They carefully tasted each others' lips

"Eli. You're just making all this up, aren't you?"

Eli stroked the skeleton monster on her belly,
 let her hand stop right over the monster's gaping mouth.

"Do you still want to be blood brothers?"

Oskar took half a step back.

"No."

                                      She looked up at him. Sad, almost accusing.

"Not like that. Don't you understand . . . that. . ."

She stopped. Oskar finished her sentence for her.

"That if you had wanted to kill me 
you would have done it a long time ago."

Eli nodded. Oskar took another half step back. 
How quickly could he get out the door? 
Should he leave the bag behind? 

Eli didn't seem to notice his anxiety, his impulse to flee. 
Oskar stayed put, his muscles tensed.

"Will I get... infected?"

Still looking down at the monster on her T-shirt, Eli shook her head. 
"I don't want to infect anyone. Least of all you."

"What is it then? This alliance."

She lifted her head to the point where she thought his face would be, 
saw that he was no longer there. Hesitated. 
Then walked up to him, took his head between her hands. 
Oskar let her do it. Eli looked ... blank. Distant. 

But no hint of that face he had seen in the cellar. 
Her fingertips brushed against his ears. 
A sense of calm welled up quietly inside of his body.

Let it happen.

No matter what.

Eli's face was twenty centimeters from his own. 
Her breath smelled funny,
 like the shed where his dad kept metal scraps and parts. Yes. 
She smelled ... rusty.
 The tip of her finger stroked his ear. 
She whispered:

"I'm all alone. No one knows. Do you want to?" Yes.

She quickly brought her face up to his, 
sealed her lips over his upper lip, 
held it firm with a light, steady pressure. 
Her lips were warm and dry. 
Saliva started in his mouth and when he 

closed his own lips around her lower one it moistened it, softened. 
They carefully tasted each others' lips ♥, 
let them glide over each other, 

and Oskar disappeared into a warm darkness..."