Once his arms were around her and his mouth was on hers it just seemed easy—or at least, far easier than it had before. There were no extra questions or brutal doubts. She simply started shedding her clothes at the door, one gloriously relief-filled piece at a time. First her jersey, then her t-shirt, then her socks, sure each time that this would be the item that did her in. Here she would stop. This would be the thing that took it too far. She was getting too naked; she was exposing too much. She’d never reach her jeans. Removing her jeans meant he would see her legs, and she couldn’t have that. Her legs were the worst. They were like the roots of some old tree, gnarled and knotted and rough. She couldn’t possibly. Yet somehow she did. She wriggled them down her legs as she led him toward the stairs, full of the oddest sort of relief she’d ever felt in her life. She didn’t even know how to identify it properly. All she could think of was a snake shedding its skin—as though she’d been carrying around extra all this time and just hadn’t known it.
