From kindergarten on they were inseparable. It wasn’t just because they both were named Riley. He was Riley E for Edmund. She was Riley F for Frances. “I come first because of that,” he teased her through eighth grade. “It’s not polite for the boy to come first,” she told him in high school, and after that, for the next four years, whenever they were making out, which was just about every day, he made sure she came first. They hadn’t yet gone all the way, high school graduation loomed, and he was going to State on a basketball scholarship, she to Juilliard, more than a thousand miles away. “Why can’t there be a good music school in Kansas?” he moaned. “Why couldn’t you have practiced piano instead of shooting hoops all the time?” she chided him. The future looked dim.

Summer was drawing to a close. They were in Riley F’s basement making out. Her parents were at the county fair. “Do you think maybe we should... ?” Riley proposed. “I will if you will,” Riley joked. They laughed. They snuggled closer. They were just about to when their phones rang. It was their parents. “You safe?” they asked. He gulped. Her breath caught. “Get to the basement,” they commanded. “We are,” they said. “Stay there,” they said. “Tornados. Lots of them. Big ones.”

“I’ve got to find Otto,” she told him. “He can...” he started to say, but she was already halfway up the stairs. He bounded after her. The noise was overwhelming, the sky a sickly yellow green. He grabbed her and hauled her back down the stairs. Otto was waiting for them in the corner.

The noise got louder. The roar of a hundred thousand hungry lions. “Hold tight,” he yelled, embracing her. Without having heard, she locked her arms and legs about him. He pressed into her. She gripped him with everything she had.

Somehow they held together through the storm’s relentless howl.

Now all is bright and calm, and Riley and Riley lie locked together in the ecstasy of eternal orgasm.