The storm of who I was raged around us on social media, the paparazzi buzzed on our street, and even on the boys' streets (there was funny video on some entertainment show of Ronan giving some cameraman the finger as he was taking out his trash) as everyone swarmed all over, trying to unearth more information about me.

    Everyone found it incredible that I had no social media presence at all; apparently some fan sites were even running contests to see who could find me on FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, or anywhere, under any name. People were trying all sorts of combinations of my nickname and real names, and even names related to mine. The frenzy over me was insane.

    Somehow, in all of this, no one knew that Teddy called me Birdie, so no one was looking under that name. Not that it would have mattered, as they wouldn't have found anything, anyway; it was nice to have something remain private, though.

    Jennifer Jordan was quoted numerous times, saying that she knew he was seeing me, but that was all she really knew. "I hope he's happy, of course," she said in her Geordie accent. "We're still good friends, what do you mean?" This was in response to a very barbed, unkind question about me.

    We stayed indoors, with the curtains drawn, eating when we felt like it, watching movies, making love, playing board games, showering, reading to each other, knitting, playing with Molly and Lucy, communicating with friends, and relaxing.

    In a way, it was convenient, because it was the week I was on my period, so it was nice not having to worry about what I was going to wear when I left the house. And I didn't have to worry about what "supplies" to use, and whether it would get in the way of our very active and spontaneous sex life. I'd been shocked the first time Teddy had wanted to make love and I'd told him that I was on my period, assuming that this would effectively shut down any activity in this area.

    "Don't care," he'd whispered, pulling my nightgown over my head.

    "What?" I'd responded, sitting up in bed, not bothering to whisper. We were alone in the house, after all.

    "What's the problem?" He'd asked, and I could see him smiling in the semidarkness, sitting up himself so he could kiss me and take his own shirt off.

    "I said 'I'm on my period'," I'd repeated with emphasis.

    "Yeah, and I said I don't care," he'd repeated with even more emphasis, enjoying himself, pulling me closer. "Is there, um, anything you need to, remove, before we get started?" He'd asked delicately.

    "What?" I'd asked again, my voice going up at least an octave.

    "Jesus, is that all you can say?" He'd laughed, stroking my hair. "I'm asking if you're wearing a tampon, you silly goose."

    "Teddy, at the risk of being indelicate, we'll get blood everywhere," I'd said, trying not to sound horrified. "How can you not care?"

    He'd shrugged. "It bothered me with other women, if I'm being honest, but it's you, it's just a different aspect of being close to you, who cares? And we'll be quick as rabbits, no worries." And he'd pulled me in and kissed me again, moaning comfortably. "So go to the bathroom, remove whatever needs removing, grab a few dark towels or whatever to put on the bed, and let's get going, I'm randy as fuck.

    "Unless you don't want to?" He'd stopped talking, stuck by this new idea. "Is that what you're saying? You think it's gross? I don't want to, um, pressure you in any way..." He peered at me, trying to read my expression.

    I'd just shaken my head. "If you're game, I sure am," I'd responded, laughing. "Let me go get ready."

    And so I had, and he was right, it was just us, in a different way, with a lovely shower after, with more love making there, too.

    "You know, I'm actually kind of enjoying this," Teddy remarked on the fifth day, turning to kiss my hair. We were sitting on the sofa, watching some TV show. "It's kind of like a forced vacation. I mean, there are only so many work related things we can do from in the house, you know? And you can only practice the piano for so long before your fingers fall off." He picked up my hand and kissed said fingers. "This is really nice. Too bad we have to go and see Dr. Asshole the day after tomorrow."

    I punched his chest. He looked down at me. "Sorry, love, did you just say something?" He asked with a grin.

    "Oh, you think you're so clever, Shelley," I said, climbing astride him. "One of these days you're going to call him that to his face, and I'm going to lose my advisor and therefore any chance at that scholarship, then we'll see how clever you feel."

    "You do realize that you're so fucking cute that one of these days I am going to have to break down and just take a bite out of you, right?" He queried, unbuttoning my sweater and pulling it off my arms. "Though you're so sweet I think my teeth might all just fall right out of my mouth," he said, looking at me fondly, sitting in his lap in my bra and yoga pants.

    "Take off your shirt," I said, trying to lift off his shirt. He sat up and pulled it off over his head. I grabbed it, and in one swift movement pulled it on over my head, slipping my arms through the sleeves.

    "Hey," he yelled. "No fair! You misled me."

    "How did I mislead you?" I asked. "All I said was for you to take off your shirt. You obliged." I sat back next to him. "Mmm, smells great." I snuggled down into it. "What do you put on that makes you smell like this?" I asked.

    "I could ask the same about you," he said, picking up my sweater and burying his face in it. "I mean, I know, it's the yellow stuff from Trader Joe's, but something changes when you put it on, you add something to it that transforms it into something heavenly. Look, I'm getting wood just smelling your sweater." He turned to me.

    "I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not," I said, laughing.

    "It's definitely a compliment, trust me," he said, reaching for me.

    "No, Teddy, that tickles, stop, I'm going to pee, I mean it," I shrieked, wiggling like a fish under his hands as he tried to pull the sweater off me.

    "You know it turns me on when you talk about weeing," he said as he continued to try to pull the sweater off me. "You do it on purpose, don't you? Hmm?"

    And I started laughing so hard at his words that I did actually almost wet myself, finally getting him off me by getting a knee in between us and pushing him off. I ran to the bathroom and locked the door while I relieved myself, which was difficult with him on the other side, pounding on the door and asking what in the hell I was doing in there. I took my time washing my hands, waited for it to be quiet, and opened the door.

    He was sitting on the floor, leaning his head against the wall.

    "About fucking time. Thought you'd died in there," he said, grabbing my hand and pulling himself up.

    "Really? You didn't seem very concerned about it," I said, jumping up into his arms and wrapping my legs around him.

    He didn't answer me, just carried me into the bedroom and laid me down on the bed, where he lifted up the shirt I was wearing and started kissing my stomach.

    "You know what I've been wondering about?" I asked.

    "What, love?" He asked, his voice muffled.

    "Pornography," I said.

    He lifted his head to look at me.

    "Pornography?" He repeated carefully.

    I nodded.

    "I've been reading online about how some people use pornography as a sex aid, you know, watching it together to get turned on." I went up on my elbows to look at him. "Have you ever done that? Watched porn with a girl, you know, for fun?"

    He looked away, then looked back at me, pulling my shirt down and crawling up so he could lie down next to me. He pulled both of us up to the pillows and put his arm under my head and we turned so we were facing each other.

    "Okay, Birdie, I'm only going to say this once. Please, please, in the name of the baby Jesus, would you stop looking online for ways to 'improve' our incredibly fantastic and amazingly satisfying sex life?" He looked into my eyes. "Hmm? I mean, why? We have the most marvelous sex I've ever had. Ever. Full stop. Do you have any complaints?"

    "No," I said, running my forefinger along his lip. "I just want to, you know, make sure that I'm doing everything you want. That I'm not leaving anything out." I looked into his eyes. "I just want to make sure you're happy with me," I finally said.

    "Dear heart, I am," he said, he said with a smile, giving me a little shake. "How can I make it any clearer?" He kissed me. "I never knew sex could be like this. I never even understood why people called it 'making love' until I met you. I mean, it was fun, it felt really good, but it never felt anything like love. Love was what I felt for my mum and dad and Charlotte and the boys. I really feel kind of bad for some of the girls and women I slept with before. I mean, some of them were only in it for the sex, like me, but I think some of them actually had feelings for me, maybe even loved me a little, and it must have been awful to be with me and not have those feelings returned, to have sex with me, to want it to be making love and find out at some point that for me it never was. I don't know how I could live with it if I found out that what had so much meaning for me was just sex for you, I really don't." The line appeared between his brows. I put my thumb on it and it went away.

    "So does this mean that you don't want to watch porn with me?" I asked, trying to bring the conversation back to a light place.

    His face collapsed into laughter. "Oh my god, I can't even imagine what that would be like," he admitted.

    "Have you ever done that?" I pressed. "Watched pornography with a girl?"

    "Um, I'll have to think about that for a bit," he said. "I have watched a lot of pornos in my lifetime, that much I know, just have to remember who I was with."

    I remained quiet, giving him time to think. "I think I may have watched with a few women, yeah," he finally said, nodding. "Like with some really questionable women, you know? When we were in Thailand or something, when we were seriously partying, and I was out of my mind on something." He looked at me again. "Um, I really, really, don't want to talk about this with you, darling," he said in a soft voice. "It's not something I'm particularly proud of, you know?"

    I wanted to ask about Jenny, but managed to hold my tongue, on that topic, at least. "Well, you don't have to be proud of it, but you shouldn't be ashamed of it, either, you know?" I countered. "It's not against the law or anything, and no one was hurt. I mean, it's not like you watched snuff or anything, right? Or kiddie porn? Or bestiality?" My voice grew hesitant as I asked the last questions. They hadn't occurred to me until I was asking them, and I realized that I might not necessarily want to know the answers.

    "Jesus Christ no!" He answered vehemently. I didn't realize until I relaxed how tensed up I'd been. He felt it, and he hugged me to him.

    "Okay. So, moving on, it was just regular porn, and that's fine, and if you'd like to watch with me, I'd be up for that. I just thought I'd throw that out there." I ran my finger along his lip again, and kissed him. "Okay? I mean, there are things we physically can't do, just because there's only one of me, so if you wanted to watch something that involved, say, two women, or women of different races, or even a man, something like that, well, that's when pornography would come in handy, so to speak, right?"

    He smiled at my words. "My god, you do take the prize, don't you?" He reached under my shirt to run his hand along my skin, curling his hand up over my shoulder. He moved his head closer on the pillow, so that our noses were almost touching.

    "Listen to me, my darling little half Japanese hummingbird. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm only interested in plain old, boy on girl, one-on-one type old-fashioned sex.

    "If we were to sit down to watch pornography together, my knee jerk reaction would be to try to cover your eyes and ears at the same time somehow, which would be a neat trick, seeing how I only have two hands. I love the idea of you being as filthy as you want to be with me, of doing whatever nasty thing your beautiful heart desires, but the thought of you being a consumer of those things in any way makes me feel physically ill, if I'm being honest."

    I sat up and looked at him. "Physically ill? That's a strong reaction, especially for someone who says he's seen so much of it. You must enjoy it, right?"

    He pulled me back down next to him, smoothing my hair away from my face. "I don't know if 'enjoy' is the right word. I certainly did at one time, but definitely not since I met you."

    "You haven't watched porn since we met?" I asked. "You understand that I'd mind you lying way much more than I'd mind that you'd watched, which wouldn't really bother me?"

    "Yes, I understand perfectly," he responded. "And no, I don't think I have, except maybe way back at the beginning, before I knew how important you were going to be to me. What would make you think I had?"

    I shrugged. "I don't know. I thought it was normal for men, just something they did. I guess from watching 'Friends', maybe? They talked about it so often, so casually, even after Monica and Chandler were married, like it was just a done thing, you know? Are you saying it's not?"

    "Well, I don't know about most couples, simply because I don't know many couples, married or otherwise, but I do know that my mum would go mental if she found out my dad was watching pornography, with or without her." Just thinking about it made him smile.

    Now I was starting to get embarrassed. "Oh. Well, now I don't know what to say. I guess I should have checked a few more sources before I came to you with this idea.

    "And I guess I'd better just shut up before I dig this hole any deeper for myself." I covered my face with my hands, something I hadn't done in weeks, probably.

    I removed my hands as a thought occurred to me. "You did enjoy it, though, right? I mean, you were excited by it, you jerked off to it, you--"

    "Yes, yes, oh my god, will this conversation never end?" he covered my mouth for a second. "Why do you want to know this?"

    "Well, I've seen those women," I soldiered on. "Just like I've seen the women you dated before me, and we're nothing alike." I thought yet again about Jennifer Jordan as I looked into his eyes. "I guess that's really what I've been trying to get at, this whole time." I sighed. "The women in the videos, the women you dated before, they're so incredibly different from me. I just don't understand. What made you look at me and want me? So quickly, too? In a matter of weeks? Days, actually? What? Why?" I shivered, and my teeth chattered.

    "What's wrong?" He asked, putting his other arm around me, concerned. "Are you cold? Or not feeling well?" He put his hand on my forehead. "What happened?"

    I sat up, hunched over. He sat up, arm around me, holding my hair away so he could see my face.

    "Answer me, please, you're scaring me very badly," he said softly. "Are you going to be sick?"

    I shook my head. "I'm just scared," I finally admitted, leaning against him.

    "Scared? Of what?" He sounded perplexed. "What did we talk about that scared you?"

    I took a deep breath. "It's the same thing I was scared of before," I said in a tired voice. "I feel so fucking stupid saying it to you, and I don't want to, but it's what motivates just about everything I do with regards to you, so you should know what an idiot I am, right?" I looked over at him.

    "Darling, I do know what an idiot you are, and I love you anyway, no need to be scared about that," he said with a laugh, shaking me softly and turning my head to kiss me.

    "You know I'm kidding, right?" He looked at my face, saw that I was crying, and said, "Oh, fuck," pulling me into his arms, and rocking me back and forth. "Not the right time for a joke, so sorry, my darling, so, so sorry." He kissed my head, again and again, as I leaned helplessly against him.

    "Please tell me what you're scared of, so we can deal with it, okay?" He murmured, continuing to rock me. "Please."

    Eventually my tears tapered off, and I spoke. "Okay. This is me, stupid, weak, fearful me. I was looking at the women you dated before me. And I was looking at pornography, which I knew you used to watch, or assumed you'd watched. And like I said, I couldn't see anything I had in common with those women. So, I didn't understand, I don't understand, why you like me. Why you love me. And if I don't know what it is, then how can I know to keep doing it?" I turned to him. "How can I know that you'll keep loving me if I don't know why you do?" My voice had gone up, until now it bordered on hysterical. "I have nothing in common with the women of your past, nothing! I can't figure it out. I mean, if that's what you want, if that's what got you off, then why me? Like Matty said, I'm short, I have mousey hair, I'm not glamorous, I don't dress like that, I'm not a model, I don't have fake boobs, I-I--" I waved my arms, at a total loss for words.

    "Matthew said those things about you?" He asked, shocked. "That you were short and mousey and whatnot?"

    I shook my head, waving Matty's words aside. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I know we've already covered this ground, and I shouldn't need this much reassurance, it's so weak, it's pathetic, but sometimes I start to think about your past, and I just feel so inadequate, and I think about everyone out there in the world, and now they all know who I am, what I look like, and they're all thinking, 'What in the world does he see in her?'"

    "And there it is," he said with a sigh as he pulled me into his arms. "Okay, you've said it." He kissed my temple. "Do you feel better, hmm?" He sighed. "It's the fucking Internet, and all that crap about you that went up the other day." He held me tighter, and I held him back, feeling relief, like he'd said.

    "I feel sleepy, can you believe that?" I said.

    "I think that makes sense," he said. "It's just the release of all the tension you've been holding inside, probably since you saw all that garbage at lunch that day." He kissed me again.

    "And for what it's worth, before you fall asleep, this is what I see in you, my love. I love everything about you that is not like all the women I dated before I met you. Obviously they were not what I wanted, that's why they never lasted. I wanted sex, but even my desire for that wasn't enough to keep me with any one of them for more than a few days. And as far as the videos, they were just body parts, they weren't really women at all; that's why as soon as I met a real one who met all of my needs, emotional as well as physical, I didn't need them anymore."

    He pulled me off the bed, and I stood, like a rag doll, with hardly the energy to do so, and he kept one hand on me to make sure I didn't fall as he pulled the blankets back.

    "Come on, love, spit spot, into bed," and he tucked me in, getting in next to me and pulling the down comforter up around us. He pulled me in close, so he could whisper to me. "I adore you, every little thing about you. I hope my opinion matters more to you than everyone out there in cyberspace. Does it? Hmm?" He kissed me, holding my head in his hand.

    I nodded, kissing him back. I felt the flutterings of desire taking the place of the anxiety that had been hiding inside me since that afternoon by the river.

    "Like I've told you, I find everything about your body to be absolute perfection," he murmured against my mouth. "If you like, I'll repeat what I love about each part individually--"

    "No, no, just keep doing what you're doing," I said, "I believe you, and I remember all the stuff you've said about my body, really."

    "And even if you didn't look the way you do, I would have come to love whatever you looked like, simply because it would've been the package that contained the important part, the you that you are, the person who is so smart, who plays the piano, and knits, and speaks fucking Japanese, and loves flowers, and adores babies, and has perfect grammar, and is so, so kind, and cares so much about others, and isn't afraid to walk up and spit in a tiger's eye if she thinks it's the right thing to do--" He kissed me again, harder, with more passion, pushing my head back. I moaned, kissing him back, gripping his shoulders, my sleepiness long gone.

    "And most importantly, I love how you make me feel happy and loved, all the time, every minute of every day. It makes me never want to be away from you, not even for a second," he said, looking at me. "I'm totally serious about that. I never want to be apart from you. Ever. I'm miserable with missing you whenever I'm not with you. And I don't mind if you don't feel the same about me, because I think it's normal that I should love you more than you love me; you're more worth loving than I am." He covered my mouth. "Don't bother to contradict me, there's no point, you won't change my mind." He kissed me again, then he pulled my head under his chin.

    "And now, you sleep, my love. No backtalk, either. Great sex will still be there after you wake up, I promise. You're exhausted, and you need sleep. I'll stay with you, because I love to hold you, and because you're a fucking furnace and you keep me warm." I could tell he was smiling above my head. "You're safe here with me, no one is judging you, I'm the only one here with you, and I love you more than I've ever loved anyone or anything, so just sleep. Shhh." And he stroked my hair, humming something soft. And I did.