30

GENEVIEVE

ravity seems to have left the building.

Or maybe it is my sanity.

Maybe it is both.

Because I do not feel either of them—neither gravity nor my sanity. I am floating on air and unable to land.

Or more accurately, I am floating on Dan’s shoulder. His broad shoulder that I have always looked at and might have dreamt about touching it, but not with my stomach. I wasn’t that crazy.

Apparently, I am now, though, because that is all I can think about—my stomach on his shoulder. Okay, that is a lie. I am thinking about a lot of things, like how his strong arm is looped around my calves and the way my head is hitting his powerful back with each step up the stairs.

He’s carrying me like I am a weightless feather. The effortlessness of the act does things to me. His strength. His brutishness. His domination.

All of it.

And I soak it in, allow it to tear me open and seep inside me. Is not that what masochists do? Not only do we seek the pain, but we also wallow in it and allow it to gr