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  Awareness flamed through me, and with it guilt, spurring me into action--I pivoted immediately, facing away.

  "Xavier?" Her voice, soft, quiet, gentle, curious, hesitant even.

  "I--" I had no idea what to say. "I should not have come here this way, this late, unannounced. I am sorry." I took a step away from the boat, but her voice stopped me.

  "Wait."

  My breath caught. "Are you okay?" I asked, not turning around.

  I didn't dare turn around. If I did, I would be unable to look away from her naked body. She was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen in my life, beyond the paltry labels and descriptors of beauty any human language is capable of expressing.

  She was, in every way, perfect.

  "No," she said. "I'm not."

  "When you emerged on your balcony, I turned around--" I swallowed hard, forcing the truth out. "Not...not soon enough, however. I should have, but I--I did not. I apologize for my inexcusable behavior."

  She laughed. "Xavier, god. You're amazing."

  I frowned, though she couldn't see it. "I--what? How? Why? I just admitted to you that I stole a glimpse of you in a state of undress, while you were unaware of my presence."

  "Turn around, Xavier."

  "I should not."

  "I disagree, and it's my body."

  Slowly, heart thundering loudly in my ears, I turned around. I lifted my eyes to the balcony, to her. I couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe. My jaw was clenched so tightly it was painful. My erection was so hard and urgent I was folded nearly in half against the constraint of my zipper, and I knew it was impossible to hide that, even from here.

  She was still naked, standing with her hands at her sides now, gazing down at me without embarrassment or self-consciousness. "Hi, Xavier," she murmured, just barely loud enough for me to hear.

  "Hi...Low." I breathed a laugh. "Let me rephrase--good evening, Low."

  "Why are you here, Xavier?" she asked.

  "I...I do not know. I finished work, and my feet brought me here. I was restless, and..." I shrugged. "I ended up here. I hope I did not wake you."

  "I'm glad you're here. You didn't wake me up." She tipped her head to one side, shrugging. "Well, not exactly."

  "I am confused."

  She sniffed a laugh. "Come aboard, and I'll explain."

  I trembled. "Low, you're naked."

  She laughed, and it was as close to a giggle as a creature as elegant as she was capable of emitting. "I realize that. Is it a problem?"

  I was drinking her in, unable to refrain from staring. "My capacity for composure is rather strained, I must admit."

  She didn't laugh at that. "That's not all that's strained."

  I flushed so thoroughly the heat of embarrassment on my cheeks was probably noticeable from where she stood. "I cannot help my reaction to your beauty, Low."

  "I didn't say it was a bad thing." She waved me onto the boat. "Just come up here."

  She turned and went inside, and even then I couldn't look away, because her backside was as perfect as the rest of her--plump and round and taut, flexing with each step, yet also shaking and jiggling in a way that left me twitching in certain locations.

  Oh god. What if she was still naked when I went up there? I was barely in control now, and there were several feet between us. If she was directly in front of me, in the same space as me, and naked...how would I respond? What would I do?

  What would her skin feel like, if I were to touch her? I imagined her skin would be softer than anything I'd ever felt. Warm--hot, even.

  God, no. There was no way she would allow me to touch her.

  But she'd allowed me to see her, so why not touch, as well?

  Before I knew I intended to, I was stepping onto the boat and moving through the lounge to the stairs I knew led up to her cabin. The door was closed; I knocked gently, twice.

  "Low?"

  The door opened inward, and there she was. Dressed, now--sort of--in the kimono. This time, though, it was even more loosely tied. Just enough that the silk obscured her core and nipples and that was it.

  She leaned against the door frame. "Hi."

  "Hello."

  "You're here."

  I swallowed hard, my gaze involuntarily raking down her body and back up. "I...yes. I am here." I forced my eyes to hers.

  I could only hold her gaze for a moment, and then I remembered what I'd done while thinking of her--my mortification and guilt was made worse by the certain knowledge inside me that I would do it again, especially now that I'd seen her naked body.

  "Here to take that rain check on watching a movie with me?" she asked.

  I felt myself drawn forward, felt my gaze drawn her creamy skin, to the round, firm, heaviness of her breasts--I forced my gaze away, to the floor. "In truth, I do not know why I am here."

  I felt her palm on my cheek, fingers under my chin, tilting my head upward. "Look at me, Xavier." I did so, meeting her intense blue eyes. "Why are you looking at the floor? I'm up here."

  "Because it is not, in the name of honesty, your eyes that my gaze is drawn to at this moment. Though your eyes are mesmerizing and hypnotic in their ultramarine blueness, I cannot lie and say it is to them at which I am compelled to stare."

  She laughed. "I'm well aware of that, Xavier. Does it seem like I'm bothered by that?"

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes on hers. "No. It does not appear to upset you."

  "So, why are you embarrassed by it, if I'm not?"

  I swallowed a million words, and chose the ones that seemed truest, and best. "Because...because seeing you in the glory of your nakedness felt, to me, as if I had stolen a glimpse of a goddess." I paused. "'Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain,'" I quoted.

  "What was that from? I recognize it, but can't place it."

  "It is from the Bible. Psalm 139."

  "I didn't know you were religious."

  "I am not, but it is a quote which accurately sums my feelings on the matter."

  She reached out and plucked at my shirt, using it to gently tug me closer. "I'm not a goddess, Xavier. I'm just a girl."

  "No, you are far, far more than merely a girl, or a woman." I gazed down at her eyes, heart crashing like cymbals and tympani, hands trembling. "You are perfection clothed in feminine form."

  Her gaze softened, and she leaned closer yet, a breathy laugh escaping her. "God, Xavier. You can't go around saying shit like that to me."

  I blinked, puzzled. "I thought it would please you. It seemed poetic, and yet it is also the truth."

  "Oh, it pleases me, all right. Too much. You're going to ruin me for all other compliments."

  "You should never accept anything less than purest poetry." I lifted a shaky hand, traced the outline of a pink flower on the shoulder of her kimono.

  She tugged on my shirt, pulling me forward another half inch, while leaning closer yet; I caught her scent in my nostrils, vanilla and cinnamon, this time, and felt her breath on my chin, and felt the brush of her breasts against my chest. "The things you say to me, Xavier--you make me feel...well...you make me feel like a goddess. You make me feel more beautiful than I thought I could ever feel."

  "And you make me feel unworthy to be in your presence. As if to merely gaze upon your naked flesh is to sully it."

  Her fingers closed around my hand, the one still nervously tracing the outlines of flowers on the silk of her kimono at her shoulder. "What if I want you to sully my flesh, Xavier?" She led my fingers down, to where her flesh was bared by the opening of her robe, to the valley between her breasts, and then led my fingertip to the inner swell of her left breast, and left my touch there. "And with more than just your gaze."

  Scent--vanilla and cinnamon, a scent that was deeper, more complex, more...feminine and more intimate; touch--her silken flesh under my fingers, her breast under my touch, her thighs brushing mine, her breath huffing warm on my lips. It was all too much. I couldn't breathe.

  I backed away. "
Low, I--I--"

  She frowned, confused, and possibly even hurt. "Did I say something wrong?"

  "No, it's not that. I just--I can't--I..." Swallowing past the lump in my throat, the ache of anger at myself and my stupid neurological imbalance. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Low. I can't--I can't explain."

  My hands dropped to my sides, and it was only through sheer force of will that I managed to keep them from slapping against my legs.

  I backed away, feeling foolish and yet luckier than anyone had ever been.

  She followed me. "Xavier, wait." She reached out, not quite grasping me, but as if she wanted to. "Please, just...wait."

  I stopped, swallowing hard, forcing my eyes to hers.

  "I don't claim to be able to understand what's happening here, what's going on with you. If you can't explain, then don't. I won't push. God knows I've got issues of my own I don't want to and can't explain." She did grab hold of me, then, her fingers gently grasping my bicep. "But...I like spending time with you. I don't want you to leave. I'm glad you're here."

  "I feel the same on all three counts." I fought my panic, my doubt, my fear, the voice in my head. "I enjoy spending time with you. I do not want to leave. I am glad I am here."

  "Then why are you acting like you're about to bolt?"

  I shook my head, the words to explain trapped deep in my chest. "Because I am a very complicated and difficult person."

  "So I'm discovering." She took a step toward me. "And that's okay. It makes you a puzzle. It makes you interesting."

  "I wish it was as simple as that for me. I wish I knew how to explain."

  "You don't have to."

  "You may never understand me if I don't ever explain."

  She shook her head. "That's too many steps into the future, Xavier. Right now, in this moment--all I'm saying is...stay."

  "You really want me to?"

  "It's almost three in the morning, you saw me naked, and now you're on my boat with me. What about any of that implies anything other than yes, I want you to stay?"

  "I often have difficulty with implication, inference, and subtlety in social situations."

  "Okay, well in that case I'm not implying or inferring anything." She gazed up at me, both palms resting flat on my chest. "I'm asking you to stay with me."

  Fear hammered at the walls of my skull and the cage around my heart. I wanted to believe she was being truthful and genuine. Fear tried to tell me it was the height of foolishness to trust her. The intensity of my attraction to her, the ever-growing power of my nascent crush on her--if this feeling inside could be termed anything so juvenile as a "crush"--these told me it was foolishness to reject this opportunity.

  When would I ever meet a woman as beautiful and desirable, on a merely physical level, as Low? Never. When would I ever meet a woman who seemed so accepting of my...foibles, and quirks, and limitations, and awkwardness? Never.

  Curiosity and attraction won, though it was hampered and stained by doubt and fear.

  "I will stay."

  Her smile was brighter than the moon, warm and genuine and happy. "Good." She laced our fingers together and tugged me into motion, away from her cabin. "Movie time."

  She led me to the lounge, to a white leather couch with soft, thick, enveloping cushions that faced a wall inlaid with blonde wood paneling. Low sat down in the corner of the couch and I sat beside her, close but not touching. The arm of the couch had a sleek black glossy glass panel in it, and at a touch of her finger it came alive with a bright blue glow, revealing several haptic icons. She touched one, and with a soft hum, the panel in the wall parted, halves sliding away to reveal the most enormous television I'd ever seen. There was a side table next to the arm, and a large ottoman in front of it, white leather to match the couch. On the side table was a stack of antique-looking hardcover books, and she selected the topmost book, set it on her lap and opened it, revealing it to be not a book but a well-disguised tablet computer, which she used to turn on the television and bring up a Netflix account.

  She glanced at me. "What do you want to watch?"

  I shrugged. "I do not watch television, as a general rule. I would not even know how to begin selecting a program."

  "You never watch TV?" she asked, and I shook my head. "What about movies?"

  "Rarely. Sometimes I will watch a film in the company of my family."

  "So you don't like TV or movies? At all?"

  I shrugged again. "I am sensitive to external stimuli, and television is the definition of external stimuli."

  Low blinked. "Huh. Okay." Her glance at me was hesitant. "So...would you rather do something else?"

  "There is nothing I would rather do in this moment than sit here on this most comfortable sofa and watch television with you, Low."

  "A simple yes or no would have sufficed, you know," she said, with a smirk.

  "Oh. Um. My apologies." I pushed away the twin boulders of doubt and insecurity. "Yes. I would like to watch TV with you."

  "I was teasing, Xavier. The way you talk is growing on me."

  "Hopefully in the manner of an acquired taste rather than the manner of mold growing on a wall."

  She laughed. "Yes, Xavier. Like an acquired taste."

  "That was a joke."

  She slapped my chest. "And I laughed, didn't I, Spock?"

  I relaxed a little. "Yeah, you did."

  Low poked me in the arm. "You just said 'yeah.'"

  I smiled self-consciously. "Would you like to know a truth about me?"

  She tapped on the tablet to begin a program, what appeared to be an episodic series set in Rome. "Yes, I would absolutely like to know a truth about you."

  Setting the tablet aside, she leaned forward, lifted up the top of the ottoman to reveal a stack of thick, fleece-and-fur blankets hidden in a compartment inside the ottoman. She stretched her legs out onto the ottoman and settled the blanket on our legs, and then leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder.

  "Is this okay?" she asked, tilting her face to look up at me.

  Her head on my shoulder felt heavy--not from the weight but from the significance and intimacy of the gesture. The heaviness settled in my chest, on my lungs, and in my heart. I swallowed hard.

  "Yes," I murmured. "It is...it's good."

  A moment of silence as the program began. "What was the truth, Xavier?"

  "The formality in the way I talk most of the time--in truth, it is an affectation, in a certain sense."

  "Like...an accent?"

  I bobbled my head side to side. "Sort of."

  "So it's not how you actually talk? You said it was how you feel most comfortable talking in unfamiliar situations, or something like that"

  "No--yes." I laughed, again, a self-conscious bark, slightly bitter. "It's...it's protection. I speak formally, without contractions, without slang, as a means of putting up a kind of wall between myself and other people."

  "I don't understand."

  "I attempted for some time to fit in, as I said--especially in the way I talk. But something I said always gave me away, and people would make fun of me. It was easier, I found, eventually, to just always talk like, as you say, an AI program, or a robot, or Spock, or whatever, and simply let my profound uniqueness lead."

  "Put the thing people make fun of you for front and center."

  "Precisely."

  Another moment of quiet between us, as the characters on the screen acted out their story. "So, how do you naturally talk?"

  "Well, that's the secret," I said. "Sometimes, if I'm very relaxed or very distraught, the formality drops away, to an extent. Contractions might slip in, less formal variations of words, things like that."

  "Kind of like someone for whom English is a second language accidentally slipping into their native tongue."

  "Much like that, yeah."

  She looked at me without lifting her head from my shoulder. "So you're kind of relaxed right now, huh?"

  "Trying to be."

  Low laughed. "
You're trying to be relaxed?"

  I realized how stupid that was, and laughed with her. "I do not relax very well. I am--I'm wired incorrectly for relaxation, you might say."

  The show she'd selected, as we settled into watching it together in silence, was equal parts violent, sexually explicit, and fascinating. I enjoyed it immensely, even if the graphically sexual parts made me squirm with an excited discomfort. I didn't want to let the sexuality of it arouse me, not with her so close. But I was also hyperaware in every single moment, of how little she was wearing. How she'd brazenly and confidently let me see her naked, without qualm or hesitation or embarrassment. Even pride, perhaps.

  As we watched, I relaxed even further. I'd started out sitting bolt upright, feet on the floor, and hands on my lap; but as the second hour-long episode began, I found myself reclining, my feet propped on the ottoman. As I relaxed, Low leaned further and further into me, which only made me even more hyperaware of her presence, her scent, her warmth.

  Fifteen minutes into the second episode, she flipped open the tablet and paused it. "I have to pee, and I need a snack." She sat up, tossing the blanket aside. "You want anything?"

  "Some water, perhaps?" I said.

  "Boring!" she said in a singsong, leaving the couch. "You're having a glass of wine with me."

  I'd tried drinking once, at Stanford, and it hadn't gone well; of course, that had been a dorm-mate goading me into accompanying him to a frat party and pressuring me into doing shots of whiskey--I'd realized later it had all only been for his own amusement, and I'd never touched alcohol again. Surely a glass of wine in a calm environment with someone I felt I could trust would be a much different experience.

  Low hadn't waited for an answer, though. She'd vanished into a bathroom, and then moments later into the galley; I heard a microwave going, and then popcorn popping, the pop of a cork leaving a bottle and the glug of liquid being poured into glasses.

  Returning, she had a bowl of popcorn in one hand and two glasses of wine precariously clutched in the other. I made to stand up, intending to help, but she shooed me away with the popcorn bowl.

  "I've got it, I've got it. Just sit." She set the popcorn bowl down on the far edge of the ottoman, and then paused, bending over to snag a handful of the fluffy white snack and tossing it into her mouth. Bent over--robe draping open, breasts swaying, fully visible--freckles liberally dotted the upper slopes of her breast and the valley between them, and those freckles somehow seemed to taunt me, making me ache, throb. I sucked in an audible breath, and she glanced at me with a wink.