Bingo turned the end of the conversation with Fred over and over in his mind as he started his walk.

“It’s all about how you take the stage..”

“What?”

“I think I have to go. All this talk about you, and your dating profile, it’s compounding my own… stench of… of desperation. It might not work out but I have to get out there you know?”

“No.”

“Well I’m gone, I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“You do that. Good chat. Thanks for dinner.”

Bingo made his way up Victoria Rd and turned right onto Nicholson. His feet ate up pavement, clomp, clomp, clomping into the night. Relieved to be finally on his way, Bingo lengthened his stride and thought only of the long walk. He was accustomed to items of forgettable landscape that rushed past tram windows and now there was space and effort as he passed each morsel of the journey, each environment aspect magnified by his tediously short footfalls, he eyed things like the old Moreton Bay’s in the park, the museum’s off-kilter monolithic slab of a roof, with interest. Breaks in the heavy traffic at this late hour made it a bearable hike.

2am by anyone's standards isn’t necessarily kosher for a house call. With every step Bingo began to forget about the fresh, cold air on his face and to obsess about his reception, convincing a part of himself that this was the only thing to do; anything else and he’d always wonder at what had never taken place.

Bingo hadn’t been avoiding Amelia since their paths had first crossed but he had certainly failed to go out of his way to let her know how much she might mean to him, could mean, if only either one of them made the time in their lives to massage the building blocks of their relationship into place. Another part of Bingo was so nervous, more anxious than he had ever been. Beers had helped. He blocked out his own disquiet with the slap of his beetle-crushers on the paving slabs and his own breath as he exerted himself.

Passing a petrol station made him feel like a fish in a suburban aquarium with garish, fluro gravel; out of whack with the serene quiet of the night. Neon's blazed onto the bitumen from overhead, shining diligently for nobody. He dove gratefully back into the comparative almost-darkness of the night. On and on. One deliberate footfall after another, his measured clomp clomp-ing the only sound in the night.

Bingo paused on a bus bench, ran his hands over his face and felt the last of the warm alcohol buzz leave his body.

He was committed to his feat now, despite his waning enthusiasm, a source he had plumbed to get him to this about-half-way mark. Punishment no less than what he deserved, mused Bingo. Weeks ago he should have explained to Amelia his social awkwardness, his propensity to procrastinate, his unshakable commitment to stupid mistakes that too often ended up as life choices because he allowed time frames to stretch and then found there was no room for recourse.

Bingo wasn’t wealthy enough to consider taking a cab, so he plodded and whilst meticulously using up all of his energies, he tried not to plan. He simply made his way to the door of her studio and when he arrived, he knocked. He sat down on the step and stretched his toes in his damp socks, wondered about blisters. In those few moments on her front step he sought for poise and as though to mock him, it started to rain. The experience of stopping was rendered more sharply into his experience of the night, the cooling down more pronounced. They almost paved the way for regret. Almost.

And then the door opened.

Bingo bounced to his burdened feet and turned, smiling wilfully with the last of his reserve.

“Wow,” Amelia spoke sleepily.

Her hair was wild, her light blue singlet a snug fit around her shapely breasts and faded cotton pyjama pants hung low off her hips. In the evening air her nipples rose to attention.

“My eyes are up here.”

When he met them, they were smiling. He cleared his throat.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

“Wait, wait. Before you turn this into something out of Love Actually just get inside.”

And just like that, Bingo followed mutely.

Pyjama-clad Amelia led him down narrow corridors, past a common room, he still didn’t say anything as she ushered him into her studio and through to the rear of her cosy, work filled space into the small recessed bed chamber built as a refuge, hidden by a false wall down the back. There was no door. Even in the dim light it looked wonderfully comfortable. Amelia leant over to turn on a lamp. Bingo caught her arm.

“No, it’s alright. You were sleeping, we can talk in this light. It’s early, or late. Or something.”

Amelia nodded and said in a low voice, “I’m nodding,” and he laughed.

“Get into bed, take socks off, jeans too if you wish.”

Her voice was muffled as she tunnelled under a fluffy doona to resume her repose, so recently abandoned so as to still be warm. Turning to watch, Bingo sat with his back bowed, facing away from her, intent on removing his garments.

“I’m glad you fucking finally came.” Amelia spoke the words to his grateful back. It straightened a little in response.

He turned then and leant in, landing his determined lips on hers, kissing her warm face with his cold one, offering strength and earnestness that was everything and nothing all at once. He blocked out reason with a gesture. Night made their slow-building kiss to its sloppy, intense climax something dreamlike; the clumsiness of their movements that came from their newness to each other and their bodies' edges, forgivable.

Bingo moved into the accommodating bed, drawing all of himself closer to her body, so much warmer than he was. Her springy head of hair pillowed around her face and her skin, like the darkness, felt like it was all around him. When she grinned she was eyes and teeth. Bingo caught his breath. He almost couldn’t look, it was so much better than he had expected.

He hadn’t seen anything so beautiful in his life that he could have put a name to. Gracelessly he wiped a big hand over the side of her face, touching her velvet skin, feeling the bouncy flesh of her bottom lip under his caress and then his lips were on hers again.

“Special,” he mouthed very softly, into the air between their faces.

“I waited. I wanted it to be magic.”

“You almost waited too long. You dick.” Her long fingers curled around the back of his thick neck. “Stupid, hesitant, romantic fool.”

Not wanting words, just the rough wood-and-salt rasp of his almost-facial hair and the rich aniseed-ness of his midnight tongue, Amelia resumed their kissing. She moved her long legs, her hip came to rest against his, one un-shy brown shin thrown carelessly towards his big body, her heel grasped to his bottom.

There was no humour in their awkwardness, Amelia felt no urge to laugh. In fact, Bingo’s big body and his avid silence exposed a curiously adorable vulnerability. Such fragility in the big man was belied by the growing strength of his erection pressing against her leg. She uncurled a hand from around his neck and wove it down so her fingers swept the space between them, searching.

Bingo’s heart raced. The doona was suddenly unbearably hot but Amelia didn’t want to move it, or them, only kept moving slowly, her hand intimately pawing his hip whilst his tongue and hers wove small caresses like promises.

Finally, her hand settled onto the length of his straining cock. Bingo withdrew his tongue in a rush, sucked her top lip and stopped to watch the expression on her face. First, she ran her hand over his meat. In the dim light, emotion danced across his face like fire; an offer, his eyes hooded, heavy lids threatening to hide what it was she wanted to see, something she quite liked but couldn’t name. An admission, a surrender.

“You push and push,” she said softly into the dimness, “and it might seem like you’ll never get what you want.”

Her hand stroked his penis, curling around material and flesh as one, striving to feel more of him.

“And then in a moment you think, what was I waiting for?” Amelia could sense her timing was unfathomably good but she wasn’t sure she was bold enough to proceed.

Bingo rolled them both so he was lying over her, propped on his forearms. He lowered his head and captured her lips once more in a delicate kiss that was rich and then suddenly abrasive, like chilli dark chocolate; full, honest and terrible. Bingo withdrew, inhaled mightily and thrust his lips to hers once more, letting the rushing air bypass them both out through his mouth. Fighting, Amelia liked to think, for control.

And then she shucked his boxer shorts and thrust aside her knickers. To hell with the waiting and the anticipation, she wanted orgasms, rushing-to-the-finish-line and stars and chaos and more than anything her whole body sang for the feeling of his flesh wrapped in hers.

Amelia pushed at his shoulders, Bingo moved so his broad, hairy torso was an arms length above her and then she felt the head of his cock against her flesh, pushing for entry, taking his time at her slippery entrance, coating himself in excitement. Biding his beautiful time.

And then all of a sudden he wasn’t anymore he was thrusting inside, his hot breath on her neck and his hard cock breaking her open. The pressure of her knickers pulled to one side to allow him access only added to the impression of being illicitly full, caught together in a surprisingly tight space. Then he withdrew and pushed in once more and all those sensations flooded at her once more, unbearably good.

Together they climbed towards a release, his sloppy lips on her delicate face. As they fucked he was unguarded, hadn’t thought to worry about hiding anything from her. It was intense and it was all happening so fast, this possessing her, this driving into her. Amelia arched up to meet him, his unfamiliar body and his brave and honest expressions.

Bingo continued grinding into her soft body, pulling the cotton of her knickers a little with each thrust, watching in wonder as she thrashed beneath him with her eyes closed. She was so bound up in the moment, constricted, delicately held in place and effortlessly, hopelessly aroused. His cock ached every time he withdrew from her, building and building the sensations inside him like an itch. For Amelia it felt like a fabulous, unconstructive, shapeless, nameless, annoying space and that space was growing inside their intimacy, growing and growing, making her groan and writhe until she reached her point-of-no-return.

She opened her eyes. He wanted to stop and resume kissing her. Amelia’s lips were delightfully red and swollen but he felt as though he was caught up, racing towards a finish line, directing his gaze at her, taking her with him as he thrust and breathed and she gasped and wriggled, eyes locked on his.

He crashed before she did, she felt the inevitable release on her insides, rushing out to join the other liquids inside her, his cock twitching and growing at the last second to add to the molten gold of her mounting orgasm. She knew the ending was close; not as close as she might have liked though and as she rode him, cocking her hips up to take whatever he had left of the magic, it took several rough strokes before the darkness crashed and splintered around her, sending shockwaves to the rest of her body.

And whilst something was most definitely ending, something was in the middle and was also determined to continue and so Amelia came and came and shook and clutched him and the rumble of pleased laughter caught and died in Bingo’s chest as her fingers wrenched at his overly-sensitized skin.

Eventually, she let go. Eventually, they both stopped and moved a little bit apart.

“Next time,” Bingo said softly, his voice low and chocolate-toned, “Next time I’ll be more about the foreplay. I just wanted to be inside you. I wanted your honey on my cock.”

If she wasn’t spent and happy with the small river of squish between her thighs already, she might have straddled him right then for speaking to her like that. Instead, her breath came out in a rush, a sigh of something.

“Too much,” Amelia offered lightly when she could form words. “Stop being amazing,” and she slapped his barrel belly.

It wasn’t long before his arm stretched around her body and drew her towards the warmth of his side, he was big, it was almost too much of an angle for her to rest on his arm, nuzzled against the warmth of his chest but she bore it, for the sake of not ruining a sated, beautiful end to an otherwise overwrought day.

With her mind roving sleepily over the last half hour, Bingo’s hand reached up and ran itself over the effervescence of her hair, brushing against one delicate ear.

He wanted to repeat the gesture but found he couldn’t because he slept.