It was a beautiful summer day in San Francisco, which I had come to learn was unusual. It was my first day back, you see. In fact, I had only been in town for the amount of time it took me to get from the port to the California Academy of Sciences.

I paused on the steps and looked up.

This is it, I thought. The place where it all started.

I was underdressed and ill-prepared to see her—to see Cosima—but that didn't matter anymore. I took a deep breath and went inside.

It was late afternoon and the school crowds were just starting to clear out. I walked past herds of children, and it reminded me of that first day. It reminded me of the story of the alligator, and the moment when I'd first laid eyes on her.

I mouthed the words to myself as I walked toward the aquarium, "el lagarto…"

I walked and searched, and walked and searched, expecting to find her in her khaki shorts and polo shirt again. I made three rounds through the aquarium, before finally stopping to ask Claude the alligator if he had seen her. He barely moved at all. I was starting to lose hope.

I remembered the last text message. Yes, the last message she had sent:

Meet me at the museum.

Why hadn't I clarified before my phone died?

I went to the little tank where she had been that night. I leaned over the wall. I reached a hand in and stroked the leathery sea cucumber. I shivered at the sensation, smiled for a moment, then returned my attention to the crowds.

That's when I saw her across the room, very near to the door that she had once led me through, the one that led to the staircase where we'd first kissed.

I shivered at the memory.

She was not in her khakis and polo. No, she wore a black dress, an oversized sweater, intricate fishnets stockings, and delicate flats. Her hair was pulled up into a bun. Turquoise earrings dangled from her ears. She spoke with a man, someone I didn't recognize. She looked put together, professional even, as she directed this colleague toward one of the exhibits.

I moved slowly closer until I could hear her words. She said something about traffic flow and displays—I wasn't listening that closely. No, I was watching, seeing.

The closer I got, the more I saw.

I saw the fine lines in her brow. I saw the dark circles under her eyes. She was utterly focused on the task at hand, but I got the impression something else—perhaps a whole universe of "something elses"—was at the back of her mind.

She paused mid-sentence, and gazed off into the unseen distance.

"Like this?" her colleague said, relocating a cardboard cutout of a dolphin slightly to the right.

"Hmm?" she said, snapping back to the present moment.

"Would you like it like this?" he asked again.

"Oh, sure—yes, exactly. Just like that."

She turned away from him and, with her head down, almost walked right into me.

"Cosima…" I said.

She jumped back, startled.

"Delphine! God! You could have messaged."

"My phone is dead. You said to meet you here."

We stood face to face for only a moment, but it dragged on like an eternity. I saw too many emotions cross her face—joy and disappointment, fear and relief, attraction and sadness—too many to name them all. Her face told stories that I wasn't sure I was ready to hear. Her face told of all the times I'd hurt her and all the times I'd set her on fire.

I wondered if my face told the same.

We read each other silently, as if comparing narratives for conflicting facts. My heart began to pound, as if this were a dangerous thing to do. But then her stark expression changed, became buoyant, and I became buoyant with her.

She smiled. She stepped forward. She pulled me into a hug. And I hugged her, too. Of course, I did! I hugged her so hard, that her toes lifted from the ground.

A moment later she became heavy in my arms. I heard a sniffle or two, then a whispered, I love you.

Je t'aime. Je t'aime.

"Are you working?" I said.

"Yes, but I was getting ready to leave—I'm the boss now. Can you believe that?"

"Yes, of course, I can."

She smiled. "Let me just finish a few things up, grab my stuff, and we can go."

"Sure," I said.

I passed the time by walking the old familiar path one more time. Now that I had found her, I could slow down, I could pay attention. Yes, there was the bar area. Yes, there was the space that changed into a dancefloor at night. The Animal Attractions exhibit had been replaced by something else, a photography exhibit that I didn't have the heart to wander through.

And when she returned we meandered out of the museum through a rear exit. We didn't say much. We simply walked along the winding path that led through Golden Gate Park. The sun was only just starting its descent toward the west. It reminded me of another day―the day at the carnival.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure," she said. "I was hoping you knew."

I paused. We found ourselves standing before a large wooden gate marked with an informational sign: Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden.

"This place looks nice," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "I've always meant to come here, but I never found the time."

"Do you have time now?"

"Yes."

As soon as we walked through the gate, it was like walking into another country, another time. The architecture was all wood, in the old Japanese style, simple and elegant and in harmony with nature.

And the nature itself...the trees rose to great heights, shading the garden from the California sun. An assortment of bridges crisscrossed over small pods and brooks. A waterfall whispered nearby, as if revealing the secret to both solitude and serenity. Even the sunlight seemed different here, filtered by the bonzai trees and softened by the green moss on the rocks.

I felt quite calm and unhurried to speak.

So we walked in silence, crossing one bridge and then the next, until we came upon a statue of the Buddha sitting cross-legged with his eyes half-closed. There was a halo behind his head.

Cosima stopped there, gazing up at the statue.

"Did I ever tell you that my mother used to meditate like this for hours?"

"I think so."

"It used to scare me," she continued.

"Why?"

She took a long time to think about her answer, so long that I wasn't even sure she had heard my question. But the waterfall in the distance whispered for me to wait, and so I waited.

"Because...she was so quiet." She stared up at the Buddha with her arms crossed.

"Is quiet scary?"

"I guess so, or maybe it used to be."

"Why?"

She turned to look at me. "I have always hated quiet. My mind doesn't do well there. It goes to dark places, negative places."

"I know what you mean."

"I prefer moving, even if it's in my own thoughts. But lately―since you left―it seems like I find myself falling into silence more often than I used to."

"And? What do you find there? Still fear?"

"Sometimes…" she said. "And sometimes not."

Her eyes began to well with tears.

"What else?" I said, just barely brave enough to ask.

"Anger," she said. "Lots of anger. Disappointment. Sadness, sometimes."

"I know," I whispered, but I think the waterfall carried the sound away with it.

Cosima wiped at her own tears. "But other times," she continued, "I remember the beautiful things. Other times I laugh at things we have said or done. I remember small moments, like the day you arrived in America, and the night at the carnival, and little kisses or mornings that have no significance now, and jokes you used to tell...and, those times...I smile."

I reached for her hand then. I squeezed it hard, smiling myself. "I remember those things, too."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what, Cosima?"

"Because, I let my fear ruin everything."

"If you did, then so did I."

At that we turned away from the Buddha, still hand in hand. We walked along the winding path, still in silence, until finally we came upon a wonderful little bridge that arched over the water at an exaggerated angle. I was so charmed by the sight of it, that I gasped and squeezed Cosima's hand a little harder.

A small group of tourists passed by, no more than three or four of them following behind a Japanese woman in a safari hat and purple windbreaker. She paused in front of the eccentric bridge, pointing in its direction as she spoke.

"And this is perhaps the most popular feature in the Japanese Tea Gardens due to its unusual shape and architecture," she explained. "It is the Moon Bridge, popular first in China and then Japan."

I found myself moving closer and listening. Gently, I pulled Cosima along with me.

"It was designed with such a high arch to allow barges to pass beneath and pedestrians to cross overhead. As you can see, there are no barges here to worry about, and so it was constructed for purely aesthetic reasons."

There was a handful of giggles at the guide's joke. I found myself smiling, too.

"If you look closely you can see that a full circle forms due to the reflection in the water, and this, of course, symbolizes the moon."

The guide became quiet, perhaps to let her audience appreciate the moment.

"May we walk across it?" someone asked.

"Of course."

After the tourists passed, the tour guide looked back at us, waving us forward to take our turn over the top steps of the bridge.

"This bridge is quite popular for romance," she said, though whether she was speaking to us of the rest of her group, I couldn't tell. "The bridge represents the self, and the reflection represents the partner. It takes both to complete the moon. But then, again, is the moon really ever complete, or is it only an illusion? This is what couples must contemplate. This is the mystery of love, is it not?"

I climbed to the top of the bridge and looked down. I saw Cosima's reflection looking up at me from the water. She smiled.

We lingered there on top of that little bridge, high above the pond below as the tour group passed on and out of hearing range.

"It's lovely," Cosima said.

"It is."

"Look."

She pointed down at the still waters, at a floating field of green leaves that I barely recognized.

"What?" I said.

"There, the flower."

I looked again, and I spotted it, a small pink blossom—a lotus flower, the only one in the entire field, fully bloomed and floating on the surface of the still pond.

"The lotus," I whispered.

"Do you think it is our lotus?" she said.

I looked at her then, not at her reflection but straight at her.

"Marry me."

"What?"

"Cosima. Marry me. I mean it. I can't imagine any of this without you. I thought I could. But it was all wrong."

"Delphine, I—"

I kissed her, a gentle kiss that grew suddenly passionate. I felt my body warm against hers. I felt her hands pull and tug. I felt my heart pound in my chest.

When the kiss was over we looked at each other and we knew. We needed more privacy. We needed two to three years worth of privacy and we needed it in one night.

We found ourselves in a taxi not long after that, sitting hand in hand, just like that first night.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

We looked at each other.

"I guess to your place?" I said.

"You mean our place?" she said with a wink.

And she was right. It was our place. It had always been. I knew it as soon as she told the address to the driver. I knew it when we arrived and I glanced up at the old windows. I knew it as I climbed the stairs, as I sniffed the musty air in the dim hallway. I knew it when I stepped inside the door and the pink light of the sunset filtered in through the kitchen window.

Everything was familiar. Everything was fresh. Everything was vivid and bright and warm and glowing. I could not tell if I was walking into a dream or waking up from one. She had not changed anything, not the arrangement of the furniture, not the collection of empty wine bottles that lined the counter, not the silk robe that hung from her bathroom door.

Meanwhile I had tried to change everything for myself. I sat on the edge of her bed and let that sink in. She opened the window by the bed, and the air in the room shifted. She sat down next to me, and for a moment we were quiet. But then she stood right back up again.

"Do you want something to drink? Wine, maybe?"

"Non," I said, reaching for her hand.

"I just think maybe it would make this a little easier."

"Make what easier?"

"I don't know—this." She pointed back and forth between us. "I mean, there are a lot of things we need to work out, don't you think?"

"Yes, of course. But is that what's really scaring you?"

"I don't know." She took a step away with her arms crossed.

"Cosima, come here."

She took a tentative step forward.

"Don't you think it's time we face it?"

"Face what?"

I moved backwards on the bed, until I sat completely cross-legged in the center of it. I beckoned her to join me, which she did, if not reluctantly. She sat across from me, until we sat facing each other, our knees touching.

"I'm sorry for leaving," I said, quietly.

"I'm sorry for leaving, too."

"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you."

"How could you? I think I made it pretty impossible."

"I'm sorry that—"

"Delphine, let's just pretend like—I don't know—like none of this ever happened. Like we both didn't make these stupid mistakes and hurt each other. You are here now, and I'm so tired of thinking about these things. I'm so tired of wondering what I could've done differently. I just want to be here with you now."

She held my hand.

"I understand," I said. "But I don't want to pretend it didn't happen. No mud, no lotus, right?"

She sighed and looked away. A tear fell from her cheek to her lap.

"I was scared that you wouldn't love me. Why would you, a beautiful, intelligent, talented professor? I worked in an aquarium, barely making more than minimum wage, barely able to afford to pay the gas bill. I thought that the only thing I had was my mind. I thought the only thing you loved was my intelligence, and so I felt like I had to prove it you, over and over. I felt like my scientific accomplishments were the only way to keep you."

"That's not true—"

"I never said it was rational." She wiped at her tears. "Of course, it was irrational. Of course, I was totally misguided and I pushed you away. Some part of me wanted to prove to myself that my fears were right all along, that one day you would leave me because you'd realize I wasn't good enough."

"Good enough? Cosima you have always been good enough. I have always wanted you—more and more of you! But then you disappeared. It seemed like the more I wanted you—just you—the more you pulled away. Your attention was fleeting, and your presence was something I had to beg for. I felt utterly ridiculous sometimes, the way I needed you, but it was like you couldn't see it, or didn't want to."

"I know."

"Do you see it now? How much I love you?"

"Yes," she said, leaning forward with her head in her hands. She covered her eyes as she sobbed. "And do you know how much I love you?"

"Yes," I said, pulling her into my arms. "Yes. Je t'aime. Je t'aime."

She let me hold her until she could no longer breathe, until we both laughed at the snot in our noses. I went to the bathroom for the tissue and she waited on the bed.

"Maybe we do need that wine after all," I said as I handed the box over.

She nodded her head vigorously from behind a tissue and a moment later I found myself standing in the middle of the kitchen alone. The sky had grown darker while we were talking, and so the kitchen was lit only by the street lights reflecting off the ceiling and onto the linoleum floor. I didn't turn the light on for some reason, but rather walked to the counter in the dark and reached for the line of empty wine bottles.

I started by the sink, running my hand along the lables. I saw bottles that I didn't recognize, but as I walked toward the refrigerator, as I walked to beginning of the collection, as I reached back, searching the second row tucked closest to the wall, I found it, the Alpha Omega. And next to it, I saw other bottles I recognized, bottles we'd drank together over dinners or late night conversations. I saw the bottle from the night I'd arrived, and the bottle we drank on her birthday.

Here it is, I thought. Our entire history.

"Delphine?" she called from the bedroom. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm having trouble finding an unopened bottle."

"Oh, shit!" Cosima said, stepping out into the kitchen. "I don't think I even have one. God! I'm totally thoughtless."

"No, no, it's fine," I said. "I'll go get something."

"Right now?"

"Yeah," I said, already at the door.

"But I don't want you to leave."

"Cosima, I'm not leaving, not ever again."

She kissed me. "Okay."

I hurried down the stairs and out the door. It felt good to get out onto the street. It felt good to be in the old neighborhood again. And when I stepped into the liquor store, it felt nice to be recognized.

"Hello, stranger," the old woman said. "Long time, no see. Where have you been?"

"I moved to another neighborhood and almost married someone else. But then I didn't...most recently, Alaska."

She shrugged her shoulders as if she had heard stranger things.

"We don't have the Alpha Omega this week," she said, stepping out from behind the counter. "But I think I have something similar."

She picked up a bottle and began to describe its qualities to me, but I wasn't really listening. Instead, I was imagining that bottle on the kitchen counter with the rest, and something about that just didn't seem right.

"Let's say I didn't want wine tonight. What else would you suggest?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You are full of surprises." She led me back to the counter and reached for a bottle behind the bar. "This is what I drink when I want to have a good time."

I smiled to myself, paid, and hurried back up to the apartment with the brown paper bag stuffed under my arm.

When I got home—yes, home—I found Cosima in the bathroom, just stepping out of the shower, just pulling on the silk robe. She looked up when she saw me, pulling the robe shut at the waist. Her skin was flushed, and I knew what she would smell like—baby powder.

"Did you find something?" she said.

"Yes, but it's not what you think."

I pulled the bottle out of the brown paper bag. Her eyes went wide.

"Whiskey?" she said.

"Yeah," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I thought we could use a little change—a fresh start."

She smiled. "Do you know who else could use a fresh start?"

I shook my head, not sure what she was talking about.

"You," she said. "When was the last time you showered?"

I laughed because she was right. Immediately, I began undressing, and by the time I got in the shower and got out, I felt quite new.

I stepped out of the bathroom with wet hair and damp skin. Cosima lay face down on the bed, wearing nothing at all, not even the robe, which had been tossed aside onto the floor. Her eyes were closed and her lips were soft against the pillow. Her back rose and fell in a heavy rhythm that made me think she was asleep.

I thought for a moment to pull a blanket over her and leave her be for the night, but as I walked closer, as I stepped around the foot of the bed, I couldn't take my eyes from her back or from the round soft curve of her ass. It rose and fell, and there between her legs was the small swell of her pussy. I use these words to describe her, because they are the only words available to me, but they seem too crass for what I saw in that moment.

The feeling of the moment was not crass at all, but tender. I stepped toward the bed. I crawled onto it and over her. I pressed my hips down against her ass, pushing gently against the soft flesh of her bottom. I kissed the back of her neck, and she stirred beneath me, but just barely.

I felt her press her bottom up against my hips even as I pressed down against her. It was the subtlest of motions, but the sensation it stirred shot right through me.

I kissed her soft cheek and her eyes fluttered open. Lazily, she reached for my hand. Lazily, she intertwined her fingers with mine. Lazily, she turned her face away from me, until she was face down in the pillow. I kissed her again, on her shoulder, on her neck, on the back of her ear.

It was the kiss on the ear that got her. She moaned and pressed her whole body back against me, not pushing me away but drawing me closer to her.

"I missed you—" I whispered.

"I missed you!" She replied so fast that I can't be sure who said it first.

I found myself grinding against her, covering all of her with all of me. And beneath me, she writhed, not in pain, but in pleasure.

Yes, finally, I saw her pleasure—languid and lovely, quiet and calm, but rising, rising.

She lifted her head and moaned, propping herself up on her elbows.

I sat up then, straddling her bottom for better traction. I hardly knew what to call my wanting, but whatever it was, she wanted it, too. She arched her back, holding her hips at just the right angle, so that each thrust of my pelvis was met with the soft flesh of her ass. Each thrust was met with a gasp, shudder and moan.

Her head fell forward into the pillow. It was only then that I noticed the headboard banging against the wall. I was pounding her hard, but still, it wasn't hard enough. I grabbed hold of her shoulder, and in the process, pushed her even further down, until her chest was flat against the mattress. If it bothered her, she didn't protest. In fact, the harder I pushed down, the more she writhed beneath me, the more her pleasure grew, until finally, she turned her head and moaned…

"I want your cock."

I froze. My concentration was simultaneously derailed and reinvigorated. "What?"

"I want your cock," she said again, her tone just as pleading.

"You mean—?"

She nodded her head.

"Are you sure—?"

"Yes!"

It only took a moment to process her request, and then I was up, prancing around the room on shaky legs. "Where is it?"

"There," she said, pointing to the dresser. "In the top drawer."

I pulled open the drawer, and there, beneath a pile of socks and panties, I found the strap-on and the bottle of lube. I slipped the harness on as quickly as I could. I glanced up to see her watching me, and I might have been embarrassed if it weren't for the look in her eyes. I paused.

It was that same look, that same dark something that I had seen the first night we met—the look of desire.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" she said.

"I love you," I said, standing in the middle of her room, wearing a strapon and holding the lube in my hand like a fool.

She laughed and beckoned me over.

I kissed her once before straddling the back of her legs.

"What should I—? How do I—?"

"I think," she said, "just start slow."

"I don't want to hurt you." And it was true. I never wanted to hurt her ever again. "Tell me if I hurt you."

"I will," she said.

My thighs trembled as I lubed my cock. I was both excited and embarrassed at what I was about to do. I was on fire for her but still so hesitant.

"Just to be clear," I said, running one finger along the curve of her ass. "You want me to put it in your—"

"Yes!" she said, kicking a foot up behind me. "Just do it!"

"Okay," I said.

I grabbed hold of the shaft of my cock with one hand and grabbed hold of her ass with the other. I spread her cheeks. I rubbed the tip of my cock against her.

She went rigid, already propped up on her elbows.

"Just...use lots of lube!" she said, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Okay."

I reached for the bottle. I squirted a smattering on my fingers, and then, slowly, reaching down between her cheeks, I ran my ran over her pussy and her asshole. I watched as the rigidity of her shoulders gave way and her hips began to circle in a subtle, tentative rhythm.

I grabbed her ass with both hands, suddenly not embarrassed at all, but completely aroused. I spread her cheeks apart and looked down at that part of her, very different from her pussy or clit. I remembered how she had once kissed me there. I remembered the delicate sensations of it. I ran my thumb over it one last time before leaning close, before pressing the tip of my cock against it.

Her shoulders tensed. Her head fell forward. She held her breath and I did, too. I didn't move. I didn't press any further. I held still while she moved beneath me. She circled, circled her hips, and for a few tentative moments, I thought it wasn't going to work out.

But then, I felt the tip slip inside. She gasped. I gasped, too.

Still I didn't move. It was she who pushed back against me, pulling the shaft further into herself, little by little, until finally I was pressed right up against her. She relaxed her neck, falling onto her face in the sheets.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"No," she uttered into the darkness. She reached around, grabbing my leg with her hand. "Come here. Come here."

She pulled down on my ass. She pulled down on my hips. She rocked me against her. And it was easy to do it, to appease her with that slow, steady rhythm.

"Gentle," she whispered. "Slow."

"Yes," I said, falling over onto her back. "Yes, yes, my darling," I said as I kissed her back and neck.

I remembered the first time, back in that hotel room with a view of the bridge. I remembered the darkness and the pointedness of my desire. No one else had ever gathered me up like that, had taken the whole of my sexual energy and focused it, pointed it, directed it—not the way Cosima had.

My rhythm grew faster, my thrusts grew stronger, and before I knew it, she grabbed my hand. Before I knew it, the headboard was banging against the wall.

She reached her other hand down, beneath her belly, between her legs. Her moans grew louder, more intense, or maybe they were mine.

Either way, my arousal grew to the point of desperation, and that's when she squeezed my hand. That's when she pulled me close. That's when she turned her head and slipped two of my fingers into her open mouth.

That was all it took and I was convulsing on her back—coming, coming—while she shuddered beneath me. We shook together, in complimentary waves, me above and her below, a reflection, a full circle.

And when it was over, when the waves of orgasm had passed, we both broke out into a laugh. It was that laugh that brought me back to the present, back to the darkness of the room and the stillness of the air and the chill of the night. It was the laughter that flushed my body with a delicious affirmation.

"I love you," I said.

"Me, too," she whisper-laughed.

Slowly, I pulled out of her, and when my cock was clear, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. She didn't move from where she was. She didn't shift closer. She didn't cuddle or reach out.

She simply turned her head to face me, holding me in her hazy gaze. She laughed again, just a chuckle this time.

"That was...new," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"Yes," I said. "Totally new."

"Is this the beginning of something?" she said.

I smiled and thought for a moment. Then I rolled onto my side, propped myself up onto my elbow and reached out for her. I ran a finger in circles over her sweaty back.

"I don't know," I said. "But I hope so."

"Me, too."

She closed her eyes, resting for a moment with her mouth closed in a lazy smile.

"But…" I said, poking her softly in the ribs. "You never really answered my question."

Her eyes opened slowly. For a moment, her stare was pure, blank, unaffected, as if waking from a very good dream. But then the light of recognition flashed across her face, and she, too, rolled onto her side to face me.

"Which question?" she said with a smirk.

"You know which question," I said, trying to sound brave.

"On the bridge?"

"Mm-hmm," I said, pushing the stray hairs back from her forehead.

She looked up at me from beneath heavy eyelashes. "Yes."

"Yes?"

She inched closer to me, resting her forehead against mine, and pulling her knees up, so that we lay like two shrimps, head to head and knee to knee.

She was quiet for a long time. She was quiet for so long, that I thought she had drifted off again. I felt my own bones settle into the sheets. I felt my own fingers fall asleep where she had clasped them. I felt my own heart grow quiet and my own mind grow calm.

And as I was about to drift to sleep completely, I heard her last whisper, her breath so light that I might have dreamed it after all.

"Yes."