"Twenty-two," Manu said as I approached his small bed in the ward just beyond the waiting room. He was sitting on the edge of it, his feet dangling off the ground. One foot was covered in a shoe, as might be expected. The other was wrapped in bandages to the ankle.

"Huh?" I asked.

"That's how many stitches."

I winced. "Oh fuck, are you alright?"

"Well I am now," he said with a grin. "Or at least, better than I was. The anaesthetic is still numbing the pain."

"How bad was it?"

"Can't say I was thrilled about the injection, or about feeling my skin being stitched back together, or the greasy antibiotic cream that they put on and that I need to apply every eight hours." He shrugged. "Or about these," he continued, pointing at a pair of crutches sitting behind him on the bed.

"Oh God. How long do you have to do that?" I asked, the guilt piling on.

He shook his head. "Two weeks, doc says. Otherwise I could pull the stitches out." He hauled the crutches, making sure he didn't hit me. "Got to keep off it and do the treatment, though, infections are super common in foot injuries." He lifted himself upright on his crutches and left foot.

I chuckled, steadying Manu as he figured out the new means of balance. "I mean, it was good, but it wasn't amputation good."

"Not when the amputation is avoidable," Manu replied. "I'd give up a limb for you, but not if I don't have to."

"Yeah, well, thankfully we're not in a place where your hospital bill would cost you an arm and a leg."

We started hobbling our way back to the waiting room and out the door. Manu immediately noticed his car sitting in the waiting area, and the figures in the back seat. "You brought backup?"

"Figured it'd be easier than me trying to get you on the elevator myself," I said lightly, opening the passenger side door for him.

"I think I know those faces," he said, slipping awkwardly into the passenger seat.

"Here," I said, taking the crutches. I opened the door behind Manu and handed the crutches to the two other passengers. "Hold these. I'd just put them in the back seat if it weren't for you two here anyway." Our walk to the hospital parking lot had been full of laughter and innuendo and joy. We were all still feeling snarky towards one another.

"Got it," Rita said, passing them across her body to let the handles rest on Regina's lap. "I think you know more than our faces, Manu," she said with a smirk in her voice.

"Nice to meet you," Regina said from behind the passenger seat. "Though I kind of feel like I alr—"

I closed the door, then, and missed what she was saying, though I'm pretty sure I knew. I half-jogged my way around to the driver's side.

"—dy know you too, I think," Manu was saying. There was an odd, confused, awestruck tone in his voice.

"So what's the plan?" I asked, starting the car.

"We came along to help," Rita replied, "so let's help."

Regina made an affirmative noise. "Let's get Manu home, right?"

"What about Soleil?" I asked as I put the car into gear. "Weren't we going to have dinner?"

"It's only half past three," Manu pointed out. "We were supposed to get together around six."

I could see a hint of motion in the rear view mirror and I realized that Rita shrugged. "Soliel won't be back to campus until around then. Maybe she can just meet us."

"Okay," I said. "And is Regina joining us now?"

Manu looked at me. I could feel the two passengers in the back seat looking at me, too, as if waiting for my approval.

"I mean, I'm free," Regina said tentatively.

I felt my face burning. Not thirty minutes ago three of us had been posing nude to send a group selfie to my boyfriend, and those same three were now... "Yeah, I got no problem with it," I said.

The relief in the car was palpable, and I'm not sure why. My own was included in there.

"Besides," I continued, "if you didn't, I'd just have to drive you home, and especially after you came along to help... Feels kinda rude, right?"

"Right!" Rita replied brightly.

There was a strange tension in the car all the same. We could all feel it. I didn't understand it, I didn't know where it was coming from, I'm not sure that any of us knew. Or, well, Rita probably knew.

Regina made a small humming noise, thinking. "So we get Manu up to the apartment, make sure things are cleaned up alright, figure out where Soleil fits in, deal with dinner—"

"Probably ordering in," Manu said. "I'm not sure I really want to go anywhere else right now."

"Yeah, that sounds right," Rita confirmed. "All good with everyone?"

No one raised any complaints. We just kept driving.

After a few minutes, stopped at a red light, I looked to my boyfriend. "You doing okay, Manu?"

He nodded. "About as well as can be expected." He yawned. "Think I need a nap, though." He turned to me and smiled. "All the excitement, and the medication."

"Don't fall asleep before we get you home!" Regina exclaimed as we got moving. "I don't want to carry you."

Rita snickered. "You totally could, though. The rest of us are all soft and squoshy. You're... not."

"Uh huh, I..." Manu began, then cut himself off. "... was going to say something about the picture you took, but I don't want to upset anyone."

I laughed. "Like Rita and I don't know? You don't care that I'm soft and squoshy, just like I don't care that you are." I changed lanes a bit awkwardly, trying to keep my mind at least half on the driving; we didn't need to add an accident to the day's excitement. I kept talking, only partly aware of what I was saying. "We posed for the picture, we all knew where it was going, and I, at least, know that the three of us are all hot in completely different ways, but that doesn't make us less hot."

"Amen!" Rita exclaimed. "And it's really nice to hear you say that I'm hot."

Regina giggled. "Agreed."

That shut me down, and I knew I was flaming red to the roots of my hair.

Regina spoke up after a moment of silence. "You are, too," she said, softly, and that did not help my embarrassment.

"Rita," I managed to say, "you're less soft and squoshy than you used to be."

"I am! Thank you for noticing." The pleasure in her voice was evident, warm and friendly. "Not always easy when you're dating a baker, but I'm... inspired to make myself more like I want to be."

"This 'Presence' thing can do that?" Manu asked. His Mad Science curiosity was suddenly there.

I was busy driving, so I felt, rather than saw, Rita's shrug. "There's lots that it can do, I guess. No, I mean, I wasn't ever huge, but when your method of escape from family strife is reading or watching videos while snacking, you get a bit... pudgy," she said, and I could feel my own pudge as she said it with a certain familiar empathy. "Once that's been taken away, and you get into a routine that includes some physical exercise you're not used to and some better eating... Things just kind of naturally happen."

"Well seems to be working fine," Regina added.

"Missed the turn," Manu said, as I missed the turn.

"Shit!" I cursed. "Sorry, I'll, ah..."

"You'll turn at the next lights."

"Yeah, okay, and—"

The next couple minutes was filled with Manu guiding me back to his building. I managed to get into his parking space with little more trouble.

"Alright," I said, putting the car in park. "Everybody out."

Manu opened his door. "You get going," he said. "The three of us will take the elevator?"

"Yeah, unless you need the company," Rita added.

"Nope," I replied. "It's my phobia, it's my problem, I'll meet you on six."

"Then we'll help get the injured fella onto the elevator and see you there," Regina said.

"Lucky me." Manu sounded like he genuinely meant it, and I'm sure he did. He handed me his keys, pointing out the one for the main doors; he could get in using the intercom system and his phone.

"You'll all have to wait for me to get up there so you can get into the apartment," I warned. I blew Manu a kiss and headed for the door.

"Not if I forgot to lock it!" Manu called after me. I grinned. I was pretty sure we did forget, on the way out. We had other things to deal with.

Between the slow elevator and the amount of time it took Manu to hobble his way across the parking lot, we got up to his apartment at the same time, though I was considerably more worn out than the other three were. Or at least than the two women; Manu looked pretty wiped out, too.

I opened the door to the apartment, holding it so the others could get in, and could hear Regina's awe-struck gasp.

"She's all in here, huh," Rita said. I couldn't see what they were talking about.

"It's... like the walls..." Regina replied, and just trailed off there.

"Uh huh," Rita said. "Here." I heard some shuffling and saw movement, which was nice, because I could get inside.

"We left the kitchen a mess," I said apologetically. I'm not sure that anyone heard me.

Manu had been settled onto the chair I'd put by the door to help him dress. Rita was on a knee, helping him get his shoe off. Regina, meanwhile, was standing in front of the two of them, facing away from us, but I could imagine the expression on her face. I could see that expression in her slow, deep breathing.

I slipped my shoes off. Rita got Manu's removed. Regina, meanwhile, pulled her shirt over her head and slowly dropped it to the floor.

"What—" Manu began, but Rita shushed him quickly.

And we all watched in silence as Regina began to move. Her footsteps carried her through the living room, slowly, elegantly, moving to an unheard beat that we could all feel in the air, in the smell of stale food and blood and whatever cleaning products Manu used, in the way the sun was shining through the half-open window and the heat was uneven, in my memories and Manu's memories and the memories that Rita and Regina couldn't possibly share.

The power in that room was palpable. Almost in a trance myself, I drew the deadbolt on the door, the click of it mixing in with the pace of the unfolding dance. I'm not sure how Regina had time to undo her jeans, or how she managed to dance through them slipping off her legs, or even how she was able to step out of them without missing a beat even as her whirling, twisting form was speeding up.

I stood in the entryway with Rita. Our hands pressed together. Regina slowed down, faced us, bent back, and freed her breasts from her plain white bra. I could feel the desire from the other two in the room, and it seemed... infectious. The dance itself wasn't erotic, wasn't seductive, and that made it all the more sexy. Regina wasn't trying to be alluring, but... she was. The way her body moved, showing off her strength and skill and her devotion, her sudden possession by whatever spirit was moving her in the room, was evocative of sex, of bodily and intellectual connection, of powerful pleasure in expression that for so many people can only be about sex.

And that pleasure was marked on her face, but not just there. The pleasure was in every step, in every gesture, every motion, in the way that I could imagine flames spinning around her as she spun around them, a pas-de-deux with an invisible, ineffable, spiritual partner that threatened to set the room, the whole building alight.

At some point as she whirled around the coffee table her panties disappeared, and that was almost unimportant.

Her arms, her hands, seemed to connect with the invisible partner as she swept into a waltz. Easy movements for two, but alone, showing an impossible virtuosity, both accepting her alone-ness and implying the existence of another. There was no break between step and step and step, in being dancer or flame, in jazz or hip hop or ballet or whatever form of contemporary expression she was engaging, indulging in. We weren't an audience so much as we were observers, non-participants, a necessary but vestigial part of the experience, breathing as heavily as the dancer, feeling as much as she was without moving an inch.

It wasn't hours, but it could have been.

And in the end of it, Regina finished her final flourish in front of us.

In front of me.

And fell to her knees. Bowed her head. Placed her hands on her lap.

In front of me.

Expectation loomed large in the silence that followed. None of us wanted to break it, but it was clear someone should, or we would be standing and sitting and kneeling there until we starved.

I said the only thing I could think of saying, and my voice had an authority and a significance it didn't, couldn't normally hold. The two words I spoke felt like when Rita told me that it was not time, back in the lounge only a week before.

"I accept."

Regina's exhalation was full of relief, as though there was any doubt that her offering would be worthy. "Thank you," she breathed, her voice thick with tears and arousal.

Rita spoke next, quietly. "I've... never seen that. I've been through it, but I've never seen it, not as an observer. That was... the most... it was beautiful."

Manu, next to her, nodded.

I offered my dancer a hand, which she took, and stood, and my mouth ran dry at the beauty of her. I could have written a volume of poetry just about that body, with at least a dozen pages focused on her expression of submission and devotion. But at that moment, the real awe and wonder for me was the fact that I had been the portal for that devotion, that it was my breath of flowers in the shower room, my sketch of an unwritten poem that had pushed her to this place, and I felt that, deeply. If this was a harm that was done, it was on my head. And if it was as beneficial as it seemed to be, then I had done an amazing thing for my new friend.

Rita squeezed my other hand. "So now you know it," she said quietly. I nodded. I understood. What Rita had gone through, with me, with Soleil, with... with who knows how many others in the month since we'd been back to school. I shivered, the connection between me and Rita and Regina feeling electric.

Regina was just vibrating with energy, despite having just given us a very energetic dance show. "Can I..." she turned to Manu. "Can I clean the kitchen? Do you mind?" She sounded so small and childlike it would have been amusing if it wasn't so sincere.

"Yes," Manu said as if he was receiving the finest gift imaginable. Maybe he was. And I didn't understand how I didn't feel any jealousy for it.

Rita nodded, a strange practicality overcoming her. "Right. Manu, you should probably go to bed. You need rest before dinner, you've had a rough go." She turned to me. "You go with him. Regina and I will handle this."

I blinked. I blinked back tears. "Thank you," I whispered, getting Manu's crutches from where they'd been put against the wall. Rita took Regina's hand and led her down the hall, I suspected to look for cleaning supplies. I helped Manu to his feet, and onto the crutches, and we closed the bedroom door and ignored what was happening outside, as my two friends literally cleaned up our mess.

Our movements were clumsier. Much less graceful that Regina's, but no less a dance. I helped Manu sit on the edge of his bed and put the crutches carefully against the wall. He took off his shirt while I was doing that. I stripped him of the same pants and boxers that I'd helped him get on that morning, being just as careful of his damaged foot. With him naked, it was easy enough for me to remove all that I was dressed in, being slow and gentle with myself, taking the time to make a show for Manu, my hands tracing my collarbone, running over my small bust (which made my knees weak, but I kept going), even finding a way to make my stomach sensual. Removing my pants felt the same, as I put a chubby leg up on the bed for him to see, before sliding my panties off and kneeling on the mattress and stroking my hips, thrusting calmly but suggestively.

Our kisses mingled with the music we couldn't hear but could feel through the apartment. We carefully slid back up the bed, kissing as we went, my hands both helping him move and finding strategic places to touch while doing so. With him lounging comfortable, I slid my whole body up against him, feeling his hardness against my stomach, then feeling him grow inside me as I straddled him. There was connection, there. I didn't move, just waited there on top of him, his cock in me, my hands on his chest, his hands on my hips, our eyes locked on each other.

My movements, our movements, were slow. Deliberate. Intentional. I pressed down, steadied myself, squeezed him with my pussy. He made soft circles with his hands. We mouthed our 'I love you's to each other. Even at that distance, we could hear each others' hearts beating together in time. We were breathing together. Sex, as art. Not an expression of sex or sexuality as part of a work of art, but our actual, physical lovemaking being a dance, a song, a sketch, a poem. If music be the food of fucking, play on. How do I fuck thee? Let me count the ways. 'Tis better to have fucked and lost, than to have never fucked at all.

My mind wasn't in the room, despite all that, not entirely. My mind was walking naked in the fire, dancing across the apartment floor with Regina, staring at the stars with Rita. I was back with my high-school boyfriend, I was kissing Rita after poetry and method acting, I was holding Terry after he came out and broke up with me. I was standing in the shower at thirteen crying my eyes out, and running from a tornado of glass and flame in my dreams. I was standing in the elevator, terrified, as we helped Zeyla to the lounge, falling apart breath by gasping breath.

And Manu, he was elsewhere, too. I could tell, I could see little glimpses of what he was dreaming about as we slowly made love. Maybe a little of how Rita knew things. He was looking to the future, to what might be, to what we might become and where we might end up. And all the futures were us. Him and me. In every flash of imagination I could feel from him, I was there. All his futures were bound up in mine, by chains of purest, coldest fire that tied us together without burning or restricting. And now that I had drawn in a second soul to our magic, the chains drew outward, spread like tendrils, like a spider's web, impossibly vast and delicate. In some visions there was no one else in them; in some, Manu was one among an army. But those were the merest edges of possibility. Likelihoods, I understood, were in the middle. Like Rita's clan, a small, dedicated, devoted family, tied together by common goals and interests and a mutual love and support, ready to accept more but not demanding of it.

All of it was... overwhelming, to say the least. Climax wasn't important, then. The moment mattered. Sharing that space, that time, mattered. Manu getting a chance to recover physically, and my getting a chance to recover mentally and emotionally. Connection. Creation. The fantasies coming from Manu and passing into me I understood were to be the raw material of my next work, my newest work. Images of futures drawn from a long past. He was pouring essence into me, holy manna, and my purpose was to build with it, to tie lives and arts together, to bring new life out of what had gone before.

To change, and with that change, to change others.

My calm orgasm and his were only one part of that moment. I was loud despite the ease and smoothness of it, and so was he, and neither of us cared that the other two occupants of the apartment knew precisely what we were doing. It could hardly have been a surprise. The work of art created there in that room was so much of both of us, and yet it was something else, something brilliant that eclipsed us both in its light. I almost believed that Rita and Regina could see the glow of it all, that the whole apartment, the whole building lit up in the late afternoon, telling everyone within a few city blocks that Manu and I were making love.

My body could have kept on, then. The song I sang was born of such careful and quiet movement that I had barely tired. Manu, though, was truly exhausted. He had hardly moved through the whole matter, letting me ride him, his hands slipping around my hips and belly almost as an afterthought or automatic response. I slipped from him, nestled up beside him, and stroked his chest. We said nothing. We didn't need to. We just lay there, Manu drifting in and out of sleep, me contemplating all that I had just felt and thought, for forever.

He was asleep when I heard the apartment door open, and close again. When I could smell warm, fresh pizza drifting under the door. When I heard murmurs of a third voice in the apartment.

I let him sleep.

I went to the door, softly crossed into the hall, paused for a moment in the bathroom to clean up, and headed to the living room.

"Glad you could join us," Rita said quietly, also clearly not wanting to wake our host. She was sitting on the couch, as naked as I was. Regina sat next to her, still unclothed. And kneeling at her feet was Soleil, also bare.

I said nothing, just smiled, and walked over to the coffee table to sit on the floor opposite the three women, taking a slice of plain cheese pizza and a can of soda. I noted in passing that the kitchen which had been such a disaster area when we left was absolutely, completely spotless.