In the beginning the bed was like a big white raft, because it held them up above the orange sea of carpet. The carpet was a thick stringy shag; pure 1970. It smoothed itself out over the floor with a collection of vibrant, plastic-inspired oranges, yellows, and browns. Neither of them liked it at first; they talked about covering it up with something: "Maybe burlap, or a big throw rug" they said, but they never got around to it. Rennet says that she thinks it has the dead skin of a hundred different people filtering through it. That's the problem with shag: it's very deep, and Rennet and Julio don't own a vacuum.

If you sit on the bed, you can't really see the shag anymore, you can just see the blue sky through the windows. When you are on the bed, the room seems like it is composed entirely of blue sky; like someone has ripped down the walls and you are floating out in the open air. At first the bed was great because of that. But Julio and Rennet don't like having sex on the bed anymore. Rennet says it's too soft, and Julio hates the way it squeaks; he finds it distracting. Now they throw the bed covers down onto the shag and have sex there. Rennet wouldn't actually like to be touching the shag; that would bother her. But it feels good to lie on through the bed covers; the floor is hard, and the shag gives it the slightest hint of softness. This is what she likes about it. Ever since that first time when they accidentally fell off the bed, they have been having sex on the shag. Now it has become a kind of joke; when they say anything about the orange shag, each of them knows that it's a euphemism for fucking. When they're walking through a department store, Rennet might say "That couch would look good on the orange shag," and then she will stretch up and poke her small hot tongue into Julio's ear.

By 7:00 in the morning Rennet has already been up for at least an hour. When Julio rolls out of bed to have a shower he sees her in the painting room. This is Rennet's room, and this is Rennet's meditative time; she sits in various spots in the painting room and makes notes to herself about the painting she's working on. Sometimes she will make tiny thumbnail sketches. The current painting sits on an easel against the far wall. From very far away it is a blur of blues and flesh tones. When Rennet has finished making one set of notes, she will move to another spot in the room and begin making notes all over again. As Julio walks by he sees her sitting like a little naked Budda on a group of pillows in the room's farthest corner. She doesn't notice him and he doesn't disturb her; Julio knows that when Rennet hears the shower start up she will come in and join him.

Julio is making the coffee very strong. This is one of the things that he is good at. He makes it so strong that it stands on the edge of being bitter. It is saved by only the smallest fraction from being too strong. This is the way that Rennet likes it. It gives her a focused kind of energy, makes her feel creative, and she will have two cups and then go and paint something very strange and beautiful on one of her canvases. Julio thinks the coffee is like a creative placebo for Rennet. Soon the kitchen smells of it, and Rennet thinks that the experience of the coffee smell filtering through the big empty house is delicious; it is almost better than drinking it, the smell of it.

After the coffee, Rennet has to pee. She wants to have sex now, with a slightly full bladder, because it makes her come faster. So does pointing her toes. Julio goes into the bedroom, throws the rumpled bedclothes down onto the orange shag, and takes his pants off. He thinks having sex with Rennet is great.

The play of Julio's stubble against her stomach makes Rennet feel ticklish. After a while his face is down, very close to hers, and he sucks her bottom lip slowly while he moves around inside of her. He is trying to rub his penis up against the spot inside that she likes. He breathes into her mouth, and makes soft noises. Rennet's eyes are glazed. She is off somewhere else. Julio knows that she will be normal again after she comes. It's like she comes back to life; he thinks of it as a game. Rennet is off somewhere, and if he can't make her orgasm then she will be gone forever: a sex-induced coma. He thinks about this to stop himself from coming, because he likes to wait until she has an orgasm first. Sometimes he can't wait.

He is thinking about not coming, and of how he is trying to stop himself from coming too soon. He imagines himself trying very hard not to come, making tightly clenched faces that mimic pain. He imagines sitting on the bed, watching himself having sex; he wonders if he looks foolish. Maybe he's a clumsy lover; the thought of all his self-reflection makes him laugh out loud. Rennet doesn't notice; she thinks that it was a kind of moan. Her eyes are open, but they're glazed over, unfocused, as if she was stoned.

They never have sex the same way. It's always different, and neither of them knows how it will be until it's over. Sometimes it's very slow and soft, and they will stop in the middle and talk, and then start again. Other times it can be very frantic. Rennet will say "Tell me how much you want me" in a half mocking way, and afterwards they will both laugh at some of the things that Julio says because they seem so silly afterwards. It doesn't seem funny when they are fucking though.

Sometimes they talk about trying new things, and talking about it will make them want to do it badly enough that they feel sore. Julio will get so hard through his jeans that he thinks his penis will never be soft and small again. When he's inside Rennet, the physical sensation seems so pure and perfect that he thinks that this is what it might feel like to die. Sometimes when he comes he feels like he's standing on the boundary between life and death; the feeling washes over his body like an insistent rush of stormy air. In his mind he raises his arms up to the sky while the wind envelops his naked body. Soon it's over.

After they finish having sex, Rennet gets up to start painting. She doesn't get up right away: that would be rude; she waits a little, but she doesn't want to miss the coffee buzz. In the other room she puts her painting apron on. Julio can see her from his position on the shag. He thinks she looks great wearing the apron over her naked body, with just the round whiteness of her bare bum still showing itself from under the drawstrings of the apron. He wants to have sex again, but he knows that he will have to wait until later. After putting on the apron, Rennet takes all the notes that she's made since she got up and spreads them out on the floor around the canvas. Then she starts to work. Julio pulls on a pair of his jeans and goes into Rennet's painting room. He drapes himself over the pillows in the corner and watches her paint. Rennet doesn't like this, but she will occasionally tolerate it. Today it's okay, because they've just had sex.

Julio can see one of Rennet's notes from where he lounges on the pillows. He moves his head slightly to see it better. The note consists of a single sentence and a small roughly drawn sketch. It says: "I sew shut the eyes of this man, my lover, with the wetness of my tongue." The sketch has been quickly drawn; it shows the head and upper torso of a man resting his head on a pillow. He looks out to the left. Julio doesn't think that the man in the sketch looks like him. It could be anyone, because of the hasty way in which it's been drawn, but Julio is slightly perturbed. The man in the sketch has dark hair; Julio's is blond. He wonders about the relationship between the sketch and the note. It makes him suddenly more interested in Rennet's painting. Rennet has told him that the painting is of the orange shag. He assumes this means that it's about him and Rennet, having sex on the orange shag. Now he's not so sure.

He looks more closely at the painting. There are two figures laying facing each other on a bed. The figures are anatomically ambiguous: it could be a man and a woman; it could also just as easily be two men or two women. The figure on the left puts its mouth on the stomach of the figure on the right. Julio wants to know more about the painting. He doesn't want to disturb her, but he can't help himself. He gets up and moves over to where Rennet is dabbing paint on the canvas.

"Which one is me?" he asks.

Rennet responds playfully. "Neither of them is you, silly. It's just some blobs of paint on the canvas." She smiles. She is not as upset at being interrupted as Julio expected.

Julio thinks she's being evasive. "But you said it was of the orange shag. I don't even see the orange shag. These two are on a bed."

Rennet laughs. "The shag is under the bed Julio, just like it is in our bedroom." She stretches over and seals his mouth up with a slow kiss. "Anyway, how about making me another cup of coffee?" she asks.

Julio goes into the bedroom and sits on the corner of the bed. The precise blueness of the fresh morning sky drifts in through the windows.

Phil McCluskey