first time, the hard-on in his lap seemed appropriate. He was unembarrassed of it, grateful for it. His friend was gay, and Jude—here was the evidence—was not. Of this he was ecstatically sure. Casually, as though he happened to feel like it at the moment, he slipped his tongue over the ridge of her bottom teeth and into the cocoa sweet galaxy of her mouth. Her tongue curled over his, a sprouting vine, a wave. He felt electrified. He felt as though something amazing and rare were happening to him, like becoming famous. His tongue grazed the gap between her two front teeth. It found a favorite molar, it toured her scalloped gums. Was it vegan to kiss her like this, to want to eat her mouth? Was it straight edge to want to be inside her?
Without unfastening their mouths, they eased back onto the bed. They did this with the care and determination of two people setting a heavy tray on a table. They lay on their sides, each of their heads on her pillow. The spongy interior of her cheek, the canal under her tongue. Thank God he’d removed his retainers this morning! His erection was lodged between her hip and her belly and the bed. He was dangerously close to bursting. Touching her was a bad idea, it was asking for trouble, but here was his left hand, his burned, ruined hand, now rising from the ashes, now slinking without his permission from her wrist up the length of her forearm, pausing at her elbow, circling the reed of her bare bicep, as though testing her, determining if she were fat enough to eat, and then, satisfied (their kiss still unbroken), making a sly dash for second base, fitting itself under the soft globe of her breast.
He didn’t explode. She didn’t say no. Once there, his hand knew what to do, making a slow meal of it, taking its time. It was surprisingly full, unlike anything his hand had felt before, and she did not seem to be wearing a bra. No, she certainly was not wearing a bra. Nothing separated his hand and her breast but the thin cotton of a white nightgown. He could feel the ridge of her nipple, goose-bumped, warm, and now wet. Her nipple was wet. Was that something that happened to girls? Was that good? For a moment he was relieved, that she had burst before he had, that the glow radiating inside him had held its ground, while hers, irrepressible, had spilled forth. It wasn’t until she withdrew from their kiss that he realized this was not a normal fluid of carnal excitement. It was something new, a substance neither of them had encountered for many, many years, and it was filling his palm. Breast milk.
He whisked away his hand. Rolling away from her, he wiped it on the thigh of his jeans. “Sorry!” both of them gasped.
Eliza struggled to sit up, clutching her leaky breast. “Oh, God,” she said just as Jude said, “What the hell?” Spreading outward from her right nipple was a yolky yellow stain.
“This has never happened before!” She looked at Jude. Her expression passed from worry to amazement to humiliation, then back to worry again. Then her jaw dropped comically, and her face attempted a bitter, grown-up wit. “Oh my God, I guess they work!”
“They definitely work,” Jude said. He was still wiping his hand on his jeans. Eliza closed her mouth, straightening it into a firm line.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said, but he sat up, too. His erection had faded. She folded her arms over her chest, closing her eyes. He wanted to put his hand on her shoulder, but he was afraid to touch her again.
“I guess you won’t be doing that again,” she said.
He dropped his eyes to the bed. The sheets and blankets were pink—rose pink and a meaty pink, like the inside of a mouth. A newborn baby. This had been the bed the three of them had been sitting on when she’d told them she was pregnant. This was the nightgown she’d been wearing.
When he looked up, her eyes, still closed, were leaking now.
“Eliza,” he said, but he didn’t move. He was frozen by the feeling that they were not alone. Teddy was there in the room with them. So was Johnny. Most of all, the baby was there with them, under her nightgown, not to be forgotten, even for an hour. This was what