deliberately unhurried moment, 'til our faces were on the same level, just a foot apart.
"Please forgive me," he said formally. "I can control my self. You caught me off guard, at a time where I was less able to control my self." He stopped suddenly, paused, and decided to continue. "You know how a woman has her cycle?" he asked embarrassingly. He put his head down and I tried not to grin. It was so endearing. I couldn't wait 'til the day I could net me that big wet love trout. I sighed. "I have a cycle just like you do—I mean, you as in all women... anyway, there are some days I can control my self better—like, the first couple of days of mycycle, I'm basically dormant—not even hungry. A week after that, I become more and more hungry and it's harder to control my self. Do you understand? Sometimes it's harder than others, and it gets really scary sometimes, more than other times. You know?"
He waited, but I still couldn't speak.
"I'm not thirsty today, honestly." He winked his left eye.
At that I had to laugh, though the sound was shaky and breathless.
"Are you all right?" he asked tenderly and reaching out slowly, carefully, intentionally, to place his marbled hand back in mine.
I looked at his smooth, cold marble-hand, and then at his smooth, warm, golden, smoldering eyes. They were soft, repentant. I looked back at his hand, and then deliberately returned to tracing its lines with my fingertips. I looked up and smiled timidly.
His answering smile was dazzling; his dazzling smile was answering.
"So where were we, before I behaved so... rudely?" he winked with his right eye, his words coming out in the gentle cadences of an earlier century.
"I honestly can't remember."
He smiled, but his face was ashamed. "I think we were talking about why you were afraid, besides the obvious reason."
"Oh, right."
"Well?"
I looked down at his hand and doodled aimlessly across his smooth, iridescent palm. The seconds ticked by.
"How easily frustrated I am!" he proclaimed, jumping onto the picnic table and taking on the vigorous cadence of an earlier outburst. I looked into his eyes, abruptly grasping that this was every bit as new to him as it was to me. I shuddered, intellectually stimulated by the idea of simultaneous orgasm; it was something I'd only read about in the teen magazines I occasionally picked up at the check stand at QFC. Even with as many years of unfathomable

266

Chapter 13

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