I put my coat on - and nothing else - over my underwear. I mean, the girl had a craving, and who has time to get dressed when a beautiful french woman is in your bed and tells you she has a craving?

I headed down to the corner store, and luckily it wasn't too cold out. The guy behind the counter had no idea, and somehow that gave me a thrill. I picked up the two Eskimo Pies and hurried home. I was walking so fast, I was practically running. But maybe it was closer to skipping. But either way, I was giddy.

I wished I had someone to brag to. I wished I had someone to call up and say, "I've got a girl in my bed! I've got Delphine IN MY BED!"

But the only person I could think to call would be Sarah, and I knew she didn't want to hear about it. Hypocrite.

I wasn't going to listen to her "Do as I Say" speech again - not when I've got Delphine IN MY BED.

So I hugged those two pies close to my chest and skipped myself up the stairs, smiling all the way.

I smelled the cigarette as soon as I opened the door. I found her in my bedroom. She had my purple robe on. She was leaning out the window, blowing a puff of smoke out into the night. She didn't hear me come in, I guess. I stared at her back for a minute, her long back. My robe barely covered her ass. A breeze kicked up and shuffled her hair. She shifted her weight, and flipped her hair to the other side. That was when she looked up and saw me.

"Oh, Cosima!" she said. She jumped. She seemed overly startled. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. She looked suddenly shy.

"Sorry," I said. "I thought you heard me come in."

"I hope you don't mind," she said, holding up the cigarette.

"No," I said. "Not at all. But since you're already there, how about I roll a joint? These pies will taste amazing after a joint."

"Sure," she said. "Do you have any?"

I hurried to put the eskimo pies in the freezer. I grabbed my supplies from the coffee can on the counter, and it was all I could do to keep myself from skipping into the bedroom.

"Do I have any?" I said from the kitchen. "Who are you talking to?"

I walked into the bedroom.

"Sorry," she said. She looked up at me with embarrassed eyes. "Is that a stupid question?"

"Please," I said. "There are no stupid questions, only stupid..."

"Answers," she finished my sentence for me.

"Well," I said as I began rolling the joint on the dresser. "I was going to say undergrads, but that works, too."

She laughed half-heartedly. As I licked the paper, I could tell something was up.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm fine. I've just never..."

"Oh," I said. "We don't have to smoke this. It's just, like, what I do. But that doesn't mean we have to do it right now."

"Non," she said. She reached up to touch my arm, then she pulled away. "It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, definitely," she said. "I mean, I want to."

"Well, I'm gonna light it, and I'm gonna smoke a little bit, and you can choose to smoke or not," I said. "No pressure, though."

"Right," she said. "No pressure."

I lit it up and took a long hit. She watched my face and I couldn't really nail down her expression. She was interested, as in, she was seeing something she thought was interesting, but she also looked scared. How could she be scared of pot? I mean, she just lost her Gay V-Card, which is like, a million times scarier than smoking pot. Plus, she smokes cigarettes, which are like, a hundred times worse for you.

"But," I said as I exhaled. "You did make a promise..."

"I did, didn't I?" she said as she looked down at her feet. Then she looked at her own fingers, which were fiddling with the loose moulding on the window sill. She was running her fingers over the silicone moulding like she was considering something.

I took another hit. She looked up at me, and we locked eyes for a very long, very intense few seconds.

"What the hell?" she said. She shrugged and my robe slipped off of her right shoulder just the tiniest bit.

"YOLO," I said. I was trying to be ironic, but I was quickly learning that irony doesn't work on a non-native speaker.

"YOLO?" she said. "What is YOLO?"

"It means, 'You only live once,'" I said. "You know, it's a meme."

"Meme?" she said softly, as if trying out the new word.

"Nevermind," I said. I reached the joint out to her.

She smiled at me then, and said, "You only live once, hmm?"

She took the joint from my hands and put it to her lips.

"That's what they say," I said. And then to clarify, "On the internet."

I watched her smoke, and it wasn't a classic first time smoke. There was no shallow inhale. There was no dramatic cough. Instead, she put it right to her lips, inhaled deeply, and held it in. Meanwhile, she never took her eyes off of me. When she blew out, there were the beginnings of a cocky smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Wow," I said. "For a first timer, I'm impressed."

"Don't be," she said. "I've been smoking cigarettes since I was a kid."

"Right, well, there are definitely parallels, but it's not exactly the same, especially on a chemical level," I said.

She gave me that look - the smile she gets when I'm geeking out. Now I was the one feeling shy. I stopped talking for a second. She took another hit. We made eye contact again and I felt a shock from my thighs to my breast bone.

"I can't wait to see you high," I said. I took a step toward her.

"I think I already am," she said and she exhaled. She turned her head toward the window and blew out. I saw the muscles contract in her neck. I took another step toward her.

Then, just as I took the joint back from her, she reached for my face and kissed me. I was surprised and for a second I didn't know what to do with my hands. I just stood there. But then her tongue was pushing into my mouth, and my body came alive. She was rushing to unbutton my jacket. She tore it open, and when she realized I wasn't wearing anything under it she moaned into my mouth. She tried to strip me out of it, but I had to stop her.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I said. "Let me just..."

I put the joint out as quickly, and as carefully, as I could. Then I set it on the dresser. She was still holding one of my hands. She was pulling me toward the bed.

"Come, Cosima," she said. "Come."

I'm still not sure if she knows all of the connotations of that word, but it didn't seem like the right time to explain it to her. Besides, it was turning me on.