Harvestland

TWELVE

Charlee and Noah made love every day. Often it was several times a day, in all different fashions.

Their sexual appetites were insatiable. And it wasn't the carnal wantonness of two hormone-driven teenagers, or even the crazed lust of the recently wed. To them sex was the physical manifestation of their love.

They could only have sex because they were in love. It was its main thrill, the knowledge that they had found each other and had the audacity to be happy in a world that had left them lonely and longing for so long.

Sometimes they'd cry together after, beholden to the awesome power of this love, love that translated into their sex life with pleasure so good it was blinding, orgasms as explosive as shooting stars, as sustaining as their love itself.

Their sex was as crazy as their love, and as Charlee liked to say, "Crazy love is perfect love when it's mutual."

And they were love in its purest form, its most raw and wild, most untamed and true, "the hot bubbling nucleus of the love atom incarnate," Charlee said. To them, making love was clawing each other's flesh open, eating like cannibals their restless hearts.

Anytime they could, they did. In the back of cars, in each other's houses when the parents weren't home, or even when the parents were home—sometimes they would sneak over to each other's places at night and make hushed love in the basement, see how quiet they could be and how long they could get away with cuddling together afterward.

In one particularly close call, they had shower sex late one night at the McCool household when Charlee's mother suddenly strolled into the bathroom to look for something. Two curtains shielded them from certain death. But in a moment of can't-stop passionate insanity, they continued, their suppressed moans turned into heavy sighs muffled by a heavier shower spray. Noah nailed Charlee to the tiled wall and they came together with such intensity and such tenderness it took everything in them to keep silent, their faces twisted in sweetly vulnerable expressions of love. They held each other like that even afterward, as streams and beads of water ran over their connected bodies and Charlee's mother finally left. When they were sure she was long gone, all they could think to do was laugh, laugh quietly but laugh long.

When the weather got warmer, they moved out of the Collins Mall and found a secluded place to themselves on a high stretch of floodwall that overlooked the Lost River. They'd make love there on a hill that gave them a sweeping view of town. Made love at sunset with the sky painted shades of pink, made love at night to the stars, made love to a harvest moon and its reflection that shimmered across the surface of the river.

One warm spring day, they lay there naked and sweaty in each other's arms after a botched attempt at a shared orgasm. Noah laughed while Charlee tried to hide her embarrassed face.

"This always only happens to me," she said. "I'm always the one who comes too early. All the time."

"Not all the time. I've had my fair share."

"Not compared to me. It's like I'm the guy in this relationship!"

Noah laughed some more. "Oh I love you, baby."

"Clearly I love you too much. You're just that good. Come on. You're still hard. Keep going, maybe I can make it round two."

But Charlee was too drained for the moment, and Noah came to a gasping finish after about thirty more seconds. They stayed connected for a while just staring at each other, then finally separated as Noah grew soft. They lay on their backs with their naked sides touching, smiling and gazing at an open blue sky, only a few wispy clouds to be seen, golden in the soft sun.