lost in thoughts of where to pick up the threads of my writing for the morning. I put the coffee on and wolfed down some cereal in milk while my mind was a thousand miles away. The coffee brewed, I poured a cup and moved out to the balcony overlooking the back garden. I just stood in the doorway there, breathing in the clean air through the aroma of the rich coffee. Not seeing the garden, but my mind calming down, preparing itself for what I had to write this morning, the mere presence of the garden helping me to focus inwardly.

I loved a morning fuck from Jesse, of course, but I still wasn't fully satisfied. I had begged him to enter this monogamous relationship, I know, but I had no idea how hard it would be for me. He tended to be the one who had gone from one long-term relationship to another in a consecutive stream, never overlapping his lovers. I had been the one who sought variety—who fed off that variety to enrich, I had thought, each of them. My insistence on a more permanent arrangement with Jesse was really my struggle with myself to settle down, now that I had found the right man.

But this wasn't getting me anywhere on my novel, I thought. I shook my head, sipped at the coffee, and tried to pull myself back into what I had to write today.

"You know that when you stand with the light to your back in that white thing you're wearing, I can see every contour of your body, don't you?"

My head snapped around. I had no idea I wasn't alone on the balcony. I'd been so lost in my thoughts when I'd come out here that I hadn't even bothered to check. The apartment that shared the balcony had been vacant for months. I knew that someone had moved in—a young fireman, I'd been told—but I'd forgotten. I instinctively wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to withdraw into myself.

"No, don't bother with that," the bronze god, who evidently had been doing his morning stretches, said with a laugh. "I've seen it all now, and it's much too nice to cover."

"Uh, umm," I stammered as much lost for words because he was a hulking beauty, all hardpacked muscle, with massive chest and arms tapering down to a divine six-pack, and, from what I could see below the gym shorts he was wearing—the only thing he was wearing—massive thigh and calf muscles as well. And his face was a regular poster model. He no doubt posed for those sexy calendars fire stations put out to help pay for their wild parties.

"You're Jesse's partner, aren't you?"

"Ummm, yes," I managed to dumbly mutter. He was beautiful. He was all I looked for in a man before I had decided to settle down. Gorgeous, smiling, and gregarious.

"I've met Jesse already. He told me about you."

"Uh, he did?" I said, not yet together enough for intelligent conversation. Jesse, I thought, was possibly gossiping a bit too much with strangers.

"Yeah, he told me you were a sweet fuck."

I was lost for words altogether now. Jesse had, indeed, been saying entirely too much around the neighborhood.

"Here, come here," he said with a big smile, as he moved around to an iron patio chair with arms on it that sat on his side