Her chin drops to her chest; it's hard to tell with skin like hers, but I'm pretty sure she's blushing. "You wouldn't let me touch you for the longest time. I was so frustrated."
"Because if you'd so much as brushed my dick, I'd have exploded."
"I know that now." She smooths the towel over her thighs. "You still remember what I was wearing?"
I bark a laugh. "Of course,meu amor. How could I forget the best day of my life? I remember every detail."
"The best day of your life?"
"To this day, yes. I felt like I could fly. I was the luckiest boy who'd ever lived. You, the princess of Rio, the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, in real life or on television. I was obsessed with American TV and I thought you were more beautiful than…well,anyone. And you…you wantedme. You chose me—me, a gutter mouse from Rocinha. A nobody who barely rated a gun for guard duty. When you let that dress fall to the floor and I saw the red bra and panties? My god, Sophia. I could have died a happy man in the moment."
"You were so handsome, Ren." Her smile is…soft with remembrance. It is a sacred thing, that smile. Rarer than any gem or precious metal, and more priceless to me than either. "I remember thinking how cool and different and exotic your name was. I would walk around saying it—Lorenzo. It doesn't sound Brazilian. Because it’s not, I suppose. But it…it just rolls off the tongue differently. You were a little older than me, of course, and you had a man's body. Big and hard and muscular." Her eyes drop from mine. "That was the best day of my life, too."
Silence stretches between us, laden with a million unspoken thoughts and feelings.
"You are even more beautiful now than you were then," I say. "You are still so beautiful to me that it is sometimes hard to breathe."
She shakes her head. "You're ridiculous. I'm not. I'm covered in scars." She gnaws on the corner of her lip, looking away from me, one hand covering her belly over the towel. "And stretch marks. Reninho was averybig baby."
"Sophia—"
She glares me into silence. "If you give me some shit about tiger stripes, I'm going to stab you."
I sit up and angle toward her, my knee touching hers. "Do you really think a few scars and stretch marks can make you any less beautiful to me,meu amor?"
She shrugs. "I don't know, Ren. I…I haven't felt…" she tips her head back, blinking. "Dammit."
I touch her chin, turn her face to mine. "I am not afraid of your emotions. You shouldn't be, either."
"I have spent the last fifteen, almost twenty years keeping my emotions locked away in a box, Ren," she says, fiddling with the corner of the towel. "Trying like hell not to feelanything. It meant I couldn't feel happiness, perhaps, but what was there to be happy about? Nothing. It meant I didn't have to feel the shame of what was done to me, or the horror and guilt at what I did. It isn't so easy to just…let it all come tumbling out."
“It did back at Club Sin," I prompt. "With the other girls."
She sighs. "I can't put how that made me feel into words. I felt…connected to them. To every woman who has ever come before me—because we've all suffered something like that. We all know how it feels. And they…they let me…" she shakes her head. "I don't know. I feel lighter. They took a burden from me. Like I've been walking around with rocks in my pockets, and suddenly…I'm free." Another head shake, another sigh. "But now all of those emotions are out of their box and I can't put them back in and everything is too fucking much, Ren."
I put my hand on her knee—her bare skin is hot and silky smooth. "Not for me. Nothing you are is too much for me."
At the touch of my hand, she sucks in a sharp, hissing breath and tenses all over, still as a statue. "Ren, please."
"Please, what?" I ask, whispering.
She's panting, short, frantic breaths. "Don't touch me. It's too much."
I remove my hand.
She drops her head and exhales in relief. "I'm sorry. I know…I know what you want."
"No, you don't."
Her head jerks up with a derisive snort. “Of course I do. You're looking at me and remembering the first time we were together. You're remembering an eighteen-year-old virgin. I was eager, back then. Free of all this…" she shakes her head, tipping it back again and blinking, sniffling. "Free of all this fuckingtrauma. I'm not that person anymore, Ren. I want to give that to you. I haven't been touched or wanted for so fucking long. I haven't…I haven't felt like…like awomanin so fucking long. But I don't know how…"
I touch her lips with one finger. "Hush, my love. It's alright."
"But what if I can't ever go there with you?" She whispers, her voice shaky and breaking. "What if I can't give you…anything?"
I take her hand in mine, kiss the knuckles. "Then I will still love you."
"You need…" she swallows hard, licks her lips. “You deserve a woman who can give you sex, Lorenzo."
