I plopped down on the couch, still warm from where Gretchen and I had been cuddled together. “I think I’m in over my head.”

“Time to grow gills?” He sat beside me and took my hand.

“TJ…” I sighed, not looking at him.

“It’s sort of a once in a lifetime thing, isn’t it?”

“Well, in my case, apparently…twice?”

He grinned, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Lucky you.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Lucky me…”

* * * * *

I knew I was really going to go through with it when I decided to shave everything down there. Honestly, I think I knew the moment I saw Gretchen again, but shaving was a symbolic act, a physical representation of a so-far ethereal decision. Doc had paid for our tickets, plans had been made, but it didn’t feel real until I put a towel up on the bathroom counter that morning and handed TJ a razor.

“Everything?” He was used to trimming me, shaving the sides into a neat little landing strip, but I hadn’t gone completely bare since that summer in Key West.

“Everything,” I agreed, spreading my legs and leaning back against the mirror, hoping he wouldn’t see the way my thighs were trembling or how wet I was already in anticipation.

The razor moved slowly, carefully, up one side and then the other, stripping me of a clear remnant of womanhood. It felt like turning back the clock in some ways, going back to that time when I was so young, so unknowing, so eager to learn. Still, there were things I couldn’t un-know, experiences that had changed me forever. My body had changed, my hips fuller, my breasts, too, after nursing Beth for two years. I had stretch marks on my lower belly, now, soft plaits the remnant of my pregnancy. I knew there was no going back, even as I let him strip me bare in hopes that there somehow was.

“So smooth.” TJ’s fingers rubbed over my vulva, his eyes eating me up, hungry, and I wanted more than just his gaze.