I'd loved unallowed.
It's common, loving without pass or permission from the object of one's elevated sentimental affection. It's usually a problem.
It wasn't him not allowing; it wasn't him at all.
On that dark beach when he slightly turned his head, and claimed me as his best pal - it was his offer, brave, naked and foolish. I'd lain there acknowledging nothing. There followed an arc where we remade ourselves, and remade one another. It came to its natural end the moment his face closed in, his nose's blunt end by mine, his tongue on my lips, my eyes open to his.
In the meantime, at sundown, in that tree, there was my response to his offer. His permission - refused, in a moment, after a pause, a simple answer, a jouncing of that supple branch.
I was the problem. What a problem I proved to be.
Who'd have guessed something so simple to allow, so right to let happen would be that hard to grant, to give, to hand over. To force out into the open; to welcome, to acknowledge.
His tongue was in my mouth, just a little, one of his knees between mine.