Not from the cliffs. Gay sex My place in the world.There was only him.This golden, dripping being.—bathing in some secret Eden the world forgot. As if the water had birthed him.He stood half in shadow, half in gold, where the canopy cracked open to let the sun spill directly onto his skin. And what skin it was—burnished like honeyed bronze, smooth and glistening with water that clung to him like worship. He looked at me, and it was as though the land itself held its breath. I had followed no trail. As though the flicker of my breath, the tremble at the base of my spine, were verses he’d read before.And for a moment, beneath the shadow of towering palms and distant snow-peaked silence, I forgot my name. The scent of wet stone and wild tuberose rose thick in my nose. My chest tightened. The kind of breath taken by gods, or those who’ve never known fear.His hair—long, black, soaked—trailed over his back like liquid ink, the strands moving as if they had minds of their own, drawn by breeze or magic.
