In the flickering light of the bedside candles I’m woozy with lust, devouring Nick in the full-length mirror, trying to avoid my own reflection. His face hovers behind my bare shoulder, urging me to gaze at myself. At my nakedness. “Look at you,” he whispers. “Look how beautiful you are.” And I can see the first thing, but the second — maybe I need his eyes, instead of mine.

My hair is a dark tousled mess that spills down the side of my chest. One tiny breast is hidden and the other exposed, just a swelling high on my ribcage, the nipple gumdrop-shaped. My waist is decorated with shadows — the faint contours of my abdominal muscles, a welt where I clumsily knocked into a railing, the dipping whorl of my navel. Untrimmed hair swirls around my womanhood, thin and sparse on the inside of my thighs, thickening into a fuzzy loveline directly above the cleft of my lips. The muscles in my long legs flinch with every nervous movement.

Finally the torture ends. Nick steps out from behind me, his erection aiming right at my heart. I fall to my knees in front of him. My usual awkwardness is almost gone now, because I’ve done this so many times, memorized everything he taught me. I start tickling the tip with my tongue. Then I run my lips along the shaft, smearing it with saliva until it glints in the candlelight. Finally I take it into my mouth, sucking on it like a popsicle, slowly at first, then madly. Losing control. I reach down and begin smearing fingers back and forth across my need –

Nick suddenly pulls away, leaving my mouth empty and sore. “Lay back on the bed.” An order issued with his voice, with his hands. My knees crack when I stand up. The headrush is gone before it begins, disappearing into my missionary position. He crowds toward me, a hand fumbling between us. “Spread your legs,” he says, voice ragged with desire, but I already did.

The sex is protracted and exquisite and unbearable, all at once. My hair keeps falling everywhere like rain, and his hips are slippery with sweat inside my thighs, and the fullness radiates through my body. I prop myself up on my elbows so I can watch his erection penetrate me, a ruby motion, no condom needed anymore. Every stroke is a silky heaven, but it’s the sight of Nick making love to me that is true happiness. I let my elbows splay across the sheets until I’m lying on the bed again, staring into his intent panting face. The man who made me pregnant. The man who said he loves me.

When it comes, my orgasm is a gentle intensifying shudder that begins in my — except he’s not going to let me climax yet. Feeling me start to thrash, Nick suddenly pulls out and kneels at the side of the bed, yanking my hips onto his tongue. “Omigod,” I gasp, screwing my eyes shut, tortured by the slimy friction, almost crying with need, grasping fistfuls of sheets, until…

“DON’T BLOW INTO ME!”

All ecstasy between my thighs immediately stops. “Say what?”

My eyes pop open. “Don’t blow into me! Like, into my…um…vagina. Because I could get an air embolism, if you blow into me, and I don’t really know how it works, but my book said an air embolism could kill me or the baby, so, um…no blowing, right? I mean, keep going. Please! Let’s just be careful down there.” The mood is ruined a little more thoroughly with every word.

Nick heaves himself onto the bed next to me. “For chrissake. I never blow into you. When have I ever blown into you?”

I’m watching him soften and shrink. It’s amazing how fast that can happen. “Sorry,” I say after a while.

He regards the hexagonal pattern of wall tiles with meditative concentration. “I never thought much about having kids. Mostly just avoiding them, you know? But when I did think about having kids, it was always in this really vague way. Like I was putting it off, even in my head. So I kind of planned on 10 years with a chick before we started a family. That always seemed like a good number. 10 years to ourselves.”

Suddenly the breeze blowing in the open window turns cold, making my bare skin prickle into goosebumps. When I turn to Nick he’s there — that unknown there, somewhere in his head, far away and pondering — but also here, wrapping strong arms around me, seeping warmth and reassurance, and the candles gutter out one by one.