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“I’ll be upstairs, then.”
    The corner of his mouth forms a wry curve. “Miriam will be home soon.”
    I grin, bumping my way out of the kitchen like a slow-moving and badly aimed pinball. I pause in the hall where Miriam’s eclectic artefacts cramp the bookshelves by the stairs. The light on the answering machine blinks and I press play. Miriam’s voice crackles from the speaker. “Hey, kiddo. Wasn’t sure you’d check your cell. I’m gonna stay at Emilie’s tonight. We’re doing the final edit tomorrow and it will save me backtracking. Hope the dance was fun. I’ll keep my phone on – if you need to get hold of me. Night.”
    I frown at the blinking light. Is it some kind of test? Some reverse-psychological get-me-onside thing? But a more interesting thought presents itself. I have the house to myself till morning - an unprecedented gift of time, circumstance and opportunity. My mind reels with the possibilities and I blink at Nan’s statue of the Mother of God where she sits on her shelf above the phone, her plaintive eyes. “Don’t be like that,” I whisper, turning the Holy Virgin to face the wall. I call over my shoulder, “Miriam’s not coming home.”
    A snort comes from the kitchen. “I heard.”
    I’m not sure my feet touch the stairs before I burst through the door of my bedroom, not feeling the pop of the doorhandle. It lies crushed in my hand. “Oops.” I hide it in my desk and turn to face the carnage of at least three days’ worth of neglected laundry that litters the floor. I stumble, off axis, as I bend to scoop up wrinkled clothes, bruising myself against bedpost, doorjamb and wall before dumping the lot in the bottom of the wardrobe. A quick scurry for scattered shoes and it’s tidier than it has been in weeks. Miriam won’t believe it.
    I smooth the quilt then turn to the dresser mirror to look myself over. Dilated pupils, opal black, and blood-red lips in the lamplight. My heart stamps like it’s wearing heavy boots. With numb fingers, I fumble the elastic band from the end of my braid and shake out the folds of my hair. I teeter, overbalance and catch myself on the bed end. Not good. The inability to remain upright could undermine my whole seduction sales pitch and I need to pull it together. I’m not an expert and we haven’t gone far in our physical relationship, what with my tendency to faint “mid-snog”, but I’m pretty sure falling on my ass won’t be much of a turn-on.
    We’ve never talked about sex. Not directly. Jamie never pressures me for anything, never complains. I’m the complainer – the one always wanting more. But how much more? What do I really want?
    Everything. I want everything. The jealous intensity of wanting him grips me. I want him completely. Possession. Knowledge. Wholeness. Belonging. Things I’ve never thought to name. I want more than signals connecting us; I want a physical, irrefutable link, something tangible that can never be erased whatever happens. It’s wrong. Selfish. Jamie’s cure waits in Germany. Helena. The Affinity Project with their rules about “unsanctioned relationships” will come for me any day now and it’ll all be over. That’s where the choking sense of urgency comes from – the threat of the unbearable end.
    It makes me desperate and terrified because as much as I want Jamie, I have no idea what I’m doing or whether I’m ready to do it. All I’ve got is theory. I’ve sat through health class, wrestled condoms onto bananas and heard war stories from friends. I know what can or can’t make me blind, infertile or even mad. I’ve flipped through bodice-ripping novels, scanning pages for the mind-altering sex that destines, dooms and defines its protagonists. And surely Jamie and I must be candidates for mind-altering bliss given the chemistry involved – the least of our encounters is electric charged.
    What it comes down to is this: tonight may be my only chance to be with him and I’m more afraid of