My explosive death and gradual rebirth caught me completely off guard as it forced my back to arch, my legs to stiffen, and my toes to curl. Pleasure rained down like El Niño, flooding my mind with a euphoria that outdid tequila by a wide margin before slowly easing off, then dissipating, leaving me drenched but thriving beside a tranquil pond fit for dreaming, with a pleasant buzz permeating my body not unlike a very intense marijuana high. I sighed, perfectly content without alcohol for the first time in my post-pubescent life.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

I smiled lazily and brushed her cheek. “All I can say is… I’ve been missing out half my life. I wish we’d met before I became a cop. Maybe you could’ve stopped me.” I softly dragged a fingertip up and down her cleavage as butterflies waltzed upon my skin. “Thank you, Judith.”

“You’re welcome, Andrea. Is this a queen? It feels bigger than mine.”

“King. I take up the whole bed when I sleep.”

“The size might come in handy.”

“For what?”

“I dunno, it just… might.”

A moment passed as I tried to figure out what she had in mind for the bed, but my mind wandered until I got to thinking about what my newfound sexuality meant, and how my frustration had been so easily released after a decade and a half of silent physiological readiness. But then, despite having so recently declared myself queen of my newly formed forest cult of bliss, I began to worry. Quietly, almost hoping that she wouldn’t hear me, I asked, “(Am I a… a slut?)” At that point in time, I still thought that sluttiness—like fatness—must be a trait undesirable to anyone and everyone who might get to know me.

“Not even 6 hours into our friendship you literally popped a button and ripped your shirt off in anticipation of having sex; when I refused that sex, you started vigorously jerking off in front of me… then grabbed me by the hand and begged me—with the saddest pair of eyes I’ve ever seen—begged me to finish you off. But you also have a very recent history of being a ‘chaste virgin’, so what happened now might’ve simply been a fluke. I would say your slut status is… debatable.”

“When you say it’s ‘debatable’, are you just being diplomatic, or is that your honest answer?”

She shrugged. “It’s my honest—‍”

I sat up and leaned over her. “Keeping in mind I was dead set on skipping the masturbation and just fucking you on the couch.”

“Good point. The evidence strongly favors you being a slut.”

I worried to myself, ((I’m a slut. The rumors in school were true—it just took a couple decades for real evidence to surface.)) Lightheadedness mixed with euphoria, yielding a short-lived anxiety. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t like the idea of being a slut.

My worries eased. ((I asked for your honest opinion, and the verdict was ‘maybe’. But when you said the word…))

“Are you worried about being a slut?”

All the bullshit my classmates put me through in middle and high school floated in and out of my head before deflating and dropping to the floor, flaccid and impotent. I shrugged. “Eh. I’ll be fine, I guess.”

With concern she observed, “Based on how long it took you to answer that question… you don’t sound fine.”

((In fact, your words hurt so little…)) I realized silently, then concluded out loud, “Coming from you, it doesn’t bother me. I…” And so I asked myself, ((Dare I say it?)) then decided to admit to her, “I guess you’re just what I needed.” {‘Just what I needed…’}

“Is it the perfume that I wear?”

I grinned. “No, and ‘It’s not the ribbons in your hair.’”

She snorted and nodded with an appreciative smile, then sang, “Do you mind me coming here?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. And in case you’re worried about wasting all my time… my time has never been so well spent. You came along when I needed you most—‍”

Three words tickled my throat, three words that needed to hold their fucking horses… three words that would have better gone unspoken until much later in any other seemingly healthy relationship.

And in the case of our relationship, I could have avoided pushing Judith to run away—to abandon what we had made together, to leave me all alone with only tears for company—if only I had left those three small words unspoken till the end of time. If only—after those few days together, too beautiful to last and too brief to deserve import—I had held my tongue. If only—when her eyes caught fire, burning with fear—I had held back my emotions and refrained from speaking to her those cursèd words over and over and over again, driving her to flee from the woman I knew damn well she loved more than anything. If only—when she told me repeatedly that I was wrong about what kind of relationship we were in—I had closed my mouth and heeded her warnings, I could have saved myself from the greatest fear I had ever felt, which would also be the greatest despair I had ever suffered.

I hurt her when I finally said those words. I wish that I had found another sentence to tell her how I felt. Having in hindsight just an inkling of what she had gone through before me, I wish I hadn’t hurt her.

But the most horrible moment in our ephemeral romance did not yet come that night—a few fleeting days of bliss would pass before she threw open the door and took that single step without me.

“—though I wish you could’ve come to me sooner,” I said instead.

“Aw. That’s so sweet,” she said dearly, and… with… what I almost swore to myself was pity… and… sorrow… and… regret. “You’re… a very… sweet woman. I’m glad… I’m glad I came into your life at the moment I did, too.” She was silent, pensive for a few seconds, but then she looked like she had some kind of revelation and cleared her throat softly. “You know, I don’t even know your last name. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Bachman.”

“Lucas. So, it feels a little weird to be talking like we’ve known each other for months—and yet…” Even as she admitted this, she relaxed. She didn’t look or sound weirded out. The pity, the sorrow, the regret—all gone, replaced with the same sympathetic confidence she had maintained since the beginning. She seemed perfectly comfortable as we lay next to each other, our tits facing each other, my pussy out, one of my arms slung over her waist, the chewed-nail fingers on that hand gently ‘scratching’ her back, and the other five running through her hair, coating it with my juices; one of her hands cupping my face, thumb brushing my face cheek, the other hand squeezing my ass cheek—fingers feeling me, massaging me. Life had never been this good. I never would have imagined losing my job would bring me such pure and genuine joy. I never imagined losing her, nor the terror that would follow.

I kissed her for half a minute, then explained, “The shrink who told my bosses I was too disabled to work told me I needed friends and ordered me to befriend the next person I met… and that ended up being you.”

She stared into my eyes with a pale smile. We rested our lips for a moment, with only the jet-engine whir of my gaming console’s dust-clogged CPU fan to cut the silence. Then she hugged me tightly and sighed loudly. “I think that doctor was right. I think they were spot-on.”

Her embrace brought me comfort, of which I had both a cornucopia and a famine. “Definitely.”

She released me. “You need sleep. What time do you get up?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have a job anymore. What’s the point in having a schedule?”

“Schedules are good for your mental health. Do you take any medications?”

“Yes. Adderall.”

“Medicines like that work best when you take them at the same time every day. Having a schedule is imperative for you in particular.”

“Okay. I guess… 9 o’clock. I can get away with just a few hours of sleep, for a couple days at a time. One of the few things I had going for me in my quest to become a homicide detective.”

“A homicide detective?” Her face had changed. I asked myself, ((Is that a twinkle in your eye?)) It was. Excitement, curiosity, eureka—in her eye a puzzle piece slipped into place and completed a picture—a picture obscured from me. “Or any kind of detective?” she continued. “Might you solve… kidnappings?”

“Yes. I would prefer homicides specifically, just like Lieutenant Columbo, but he rescues his nephew’s wife from her kidnapper in No Time to Die. Not my favorite episode, but it’s fun to watch the lieutenant pull out all the stops and work at a breakneck pace and just be a hero in a way he can’t be if the victim is already dead. And… I really like seeing him in a tuxedo. Very handsome.”

“You really like Peter Falk. You got a crush on him or something?”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever had a crush on,” I told her, lying more to myself than to her.

She might have interpreted this as a joke, because she chuckled. “You think he’s sexy?”

“He was at his sexiest as Grandpa in The Princess Bride.”

At this fact she laughed with extra gusto, mirthful surprise pinching her cheeks. “Yeah, he was pretty sexy with gray hair! And in his trench coat I consider him a rare exception to ACAB. If you had become a detective… maybe I would have considered you an exception, too. Though I can’t say that any antifascist who takes themself seriously would agree with such an unorthodox attitude.”

“Well—I’m not a cop anymore, so it doesn’t matter what they would think about me hypothetically being a detective.”

“Well…” She curled a lock of my hair around her finger. “…you may find that a lot of people won’t agree with me that you’re not a bastard anymore, either. A significant minority might be of the attitude that ‘once you’re a cop, you’re always a cop’. But, in my humble opinion, that’s unfair. Nobody’s born perfect. People change.”

“I guess.”

She checked her phone. “That was a blast, but… it’s midnight-oh-six, and I set my alarm for bright-and-early-thirty.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer? We could maybe go for a quickie.”

She shook her head. “I’m still not ready. I don’t fuck until I know someone’s favorite song, movie, and book.”

“My ass you don’t! You just fingered me a few minutes ago.”

“I had a moment of weakness. The face you made was so… pathetically needy, I felt compelled to finish you off. I’m not letting that happen again—no more sex until you dish.”

“Favorite song: ‘Just What I Needed’ by The Cars; favorite movies: The Cheap Detective, The Princess Bride, and A Friend in Deed from Columbo (if you count feature-length television episodes as movies); and my dearest, most favorite book: Just One More Thing by Peter Falk.”

“‘Movie-s’? I said ‘mov-ie’, singular.”

“I like all three.”

“Singular.”

“Well, I like all three.”

A cruel smile danced across her mouth. “I guess we’ll just have to spend a little more time getting to know each other—and ourselves—before we take things to the next level. I’m going to bed.” She got off the bed and grabbed her shirt.

“Wait!”

“Gotta sleep.” She started putting her shirt on as she took a few steps towards the door.

“Give me a minute to think about it!”

“This is something you should know off the top of your head.” She took the last few strides to my front door.

“No, it isn’t! Movie lovers never have just one favorite!” She opened it and crossed the threshold, and I felt my compass begin to spin.

She asked over her shoulder, “But are you a movie lover?”

“I like a few movies, yes.”

“If you just like ‘a few’ movies, you’re just a casual viewer. And if you’re a casual viewer, you don’t have an excuse for not knowing your favorite. Bye!” She shut the door behind her.

I sprinted from the bed and flung open the door. She turned around and her eyes spread wide. “Coffee!”

“Uh-huh. You do realize that we’re on the balcony—and that you’re only wearing socks, don’t you?”

“Shit!” I ran back inside, wrapped a once-upon-a-time-white polyester-cotton blend Hallmart bed sheet I bought on clearance around myself like a cloak, and ran back out. “Well?”

“You’re getting up at 9, so… how about Holden’s Café at 10?”

“Works for me. Goodnight, Judith.” I waved with simultaneous unease and eagerness.

She shook her head and stepped most of the way into her apartment—but popped her head out and returned my “Goodnight!” before disappearing entirely.

I had been lost, but now was found—a firstborn wretch redeemed by a Providence that had been indwelling so close to me. For the first time in my life, I could see my path.