N reads Anaïs Nin’s erotica on my bed. it was a joke when he first swiped the book from my nightstand, finger-wagging, what’s this here, etc., but then he kept going, his mock-seriousness fading into something sensual. he gives us a dewey look from under his eyelashes. places a palm on my thigh. delicately. our laughter dies out and leaves a ringing vacuum. M and I lay back and let his words wash over us in yellow nighttime light, sinking deeper and deeper into the hills of my duvet until it’s just his voice in the blackness. “no, this was a melting together, a vanishing together into a soft, dark womb of warmth.” we’re curled up like three pink nosed puppies, unseeing. later, I get whipped with a leather belt.