Page 61 of Room for Us

Positioned over her, I flip up the hem of the dress, exposing her toned thighs and… I groan lustily at the sight that greets me.

“Granny panties really do it for you, huh?”

I nip at her over the white cotton. She writhes, the scent of her arousal flooding my senses.

“You little minx,” I accuse. “You discovered my secret fetish.”

Her giggles fade as I hook a finger in the cotton and pull it to the side, exposing her soft pink center.

I lick her, once, long and deep, reveling in her breathy moan, the way her thighs fall open for me instead of tightening self-consciously. She welcomes the pleasure, her fingers in my hair urging me on.

“You taste how you smell.”

“Good?” she gasps.

“Exquisite.”

I bury my face in her and don’t come up for air until she falls apart. While she’s still trembling from her climax, I pull off the modest white panties and unbutton my pants.

“If I’m not inside you in ten seconds, I’m going to mess up this couch.”

“No way.” Spurned to action, she yanks my pants off my hips and settles above me. I sit lax, watching raptly as she guides me inside her. My eyes close, head falling back to the cushion.

“Don’t move yet,” I grind out. “Just… hold on a minute.”

She doesn’t listen. Of course.

I come in embarrassingly short order, gasping her name as she holds me close, my ear pressed to her heart.

It happens that night.

I wake in the deep dark. The witching hour when no one stirs but the mad. And writers.

My limbs buzz with purpose as I pick my way carefully across the room to my laptop. I grab it and the attached charger and make my escape. Not downstairs, but to the Rose Room. It’s been calling me since I arrived, and I’m finally ready to listen.

Zoey told me. She answered the question I’ve been asking for months. This is because of her. This will belong to her.

The curtains in the Rose Room are open, letting in the faintest hue of moonlight. Enough for me to navigate to the beautiful oak desk, set up my laptop and find the outlet.

Then I sit.

Then I write.

She finds me after dawn, my back cramped, my fingers numb. I feel her presence before her touch—hands gently sliding along my shoulders. A soft kiss on my neck.

“You figured it out,” she says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Something preordained.

I’m so deep inside the unfolding story, words come with difficultly. “Because of you.” My throat is dry, my voice detached.

One more kiss, then her footsteps recede. Over the next hours, she brings me espresso and food. A pitcher of water and a glass. Jelly beans instead of the pack of cigarettes I ask for. Lemonade instead of booze.

Surrounded by the scent of roses—of my sister’s death—a part of me dies, too. But this death is purposeful. Intentional. Like the severing of an atrophied limb. The part of me that bowed beneath expectation, suffocated at the hands of critics—myself foremost among them—dies without a whimper.

And when all that holds me back is gone, the answer is startlingly clear. When she gave it to me, I wasn’t ready to hear it.

But I am now.

Like Hemingway, I too seek death in this Idaho valley. Like him, I am unflinching. But I want more than he did. I want what comes after. The light past the darkness.

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