Bonus Chapter — Under the Bed

I want to put down, on the page, what was under the bed.

I had — somewhere in the small slow careful month of December, when the first snow had come down on Birch and the house had gone into the small specific December version of itself, with the small fake CVS tree in the corner of the front room (we had upgraded it, this year, by mutual unspoken agreement, to a real tree, but the small fake CVS tree was, in any honest accounting, also in the front room, on the small specific shelf by the window where Mort had decided he liked it) — clocked, on a Tuesday afternoon, that there was a thing under our bed.

I had clocked it because Mort had clocked it.

Mort had — at some point in late November, in the small steady patient feline way of a small black cat with one eye who had been doing reconnaissance in the upstairs of our house for the previous fourteen months — registered the small specific fact of an unfamiliar object having been placed under the bed, and Mort had — in the way Mort did all things — alerted me to it, by sitting beside the bed at three in the afternoon for ninety seconds at a stretch and staring under it with the small detached curious focus of a cat who was, in any felt sense, not going to do anything about it, but who was also, in any honest accounting, not going to let me forget it was there.

I had — twice, in the previous four weeks — gotten down on my hands and knees beside the bed, in soft pants, with a flashlight on my phone, and looked.

I had seen, both times, the small specific edge of a flat box that was — judging by the small careful brown craft paper it had been wrapped in, and by the small specific black-grosgrain-ribbon I had clocked along the edge of the wrapping — an extremely deliberate Christmas present.

I had not, either time, removed it from under the bed.

I had not removed it because I had — three years and three months into knowing Jake Moreno — finally become the kind of man who could look at a present under his own bed for four weeks straight and not open it, which is, in any honest accounting, a kind of personal growth I would have, in 2022, considered, in any honest accounting, a complete impossibility.

It was Christmas Eve.

I was, at six oh-eight in the evening, in the kitchen, at the counter, in soft pants and a red sweater Maya had given me at Thanksgiving and had — over my mild objection — insisted I wear on Christmas Eve, and Jake, behind me at the stove, was making, with the small steady careful patience he made everything with, a small specific stew his mother had taught him to make in 1996 and that he had not, in any felt sense, made for anyone other than himself in twenty-eight years.

He said, into the kitchen: “Elliot. At eight. We are going to have dinner. We are going to do the dishes. We are going to put on a movie. And at ten, you are going to come upstairs. And — Elliot. You are going to leave the small specific present under the bed under the bed until I am ready for you to open it.”

I — at the kitchen counter, with my hand on the cutting board, with a half-cut shallot in front of me — went, in one half-second, fully red.

I said: “…Jake. How — how long have you known I — “

He said: “Six and a half weeks. Mort told me. Mort sat in the doorway of the bedroom on the third Tuesday of November at three in the afternoon while you were on the phone with Sara, and he stared at the bed for, conservatively, ninety seconds, and I came up the stairs to put away laundry, and I clocked it. And then I clocked it again the next Tuesday. And I — I will be honest, Elliot — I clocked you on your phone, with the flashlight on, on your hands and knees beside the bed, on the second Sunday of December, when you thought I was at the warehouse but I was actually at the bottom of the stairs because I had forgotten my coffee, and I came up to get the coffee, and you — Elliot. You did not hear me come up. And I have — for the last four weeks — been very, very impressed with you. You did not open it. Six weeks, Elliot. Six weeks of a present under your own bed. The 2022 version of you would have opened it on day three. I am proud of you. Eat the shallot, baby.”

I — at the kitchen counter, on Christmas Eve, in the red sweater Maya had given me, with the half-cut shallot in front of me and the small steady warm fact of Jake Moreno at my back at the stove on the small specific evening of our first Christmas in the house — laughed, once, into the kitchen, and I went back to chopping.

We had dinner. We did the dishes. We watched, on the couch, the first half of Die Hard, which Jake had — for reasons I still did not fully understand — declared his official Christmas Eve movie at age twenty-two and which had been his official Christmas Eve movie for the thirteen years between then and now, and which I had — by this Christmas Eve, our second together — finally accepted was going to be, in any honest accounting, our official Christmas Eve movie for the rest of my life.

At nine forty-two, with John McClane on the screen in the air ducts and Mort on my lap and Jake’s arm around my shoulders, Jake said, into the side of my hair: “Eighteen minutes.” I said: “…What.” He said: “Eighteen minutes until ten.”

He said, very quietly, into the side of my hair: “In eighteen minutes, I am going to ask you to come upstairs. And I am going to ask you to do something you have not, in our fifteen months together, done before. And — Elliot. Listen to me. You are going to look at what is under the bed. And you are going to tell me, with your words, whether you want to do it. The answer can be yes. The answer can be no. The answer can be not tonight. Any of those answers is — Elliot — the right answer, on a Christmas Eve, in our own house, in the bedroom upstairs, with my arm around your shoulders. Yes?“

I said: “…Yeah, Jake.”

He kissed the top of my head. We watched the rest of the first half of Die Hard. At nine fifty-eight he stood up from the couch. He held out his hand. I took it. He took me upstairs.

I am going to be honest, on the page, about what was in the box. I am going to be honest because the page has, in the previous two hundred and eight thousand words across two books and one bonus chapter, earned the small specific honesty of this moment.

He sat me on the edge of the bed. He went to his side of the bed. He knelt down beside the bed, and he reached under it, and he pulled the box out — small, flat, brown craft paper, black grosgrain ribbon. He sat down beside me. He said: “Open it, baby.”

I opened it. I pulled the small specific black-grosgrain-ribbon. I lifted the small specific lid. I folded back the small specific tissue paper, which was a kind of small private dark navy tissue paper that Jake had clearly chosen on purpose.

There were three things. The first thing, on top, was a small specific black silk sleep mask. The second thing, under the silk sleep mask, was a small specific pair of dark navy soft-cotton handcuffs — not metal, not the kind that bite, the kind that have been padded on the inside, the kind that are made specifically for two adults who have, in fifteen months of being together, talked about whether one of them might want to try the small specific feeling of having his hands above his head and not being allowed to move them. The third thing, under the handcuffs, was a small specific folded piece of cardstock. The cardstock, when I unfolded it, said in Jake’s small careful block-letter handwriting:

Elliot — I have been thinking about this since the third Sunday of October, which was the night you told me, in the dark, what you wanted to try, and which was the night I told you I would think about it. I have been thinking about it for nine weeks. I am ready. If you are also ready — tonight — open the box. If you are not ready — tonight — close the box and put it back under the bed. We will try it next year. We will try it the year after. There is no clock. I love you. — J

I — at twenty-eight years old, on the edge of my own bed, on Christmas Eve, with my husband sitting beside me — held the small specific cardstock in my hands and read the message twice, and I — for a count of perhaps four seconds — did not, in any felt sense, breathe.

I looked up. Jake was looking at me. His face was — and I have rendered Jake’s face in a great number of small careful situations across two books, and I am going to render it here, on Christmas Eve at ten oh-three on the bed in our upstairs bedroom — terrified.

I said, into the cardstock, with my voice not entirely available to me: “Jake. …Are you really ready.”

He said: “Yeah, baby. And — Elliot. I — I am not going to dress this up. I had to think about it. Because — because the small specific thing you described to me on the third Sunday of October — the small specific thing of your hands tied above your head, and a small specific blindfold, and me — and me being the only person in the room, with you not able to see me coming — that small specific thing, Elliot, was — for me — going to require me to be a different kind of careful than I had been before. And I had to think about whether I could be the right kind of careful. Because the wrong kind of careful, in the small specific situation you described — for a man who has not been touched in three and a half years before he met me, who has, in his life, been taken apart by men who were the wrong kind of careful — would have, in any honest accounting, hurt you. And — Elliot. I have, in nine weeks, decided I can do it the right way. Because I know you. And because I know what you need, when you are in that small specific position. And because — Elliot. I have been, in my head, in the dark, for nine weeks, practicing.“

I said, with the small wet laugh I had been carrying for at least sixty seconds: “Jake. Jake. You are the most prepared man on this planet, Jake.”

He said: “That’s why you married me. Yes or no, Elliot.”

I — on the bed, on Christmas Eve, at ten oh-six — said, with the small clean specific focused warm answer of a man who had, in fifteen months, finally become a man who could say the answer:

“Yes, Jake.”

He said, very low: “Take off the sweater.”

He took his time. He took his time the way he had been taking his time with me for fifteen months, with the small careful focused patient unhurried attention of a man who had decided, nine weeks ago, that he was not going to be in a hurry, and who had — for nine weeks — been practicing not being in a hurry in his own head until the not-being-in-a-hurry was, in any felt sense, the floor of him.

He took the sweater off. He took the t-shirt under it off. He took the soft pants off. He took the boxers off. He laid me down on the bed, on the small specific quilt Maya had given us as a wedding gift in September, in the dim warm low-amber light of the bedside lamp on Christmas Eve, naked, with my hair in my eyes and my mouth already open and my breathing already shallow and the small specific careful focused warm dark eyes I had been looking at for fifteen months on my face from a distance of two inches.

He said, into my mouth: “Hands.”

I lifted my hands above my head. He took the small specific dark navy soft-cotton handcuffs out of the box. He held them in front of my face for a long second so I could see them — the small specific padding inside, the small specific quick-release clasp at the side, the small specific way they were not, in any sense, going to hurt me — and he said:

“This — and the mask. If at any point either of these is too much, you say red, and I take them off. If you cannot say red — if your mouth is otherwise occupied — you tap your fingers three times against the headboard, and I take them off. You hear me.”

I said: “Yes, Jake.”

He said: “Tell me the safeword.”

I said: “Red.“

He said: “And the tap.”

I said: “…Three times.”

He said: “Good.”

The word landed. It landed the way it had been landing on me for fifteen months — in the small specific spot at the back of my chest that did not, in any rational sense, deserve to be lit up the way it lit up — and Jake, who had been studying me for fifteen months, clocked it. He said: “Good boy.“

I made a sound. He laughed once, low, in his chest. He said: “We’re going to use that one a lot tonight.”

He fastened the handcuffs to the headboard slats above my head. He pulled them, twice, to test the small specific give. He checked the small specific space between the cuff and my wrist, on each wrist, with two of his own fingers. He said: “Pull.”

I pulled with my whole body, hard. The cuffs held. The cuffs held against my wrists in the soft cotton padded way of a piece of equipment that had been chosen, with great care, by a man who had been studying me for fifteen months.

He said: “How does it feel.”

I said, very small: “…Good, Jake.”

He picked up the small specific black silk sleep mask. He held it in front of my face for a long second. He said: “Yes?”

I said: “…Yes.”

He said: “Same rules. Red. Three taps.”

He slipped the mask over my eyes. The mask cut the world.

I want to put that on the page, because the small specific moment of the world cutting was the small specific moment my entire body, in any felt sense, opened. I had — in fifteen months of being with Jake Moreno — been, on a number of small specific occasions, in the position of having my eyes closed, by my own choice, while he did things to me. I had not been, in any felt sense, blind. The mask, on Christmas Eve at ten sixteen, took that small specific option away from me, and the small specific taking-away, in the small careful preplanned way it had been taken away — was, in any honest accounting, the most opened my body had ever, at any point in its life, been.

I made a sound. He said, into the small specific dark behind the mask: “Yeah. I’m here, baby. I am right here. You can hear me. You can feel my hand. You can — Elliot, you can talk, the whole time. You tell me what you want. I’m — I am going to keep checking. I am going to keep saying your name. You are not, in any felt sense, alone in here. Yes?“

I said: “Yes, Jake.”

He said, very quietly: “I’m going to take an hour.”

I said, into the dark behind the mask: “Jake. I — Jake, I am not going to last an hour.“

He said: “Yeah, you are. Because the rules — the rules, baby, that we agreed on — are that you do not come until I tell you to come. And I am not going to tell you to come for an hour. And you are going to last, because you are good.“

I made — into the small specific dark behind the mask, into the small specific quilt under me, into the small specific chest of a man who had been practicing this in his head for nine weeks — a sound that I had not, in fifteen months, made in this house.

He laughed once, very low, into the side of my throat. He said: “There you are.”

I am not going to, on the page, give you the next hour minute-by-minute. I am not going to give it to you because the next hour was — in any honest accounting — mine. I will, however, give you the small specific shape of it.

He kept his promise. He took an hour. He took an hour with his mouth on me at every part of my body in a slow careful exhaustive sequence I would not, after the fact, be able to reconstruct in linear time, because the small specific dark behind the mask had — within the first ten minutes — fully eliminated my ability to track time as a thing.

He said, into my ear, at small specific intervals: “Are you okay.” I said yes every time. He said good boy every time. He said it twenty-seven times in the next fifty-eight minutes.

I came, the first time, at approximately the thirty-five-minute mark. I came on his hand, with my eyes covered and my hands cuffed above my head and his other hand at the side of my face and his mouth at my ear saying, very low, the small specific instruction now, baby, come on, that’s it, good boy, and I came with a sound out of my own throat I had not, at any point in fifteen months of being with him, made.

He held me through it. He let me come down for two full minutes. Then he started again.

I came, the second time, at approximately the fifty-minute mark, on him, with him inside me, slow, with his forehead pressed against the side of my throat through the dark behind the mask, and his hand under the small of my back lifting me into him, and his low voice in my ear giving me, in the small specific way he had been giving it to me for fifteen months, the small private litany — good, baby, look at you (I could not look at me; the small specific instruction was, in any honest accounting, an absurd kindness), perfect, just like that, just like that, baby, just like that — and when I came, I cried.

I cried into the dark behind the mask. I cried not because I was hurt, and not because I was sad, and not because anything was wrong — but because my body had, in the previous fifty-five minutes, been opened, in the small specific careful preplanned way Jake Moreno had been preparing for nine weeks to open it, all the way up.

He felt me crying. He stopped immediately. He said: “Hey.”

I said, into the dark: “Don’t stop, Jake. Please don’t — please don’t stop.“

He said: “Are you okay?”

I said: “Yes. Yes. Yes. I am — Jake, I am — I am so okay. Please don’t stop. Please.“

He said: “Alright, baby.”

He kept going. He came, two minutes after I came the second time, with his forehead against my throat and his hand at the back of my hair and a sound out of his own chest I had not, in fifteen months, heard out of him in this exact specific way, and he stayed inside me for a long minute after, still, breathing.

He took the mask off, slow, with both hands. The light came back. The world came back. He was looking at me from a distance of two inches, with his small specific dark warm focused steady eyes wet at the corners, in the small dim warm low-amber light of the bedside lamp on Christmas Eve at eleven seventeen, and he said: “Hi. Are you okay.”

I said: “…Yes, Jake.”

He undid the cuffs, slow, one wrist at a time, and he set the cuffs on the nightstand beside the bed, and he pulled my arms down, slow, and he rubbed both of my wrists in his hands for a long minute, with the small specific clinical attentive focused care of a man who had — at the small specific store in the West Village — also been told, by the small specific clerk, what to do with the wrists of a partner after the small specific hour had ended, and who had — for nine weeks — also been, in his head, practicing this part.

He kissed the inside of each wrist. He said: “You’re shaking.”

He pulled me in against his side. He pulled the small specific quilt — Maya’s — up over both of us. He held me there, with my face in his collarbone and his arm tight around my shoulders and his other hand at the back of my hair, and he said, into the top of my hair: “You did so well. You were so good. You were the most patient I have ever, in any felt sense, seen anyone be. You can cry.”

I said, into his chest: “I am crying.”

He said: “I know. Cry.”

I cried. I cried for, conservatively, four minutes. He held me. Mort had come back up onto the bed, and was, by the time I had finished crying, pressed against the small of Jake’s back the way he liked to.

I was — at eleven twenty-three on Christmas Eve, on the bed in the upstairs bedroom of the house I now lived in — home. I was home in a way that I had — three years and three months earlier — not, in any honest accounting, ever expected to be home again.

I said, into Jake’s collarbone, very small: “Jake. …Thank you.”

He said: “Don’t thank me.”

I said: “Thank you, Jake. Thank you for the small specific practicing. And the small specific cardstock. And the small specific — Jake — the small specific navy tissue paper. You — Jake, you are the most prepared man on this entire — “

He said: “Get some water, baby. Your body is going to want it.”

We went downstairs. We drank water. We ate the small specific cold leftover stew, standing at the counter, with the small specific tree visible across the front room. We sat on the couch in front of the tree. He pulled the small specific quilt off the back of the couch and put it across both of our laps. Mort, who had followed us downstairs, settled in the small specific spot between our hips that had become, since November of last year, his spot.

The clock in the kitchen, at eleven fifty-eight on Christmas Eve, ticked.

Jake said, into the top of my hair, very quietly: “Two minutes to Christmas. Stay up?”

I said: “…Yeah, Jake.”

We watched the small specific clock. At twelve oh-one — it was the kitchen clock, which had been, in any felt sense, the soundtrack of everything in this house since the first morning Jake had come into it — Jake said, into the top of my hair: “Merry Christmas, baby.”

I said, into his collarbone: “Merry Christmas, Jake.”

He said: “How are your wrists.”

I said: “…They are fine, Jake.”

I said: “Jake. …What — what did you get me for Christmas. Like. The actual Christmas present. The one that is not under the bed.”

He said, with the small dry inflection that had been the soundtrack of my entire adult life: “Elliot. Baby. That was the Christmas present.“

I said: “…Oh. Jake.“

He said: “Mm.”

I said, into the kitchen, on Christmas morning at twelve oh-three, with my husband’s arm around my shoulders and Mort on the small specific spot between our hips and the small specific tree across the front room and the small specific cold of December outside the window and the small specific permanent fact of the rest of my life:

“I love you.”

He said: “I know, baby. I love you too. Bed?”

I said: “…Bed.”

We went to bed. We slept until ten on Christmas morning. It was, in any felt sense, the best Christmas of my whole life.