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The "no sex until we've talked this out" rule had lasted precisely one talk.
Up in Luke's apartment after hours, they sat on opposite sides of his kitchen table and haltingly began to rake over the events of the past year.
All was going well until Lorelai made the mistake of crossing her legs. She did so totally absent-mindedly, not noticing the hitch in her skirt which revealed a few inches of skin above the knee.
He noticed.
His reaction was almost imperceptible - his eyes flickered down to her thigh for a fraction of a second, his voice caught for just an instant mid-sentence - but she felt a familiar thrill of electricity jolt through her.
After that, it was as if the craving was contagious. She started to speak, but now her mind was firmly focussed on the flex of his forearm as he grasped his glass of juice noticeably tighter. On the way his long fingers wrapped around the glass, picturing the way they would wrap around her hips when...
She trailed off mid-sentence and lapsed into silence.
Luke ran his tongue over his dry lips. "This talking thing... I mean, I'm totally for it, you know, I think it's a great idea," he said hurriedly. He took a breath, his eyes fixed on the table. "Exactly how much... I mean, do you think..."
She stood up, took one step across the gap between them, and launched herself onto his lap, her lips meeting his hungrily. Her hands caressed his face and then slid up into his hair. Briefly pulling his lips away from hers, he grabbed her hands and brought them around to his mouth, kissing her fingers breathlessly. She wrapped her legs around the back of his chair, holding her snugly to his lap, and his hands grasped her ass, pulling her even tighter against him.
His hands trailed from her back to her stomach and then upwards, exposing her bare skin, turning them in the chair slightly so that her back rested against the edge of the table. Sighing against his mouth, she gripped the bunched-up hem of her shirt and peeled it up and over her head, letting the material slip through her fingers and fall to the floor. Luke leaned forward eagerly, nuzzling the smooth skin of her belly and then kissing his way up until she bent her head to meet him. Without breaking the kiss, Luke grabbed her ass and lifted her until she was perched on the table top, then gently lowered her onto her back. Her fingers dug into the skin of his shoulders as he stretched over her.
"Not like this," he grunted suddenly.
"What?" she murmured, barely able to process anything beyond her own excitement.
"Not here," he said breathlessly, between kisses, jerking his head towards the other side of the room. "Bed." He lowered his voice, almost shyly. "Like the first time."
"Sentimental," she murmured accusingly.
"Come on."
*
God, she had missed this.
Sex with Chris had always been fun and familiar. He moved with a gawky, coltish eagerness which she had always found endearing, and he had a boyishly ungallant way of tossing her around that made her feel like they were teenagers again. It was such a cliche, but after Luke it was never the same. Luke moved with a smooth, athletic grace - confident, masculine - that definitely didn't make her feel like a teenager.
He didn't talk, either. That was new. Chris and Jason had both been happy to banter their way through the act. Jason, she suspected, trying to mask a rare gap in his otherwise impenetrable self-confidence, and Chris - well, because that was what they had always done.
Max had been thorough and solicitous and intense, and with that came earnest, passionate inquiries - "is this okay?", "do you like that?" - as if he was studying her, carefully storing away every detail. In fact, it was when they were in bed that she first started to feel that gnawing unease about their relationship. When they looked into one another's eyes, she knew in her gut that he was feeling more than she could.
Once, she had brought it up. She was lying in bed with her head resting on Luke's chest. "You don't talk," she said.
"Do I need to? Seems like you do plenty for both of us."
"I mean, in bed."
He got sheepish all of a sudden. "Oh. Do... you want me to?"
"Not if you don't want to. Just that, you know, some guys find it a turn-on."
He let out an amused exhale and she looked at him quizzically. "What?"
"Jesus Christ, Lorelai. Do you think that when I'm in bed with you - with you - I need to be any more turned on?" he said, with such raw disbelief in his voice that she couldn't help but grin. "You start asking me to talk, all you're gonna be hearing is the 1974 Red Sox starting line-up."
With Max, she had never felt quite herself in their intimate moments. He played the role of the ardent admirer so well that she couldn't help but fall into the role of the performer. She was always seeing herself a little through his eyes; while she couldn't deny it was erotic, it wasn't completely real, either.
With Chris, it was more complicated. On a surface level, she felt so comfortable with him, always had. But deep down...
A few weeks after they returned from Paris, he had suggested trying out bondage - just for fun, he said, nothing freaky. She liked to think of herself as open to anything, so she had said yes. But when he had fastened the final ribbon tying her to the bedposts, something inside of her snapped without warning. As he stood to turn down the lights, she suddenly felt a crushing weight on her chest, a tightening in her windpipe as if a phantom hand was squeezing it. She couldn't draw a breath, couldn't speak. "Lor?" he'd cried, racing over with pure fear in his eyes.
"I don't get it," he'd said later, clearly trying to suppress a wheedling note in his voice. "We've known each other for, what? Twenty-five years? You must know I'd never do anything you weren't comfortable with."
"I don't know," she'd said softly. "I guess it's just not for everyone."
The night he had urged her to have a baby with him, she had felt it coming on again. As he moved to pull her into his embrace, she felt the sudden terrifying sensation of her lungs seizing up in her chest, but this time she was able to shut him down before it escalated into a fully-fledged panic attack. The next day, for reasons she couldn't quite articulate even to herself, she took her birth control pills out of the bedside table and moved them to her handbag.
The difference between Luke and the others, she realised, came down to trust. She had let herself open up to Luke in a way she had never allowed herself to do with anyone else.
*
The 'no sex before talking' rule had been set with the best intentions in the world, but she couldn't deny that after they had broken it, the talking came easier.
Neither of them had been able to sleep, and when it got to 5am Luke had suggested he walk her home and hang out with her there until he had to open up the diner.
Now they were curled up on the porch sofa outside her house, listening to the birdsong as the sun began to rise in the eastern sky.
"It's not like I expect us to jump back into being engaged or anything," she said.
"Okay," he said, his face carefully arranged in a neutral expression.
"But I also don't want us to start totally from zero, as if we've been Eternal Sunshine-d." She frowned, suddenly distracted. "Eternal Sunshone?"
A small, cautious smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I don't want that either."
There was a long silence as they both sat deep in thought. Finally, she gestured behind her and said: "With us, it's like this house."
"What about this house?"
"You know... it's a great house and I loved it so much the way it was, but it wasn't enough for us like that. But that didn't mean I wanted to knock it down, or, or..." She swallowed hard, not quite able to look at him "....Move into another house." He squeezed her hand. "It just needed some changes."
"So, let me get this straight - you want to remodel our relationship?"
"Kind of, yeah," she shrugged, throwing up her hands. "Except this time TJ won't be involved."
"Jeez, I hope not. Or Tom."
She stiffened slightly against his arm. "Well, actually... I wanted to talk to you about that."
He glared down at her in astonishment. "Please tell me exactly what role you see Tom playing in this?"
"Not Tom Tom. But I do think this...project may need a contractor."
"Hey look, this metaphor is starting to get kind of confusing," he said, bristling a little. "What are you saying?"
"That therapist I met at mom and dad's that time..." she began, hesitantly.
His eyes widened, nostrils flared. "That kook who told you to come and give me that ultimatum in the middle of the diner?" he said, withdrawing his arm from her shoulder and sitting up straight on the sofa.
"She didn't!" she cut in hastily. "She was just trying to tell me that I needed to be clear about what I wanted. It was the advice I really needed, it was just too late... I was too far gone... She wasn't crunchy or woo-woo, I swear, she was totally normal and down-to-earth," she persisted. "And I felt so comfortable with her, Luke, and I know you would too..."
She paused for breath. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking out over the yard in front of them.
She bit her lip and then said, quietly: "Hey, I know you don't want to do this, and honestly I'm not thrilled about the idea either. But if I asked you, would you do it?"
Still gazing out over the yard, he took a long breath in. Finally, he glanced at her out of the very corner of his eye, and said gruffly: "What do you think?"
A smile spread across her face. She leaned towards him, giving him a slow, exaggerated nudge. "You know what?"
He rolled his eyes indulgently as he finally turned to look at her. "What?"
"It's got great bones."
He exhaled a laugh, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder again, drawing them both back into the corner of the sofa. "It really has."