I had never slept with anyone who could create streams of currents in my body before! Throbs, yes. Good rhythms, of course, memorable fucks, check – but currents and pulses, and everything about her tongue? Never. I guess that’s the chance that lovers take – to seek something that will sweep them away, and then to risk becoming enthralled by it.

We were both clueless early on about what our unusual chemistry might become. No sexual alchemy, no pulses following currents, none of the dynamics and fireworks that would later reveal to us why we were drawn together had begun until we were at a party on the beach. Into the circle around the fire had walked my old boyfriend, a very handsome guy named, Thomas. I had hopped up to greet him, and he was a little smashed, and I was a little high, and we had hugged and swayed together for a minute too long.

I’m sure it wasn’t the length of time he had held me that had mattered to her and brought out her need to show me that night in ways that were stark and then complex, troubling and erotic, and became impossible for me to deny: How desirable her possession of me had made me feel.

She had enveloped me that night with the urge for a deeper, longer than sex, older than the sounds that come from it, kind of surrender that I didn’t even know I had craved.

The Crossroads – Tina

I’ll never believe again that tales of old tricksters who make bargains at midnight aren’t real. We did come to a crossroads with each other that night. There was an agreement that needed to be struck. And there was something from each of us  we had to trade. We could walk away with the fire or let tomorrow come and this would all be ash.

“There’s an edge to it. You’ll feel yours.” She had told me as she began possessing my attention more and more, and then drawing me into places I wondered how she knew to find. Up to edge after edge I could leave from but wasn’t allowed to go. Did I like that leach? Because here it was again and again and again until she slowed, and our breaths became a rising wave between us, and she had waited for me.