The first time he made love with Alyssa, which was the first time he’d made love with anyone, it was even better than he had imagined. Just the fact of being inside of her was the greatest pleasure he’d ever had. But the feel of her, the luxuriousness of her body inside and out, the cling of her, the give and take, the beauty and then the clench of her eyes, the liquid squeeze and clench of her cunt, the sounds of her coming, coming with his cock coming inside of her—Oh, oh, oh!

“Mmm,” she sighed, some minutes after they’d been lying quietly in one another’s arms, in her little dorm room bed, her roommate’s on the opposite wall empty, the roommate visiting her own boyfriend downstate for the weekend. “Mmm, that was so nice, so good. Mmm.” He gave her a soft squeeze, not sure he had the energy to open his own mouth, even to sigh.

“Mmm, what are you thinking?” she asked. “I mean, when we were...”

He took a deep breath and managed the sigh. “I’m not sure I was thinking anything. Just that I love you so much.”

But that was a lie, not that he loved her, that was true, but he remembered one thought, and before he could reconsider, he blurted, “Except.” And then he stopped.

“What? Except what?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“Well, now you have to. Go on.”

“No, it was nothing really.”

“Okay, but tell me anyway. Please.”

He took another deep breath. “My bedroom was right next to my parents’ bedroom. So if I was in bed and they were in bed, and if they were making love, well, I could hear.”

Alyssa made a sound of acknowledgement. When he didn’t say anymore, she said, “And?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that the sound—I could hear the slap of their bodies, you know, and I was old enough to know what they were doing, not in great detail, but ... Anyway, when my mom came, she made this sound, kind of a moaning gasping cry sort of sound, it’s hard to describe, but it was the same sound you made.”

“Huh,” Alyssa said. “I didn’t think I made any sound. Maybe you imagined it.”

“Maybe,” he said.

She poked him. “You’re strange, you know that? Why would you tell me...”

“Because you asked me,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, I’m glad you told me. I think.” She was quiet. Thoughtful. “So what about your dad?”

“What about him?”

“What sound did he make?”

“I don’t think he ... oh wait. Sometimes he’d say, ‘Oh Marci.’ Marci was my mom.”

“Right. Marci.”

“What sound did I make?” he asked.

She smiled and shrugged. “You didn’t say ‘Oh Marci.’ She laughed. “I don’t think you made any sound. Not that I noticed.”

“I didn’t think so either,” he said. “I was too busy loving you.”

“Loving the sounds I made?”

“Yeah, and everything else about you. About us.”

She was thoughtful again.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Oh nothing. It just that over Thanksgiving, when I meet your parents, now I’m going to think about your mom and me making the same sounds. We’ll get to sleep together, right? In your boyhood bed. It would be weird if your mom and dad were listing to us on the other side of the wall. If they recognized the sound I made as ... Do you think I always make that sound? When I come?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She grinned at him. “Maybe we should find out.”

“We should,” he said, shifting himself between her welcoming legs. “We should.”