I drive home across the city with the volume turned up to max, nothing left of my voice, speeding through the park at twenty over in the counterflow lane. My god, this city, my heart, my home.

I undress in front of my closet. As I pull my top over my head, I catch the smell of Peter. I gather up the fabric and press it onto my face, breathe him in. My body floods in response. Infatuation, intensity, desire.

When I arrived at his place earlier in the day, I was nervous and unsure. We hugged when I arrived, but he seemed distant. Quiet. Withdrawn. He went to do something in the other room, and I sat on the edge of the couch with my head in my hands. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

And then I realize that I am the one being distant.

I reach out to him.

And everything shifts.

We go for tacos and walk in the sunshine and hold hands and laugh until it hurts. We stand in line at the market, leaning against each other, my right hand holding his, my left hand holding a pint of strawberries. In the elevator, he turns to me. In the apartment, he pulls me into the bedroom and kisses my neck, my collarbone, the place where my ribs fall away to abdomen.

He washes my back with soap in the shower, tucks my wet hair behind my ear.

I stand in the kitchen and eat strawberries, the juice from within the berries running down my hand and wrist. Gazing out at the sailboats, the whitecaps, the gulls weaving their way between the towers.

We watch the sunset from his couch. I feed from his warmth, his body. Wrap my legs around his. I put my hands into his hair, onto his head, and watch his face soften. I feel my body chemistry shift, everything floods with warmth and softness. In this state, I feel content, free, and open; I am abundant. I can’t stop touching him, pressing my face into his t-shirt.

After the sun has set, I rise and gather my things to leave. We are kissing goodbye. He pulls back. I am disappointed that it was a brief kiss. And then he leans down and kisses the part of my chest that is bare. Then comes back up and looks me in the eyes for a long moment.

“Do you need anything? Before you leave? Water?”

I blink.

He’s asking about my needs.

Standing in front of my closet, the fabric to my face, my ears ringing and my soul filled to the brim. One day I wish to know his thoughts, his feelings, his experience of this. This primal, intense thing that has become wild, untamed. The unleashed passion, the parts of me that have laid in quiet, hid in fear, now emerging.