"I'll be here for eternity," you say.

And after that, it all turns to the natural order of things. Your hand in mine...your lips on mine...your body rising above me. The cold floor against my back as your long blond hair brushes my chest. Soon the floor isn't cold anymore...nothing is. Nothing exists except your knees gripping my hips like a vise and your thighs burning into mine. If there is pain, you don't tell me...and I sink deeper...fly higher...until the last traces of sleep have been fucked out of my limbs.

I'm wide awake. And I've never seen things so clearly.

You are so pale...like ivory. I can see myself reflected in your skin. The bones of my face...the hollow echo in my eyes. I no longer look human. Not in this mirror. I look like something else...like something not of this earth. Frail and slender and glowing...like the distant memory of two lovers dancing on air.

But it's not so distant anymore. Not as your back arches and your nails dig into my shoulders...as you gasp my name and draw blood. This is right. This is good. This is sanity. This is what's real.

I am whole...joined with you where the biology textbooks and the orbs say we're supposed to be joined. And everything throbs. Even when we're not moving, there's a spin and a pulse and the sensation of being pulled forward through a vortex. Through time. Through space.

I am one step closer to home every time we come together. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.

And I know who I am.

Who I'm supposed to be.

"You can't go," I tell you, fiercely, brushing your soft, rounded cheek with the backs of my fingers. You feel like warm satin...fluid and whispery.

"I'll never go. I'll never leave you," you assure, stretching and moving into my touch like you belong here.

"Promise?" I ask, feeling the dampness of tears on my cheeks...I always cry for you. Never for anyone else. Why is that?

"I promise," you say, kissing my lips lightly.

You taste like strawberries...juicy and ripe and red.

And you look like cream...smooth and white and rich.

The sobs break me down and, suddenly, you're holding me. You stroke my hair and I breathe the scent of sweat and sex and spice in the hollow of your throat...the curves of your breasts. Your body was made for me...*you* were made for me.

"It's okay, Max. You can believe it. This is forever."

This is mine.

You are mine.

Mine. All mine.

"I can't lose you," I tell you. "I can't live without you."

"You won't. I love you. I always will."

You smile. And in the starlight, your eyes are so dark they're almost brown. Your hair hides half your face. You're beautiful.

You'll be here for eternity.

You'll be *her* for eternity.

"I love you, too."

I love you, too...Isabel.

For eternity.