Her naked flesh, feverish with the joy of that spring evening. He leaned in and, with two lips melting like ice cubes in an oven, placed a hopeful kiss on her bare shoulder. He sat behind her, his back facing the open window. A breeze swept through and the moment intensified. Everything was that purple kind of darkness where you feel like your sight is normal and perfect. A kiss on her neck, hair pushed out of the way. A kiss on her spine, stretching like a stressed elastic. A kiss on her eyelids, for sweet sweet dreams. Her skin glowed with heat and radiated a wild aura that spoke to him and said, “Don’t lose this one. Don’t let her go. It doesn’t matter if you fuck up, because she loves you, but don’t you are fucking let her leave if she ever decided to go.” For a moment, he quietly stews in anxious thoughts of an existence without this magnificent creature. All pale and freckly, free and elegant. They’ve been quiet for a long time now. The type of quiet where each one knows that there is nothing to say but so much to feel. Instinctively, they lay back. The window sits ajar allowing them to gaze longingly up towards the sky. A calm, cool evening sits outside. In that moment, the cosmos seem tangible and they both let slip a sigh of relief. “This is gold,” he said. “Pure gold,” she replied