And then I could feel the nudging of Bill’s erection, it was probably going to happen, then it was definitely going to happen, he was entering me, and I gasped—I gasped both because it felt so incredibly good and because I couldn’t believe I was naked with this man. And then he really was inside me, it was happening, and we would eternally from this moment on be two people who’d had sex with each other. Even as he thrust into me, as I arched up against him and gripped his buttocks, there were a few seconds in which our eyes met and we looked at each other, both of us unblinking. Neither of us was smiling; smiling would have been trivial, or beside the point. To be with him in this way was an almost intolerable ecstasy. It was the most precious thing I had ever experienced.