The hotel had very few blessings, but its discretion was one of them, Liz thought as she breezed out of the elevator and onto the sixth floor. She held the key to her destination tight; a talisman for her passing unharmed but also a privilege. Not everyone got to move so freely throughout the Cortez. The passion of her grip belied her fear, as if the walls would watching and would whisper to their keeper what she was doing. She approached the door, took a glance up and down the hall, and knocked. Silence. She put an ear to the door and then swung that key loose from her fist, and breathed a sigh of relief as the lock cleaved to its form. Everything was making her nervous. Maybe he hadn't answered because he wasn't here and had changed his mind. +

But as she readied herself and her heart began to sink, his chime-voice rang out: "I'm in here. Come into the bathroom."

She immediately closed and locked the door behind her and swept into the bathroom. Of course he had chosen this room, for this purpose: there was a grandiose bath in the corner, built in handsomely against the tiled wall. He had it filled, steaming. As she approached, he stepped out of it, a towel slung around his hips, held with one careless hand, loosely curled enough to give way at any second. "Don't wait. Get in with me."

Many women have impeccable standards. Women wait their whole lives to claw out a form of a man with a strong education and six figures under his belt, but… She looked at the man with such silken skin, with that teasing hand holding the towel, reaching out his other hands to take hers and she watched his soft lips as he said: "Don't let it get cold. I've missed you. Get in with me." This is heaven for me.

…

He had folded her clothes as she took them off, all the way down to her stockings, and had put them on the bath-stool next to the tub. They stayed in the warm bath for nearly an hour, lost in conversation, sometimes perfectly silent, Tristan with his eyes closed and his head back, Liz with her head on his chest.

Halfway through, Liz got out to get them some drinks. While she was arranging them, he got out as well, and she heard the tub draining as she stepped out of the bathroom.

"I thought we weren't done?"

"Too pruney. It was making me sleepy."

"Then this won't help much." Liz said, holding his cocktail out to him. "A fierce Old Fashioned. Wake you up or knock you straight out."

"Oooh." Tristan took it and removed the double straws, dropping them straight in the trash and putting his lips right to the glass to take a swig instead. Atrocious. "What are you having?"

"I'm doing a mint mojito. With a sparkling twist." She raised her own glass and sipped as he sat down on the bed, stark naked, halfway done with his drink a minute after she had handed it over.

"It's such a pleasure to watch you do anything," he mumbled after a moment, and laid back, his drink slack in his hand. Liz adjusted her towel and gently pulled it from his grip to set it on their nightstand. She felt the same about him, but kept quiet. She only felt comfortable saying her feelings when she knew his. In the silence, he took initiative again, and rolled on his side to look up at her. She laid down to match him. "You move with… grace. You make me feel like I'm this big dumb animal barging around." He lowered his eyes and took her hand, ran his rough fingers over hers, looked at her teal manicure. "I guess the intelligence thing bothers me a lot more than I'd usually admit, but you're so open."

Liz sighed and stroked his hand. "I think the problem with a lot of people- and it might be your case, is that a lot of people pose the question, 'is he smart?' but nobody asks, 'Are we smart? Do we grant him intelligence? Do we lead by example?'" Tristan began to smile, and Liz could see him puzzling through the concept. She continued: "There isn't a lot of room in the world for people who throw school away, and that's a terrible way to misjudge a brain. Books smarts just aren't everything—" she held up a finger- "but there's no reason NOT to catch up on reading."

His grin flourished. "I know, I know, I'll get on it. I wish I had a reading guide for it."

"No Sparknotes. No cheating."

"No cheating," he agreed, and then softer, as he stroked her hand: "I'll just take my time."

They exchanged a long kiss before Liz pulled back. "Speaking of, how much—"

"She won't be back until tomorrow. She's on a business trip."

"Ah." Liz reached for her cocktail, sparking Tristan to remember his and grab it off the nightstand. She sighed. "I know it hangs over our heads when we're together. I'm nervous, too. But love is never wrong and she knows that." Tristan nodded, but let the words hang before saying what she was thinking: "It feels like a... betrayal. Like I'm cheating on her even though we're not dating." He took a drink. "I feel guilty and it feels stupid."

"You think I don't feel the same way?" Liz raised a dubious eyebrow and swung herself off the bed to fetch her clothes from the bathroom, and spoke as she dressed. ""Honestly, she revolutionized the way I thought about myself. That isn't to say that she made me. Or you. Never think of it that way: remember, you have to have a strong establishment of self in order to reap the benefits from somebody else. Everybody is a self, but…" she noted the glow of understanding in Tristan's eyes and continued, arranging her shawl, returning slowly to slide onto the bed next to his naked form. "We have all these barriers that we think are so immobile and impassable, and once we find ourselves past them, it's hard to imagine... I remember thinking to myself once I was putting these dresses on in the morning, 'Why was this so hard? What took me so long?'

Liz cradled his face in her palm and watched as he closed his eyes; kissed with great care her slim fingers.

She whispered, forehead against his: "She is just another one of those barriers. Pass her and we have the world."