongation of time inside me, like all my heartbeats are being stretched into slow thuds. Even in intimacy he wants to distance me. Any girl, I suppose.

“Nick. I didn’t mean it. Not the way you’re thinking.” I stare down past our dangerous union to the legs beneath, his pale and matted with streaming water, mine brown and smooth. “Don’t you like doing it without a condom?”

“God, yeah.” His voice is tortured with pleasure. “It’s been so long I forgot how good it feels.”

“Then don’t stop. You can pull out when you come.”

“No, that’s too risky — ”

I pull Nick against me, grinding my hips into him. His hand slides up my neck and tightens into a fistful of damp hair. The silky friction between us intensifies into wet slurping thrusts. I can feel my orgasm coming — and just like that, it’s here. My legs turn to jelly, including the one still braced against the tile. The foot and its chipped pink toenails vanish, slipping on the slimy tile. Suddenly I’m an avalanche within his cradling arms, losing my balance, falling down. He’s trying to pull out and catch me at the same time. I’m not sure which wins.

“You alright?” he asks, hauling me back to my feet. When I nod, he strokes himself a few times and stiffens violently and groans. “Shit, that was close. This is the last time we ever run out of condoms. I’m going to get a couple hundred at the government clinic today.”

Cooling down in the spray, I watch his buttflash disappear behind the shower curtain. Nick always seems to be retreating, no matter how close you get to him. His family can’t hurt him from 1,500 miles away. Friends can’t piss him off if they’re only acquaintances. And girlfriends can’t break his heart through a condom.