The notebook lived in the top drawer of the nightstand, the one that stuck, wrapped in a sleeve of grey cloth so its pages wouldn't crease. It was not a diary. It was a ledger. Column one, a date. Column two, what they had tried. Column three, a single word each, her rating and his, on a scale from meh to again. No further commentary. They had agreed on that rule on a Thursday in February, over bad coffee, and neither of them had broken it yet.
Mara turned the page at 1 a.m., pen already in hand, watching Ren sleep. His breathing was slow and even, one arm flung over the pillow, mouth slightly open. She had been awake twenty minutes, turning the next entry over in her head.
"Ren."
"Mm."
"Open your eyes."
"Mm."
"Ren."
"What."
"The notebook."
A pause. Then his eyes opened, unfocused, brown in the dark, finding hers.
"Page forty-four," he said. "We did forty-three on Sunday."
"I know."
"What's forty-four."
"Turn over."
"Mara."
"Turn over, Ren."
"It's one a.m."
"Which is exactly when we started keeping the ledger."
"…okay."
"Good."
He turned over. She straddled his hip, knee on either side of him, and laid the open notebook against his chest, one hand holding it flat, the other already moving down his sternum, slow, idle, counting nothing. His fingers found the pages, read the last line.
43 — 11 Oct — blindfold + ice — again / again.
"Right," he said.
"Right."
"So."
"So."
"Blindfold and ice again?"
"No."
"Then what."
"The thing we haven't done."
"We haven't done a lot of things."
"This thing."
"Mara."
"Ren."
"Name it."
"You first or me first."
"…you."
"Fair."
She took his hand, the one still resting on the notebook, and pressed it flat against her stomach, just below the navel, where the heat was already gathering. Then she leaned down, close enough that her breath moved through his hair, and said it quietly, the way you say something you want remembered exactly:
"I want to count."
"…count what."
"You."
"Me."
"How many times you come tonight."
"Mara."
"And you count me."
"Okay," he said, after a while. "That's almost fair."
"Almost?"
"Whoever loses does the dishes."
"The dishes."
"The dishes."
"Deal."
"Deal."
She closed the notebook. He caught her wrist, turned her hand over, and laid the pen across her palm like a judge's gavel.
"Page forty-four," he said.
"Page forty-four," she said.
"Date."
"Twelfth of October."
"Entry."
"Counting."
"Hers."
"Hers."
"Him."
"Him."
"Rating."
"We'll see."
"We'll see."
The room went quiet except for the streetlight's slow arc across the ceiling and the small sound of skin on skin, unhurried, deliberate, nothing rushed because nothing was scheduled except the count itself. He came once at four, soft, into her mouth, and she wrote one in the air with her fingertip against his ribs, marking it like a tally. He came twice more, harder, and she marked those too, three tallies, four, five, her voice low and steady on each one, counting like she was keeping score in front of an audience of one.
"Six," she said, against his throat, and he bucked under her, sharp, unfinished, laughing.
"Six," he agreed. "Your turn to be counted."
"Your turn to count."
"Same thing."
"Same thing."
She rolled him under her, unhurried, and let him watch. He counted aloud, low, off-tempo, correcting himself once, twice, until the number stopped mattering and only the counting did, until his voice went quiet and she felt him lose the count entirely and start again from nothing, from one, from her name, from the slow turn of the light on the ceiling.
"Nine," he said, finally, dazed.
"Ten," she corrected.
"…ten."
"Ten."
"Ten."
She pulled back. Picked up the notebook from where it had slid to the floor, reopened it on page forty-four, and wrote, careful, unhurried, in the small cramped script they both used for the ledger:
44 — 12 Oct — counting — again / again.
Then, below it, in the margin, where no rule forbade it:
Ten and six.
"Dishes," he said, lying back against the pillow, arm over his eyes.
"Dishes," she agreed.
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Mara."
"Mm."
"Page forty-five."
"Page forty-five."
"What's forty-five."
"Turn over," she said.
"…it's four a.m."
"Which is exactly when we started keeping the ledger."
