The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.
We were both looking at the same Rembrandt painting. For a long time, we weren't aware that the other was there. We were just transfixed by the painting. Then I noticed her, and when she looked at me, I looked back at the painting. I noticed that she was noticing me, but when I turned to look at her, she looked back at the painting. I wandered off, and found myself transfixed by a Vermeer painting. I stared at it for a good ten minutes, moving closer and closer, unaware of everything around me, and then I butted heads with someone who was doing the same thing, and it turned out to be her. She got a nasty bump, so I went out and bought a cold can of coke and put it to her head and she laughed and I laughed and she sighed and I sighed and evening drew its curtains and the moon unveiled its shining nakedness and the stars aligned and New Yorkers were smiling and singing and dancing in the streets. It was like a Broadway play; it was almost like we were singing our names to each other, singing who we were, where we were from. Then it started raining, and she was wearing a white blouse and got soaked and i stared and she blushed and then smiled and I put my coat around her and shivered and sneezed and got goosebumps as she said i was kind. I walked her to her apartment and she asked me to come inside to dry off and wait till it stopped raining and she stoked a fire and I took off my shirt and let it dry over the fire place and we sipped Merlot and listened to Rachmodinav. We talked of art and novels and theater and then we didn't talk at all. Nothing but silence and we both fell asleep. Her head was on my shoulder when we woke up, her arms wrapped around my waist. We were both exhausted. It was 2 in the morning. She told me to stay, and, still very sleepy, she slowly drew her face closed to mine, and gave me a brief brief kiss that almost wasn't even a kiss because our lips barely touched and she quickly fell back to sleep as if drugged. I fell asleep, but an hour, she woke me up. She handed me a bowl of strawberries, and then I saw that she was naked, the moon halving her curved figure into silver and shade. We made love, first slowly, leisurely, then quickly and efficiently, pausing for short breaths, to slide our hands across the others back. We pushed into each other until the fire died and the sweet smell of smoked cinder mixed with swirling scent of our sweat and fluids and when the sun rose, the light flooded her apartment and our bodies, entangled and worn, shined with the kind of sweat that only drips down the backs of the gods. I ran my fingers through her long, brown, wet hair, resting my hand in the curve of her back, feeling the groove of her spine, her muscles small, taut, curved, twitching in time to her short, excited breaths as she stroked my earlobe with her nose. We had things to do, places to be, but we said nothing. We didn't want to move.
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