Gold Sand

For a while, time passes effortlessly.

Just like that. The sky widens. The days become longer. And I don't mind. Because this love grows around me like green after fire, so that my body is no longer exposed. With Hugo, the openness of light is bearable. Magnolias bloom. Petals pepper the ground. Soft under feet, as we walk barefoot through Regent's Park.

At sunset, we lie together beneath a cherry blossom, a canopy of pink.

'It's almost blue time,' whispers Hugo.

I roll onto my side, facing him now. His breath light on my cheek. 'Blue time?'

'Yeah,' he says, smiling. 'It's when the sun sets and everything takes on a blue tinge …' Hugo touches my lips, my jaw. He brushes my hair back off my face, cradling my head in the palm of his hand. I close my eyes as he draws me closer. And then he's kissing me. Gently. As the sun dips beneath the trees, and we sink into blue.

He laughs.

'What?'

'I don't know,' he says. 'It's stupid.'

I smile, watching his cheeks flush pink. 'Tell me.'

'You're just, like, the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.'

And now I'm laughing too. For a moment, forgetting the part of me that wants to say, If only you knew.

***

Outside my bedroom window, tiny yellow buds open into stars. Every morning when I wake, there are more of them, these flowers. And I notice that with each new bloom, I show more of myself. I leave the door open to the bathroom when I get changed so that he can keep talking to me. Eventually, I stop getting changed in the bathroom at all.

I peel off my top, wriggle out of my trousers, and unhook my bra, letting it fall on the floor. Slowly, I slide off my underwear and, as it lands at my ankles, I look up at him. Hugo's lying on my bed in sweatpants. Propped up on a pillow, he looks at me with smiling eyes. His gaze drifting across my skin like clouds across the sky.

Looking down at my body, I remember that someone told me once, You're not that thin. And how, with my bones jutting out at sharp angles, I'd harboured those words. Believing in them. Always returning to them like a prayer before sleep.

Then I think of arriving here in London with Maggie, after I'd spent a month in her bed in Sydney, unable to move, unable to speak. How viciously the cold had seized me when we stepped off the plane. How much it all had hurt. And how when Maggie and Lindy finally got me eating again, I'd gradually gained weight. How, for the first time in my life, I didn't mind that the gap between my thighs was closing, or that my belly was rounding, or that my arms were thickening. Because this extra weight became a fleshy armour that protected me, protected my secret. My flesh made me feel safe.

Still, I avoided mirrors. And because no one ever saw me in this body, I could exist in it. Until no one became Hugo. And, suddenly, my flesh felt overwhelming.

'Come here,' he says.

I step forwards, leaving my underwear on the floor. He rolls onto his back, arms outstretched. I climb onto the bed, my breath shallow to hold in my belly. He whispers, 'You're incredible,' and as my breath escapes, I relax my tummy muscles and lie down beside him. He brushes his fingers across my flesh, the curve of my hip, the pink of my thigh. His touch raises goosebumps on my skin. 'I fucking adore you,' he says. And there's a lump in my throat. But then he's kissing me, moving his body above mine. Kissing the hollow of my neck, my collarbones, my breasts, my belly. The insides of my thighs. His tongue. And then his fingers, slow and gentle. Touching me. Until I'm closing my eyes and sinking back. My thighs begin to quiver.

And soon, it's as if he's pouring liquid gold into me, because I can feel the warmth of it spreading through my abdomen, flowing down into my legs. My muscles clench around him, my body beginning to spasm. It's a sensation I've never felt before. Like my entire body is filling now. Filling. Full.

But then a sound escapes me and my eyes burst open. And I see the shock on his face, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping. I cover my mouth with my hands, muffling my gasp. Hoping he didn't hear. But he did. His face is twisting as he tries to suppress his laughter. 'Don't laugh at me!' I cry.

'I'm not!' he says, and presses his lips together, trying so hard not to giggle.

'You are!' I turn over onto my side, unable to look at him.

'It's just a fart, Oli!' he says, laughing out loud now. 'I don't care! Honestly!'

Mortified, I pull my knees up to my chest, curling into a ball. 'I just want to roll into a hole and die,' I mumble.

He curves his body around mine. 'Well,' he says, 'make sure there's room in there for two.'

And I realise that, like the yellow buds outside flowering into stars, it's impossible not to open when someone loves every inch of you.