The nightgowns had been a comfort — a barrier when she felt that she needed one — but now, it’s fabric tangling tight and uncomfortable around her thigh when she tries to move closer to him, and she makes a small sound of frustration against his mouth before gripping it with her fist and hauling it loose in a way that is less provocative than it is determined. Determined to get nearer to him, mostly,

(she makes sure the coat has slid all the way to the floor, too, she didn’t spend weeks handstitching it for Stephen to come on it because she was thoughtlessly caught up,)

determined to feel like herself again. To feel herself, again, and while she’s at it: him.

Their hands released from one another for the sake of various rearrangements, she sinks them into his hair — thumbs those streaks she likes so much, twists morning-loose hair around her fingers, follows his tongue back into his mouth. Between kisses, she murmurs, “It’s very romantic of you to be prepared to engage in courtly love,” a warm, heated tease, “but I have a lot of very romantic feelings for you that are specifically in my cunt.”

(That’s not what she wrote in the poem.)