Superficially they are opposites. She is short and lithe. He is medium height and beefy. She wears a kerchief on her head. His head is shaved bald except for his goatee. She is a dark rich brown. He at best is lightly tanned. She is a lapsed Christian. He is a non-observant Jew with an unexplained Southern accent.

But they have many things in common. They are both easy-going, quick to laugh, and funny in their own quirky ways. They are both animated talkers. And they both pretend to themselves and to each other that the thing, the unnamed thing, this thing they share between them is not sexual, a deceit they reinforce by talking constantly of their families, of their spouses and their children, waving their arms as they describe their antics, their hands coming oh so close but not quite touching, their faces red and their breathing short with the giddiness of their laughter.

One fine Thursday Summer morning, still convinced of the asexuality of their interactions, they find themselves complaining to each other about impending deadlines that have precluded planned days off, lamenting the extreme disappointment of having to send their families ahead of them for long weekends at the shore. The coincidence is too funny for words and they laugh a good long time before independently thinking that perhaps under the circumstances they might eat lunch together.

One fine Thursday Summer afternoon around 2 pm, after a long lunch that includes more animated conversation, a little less talk about family, and at least several drinks apiece, they are slightly less confident, at least to themselves, about their lack of attraction to each other. Having nobody to cook for or to cook for them they also conclude that dinner out might not be such a bad thing, at least not for one night, and what are friends for after all?

One fine Thursday summer night around ten pm, after a long and lingering dinner during which they finally stopped avoiding touching hands, after several glasses of very mellow wine and excellent food, and the unavoidable realization that each is facing an empty house and a lonely bed, and having made polite noises to each other about a possible mutual attraction, they find themselves at his front door unable to say goodnight.

Fumbling he finds his keys, lets them in, yells "hello" several times, to the empty house, perhaps to reinforce that the family really does exist, or to convince himself and her that the family is not there and will not come between them, popping out unexpectedly and yelling "boo" as they are wont to do in the stories he has told her.

Finding no family at home, he turns, and shrugs, almost apologetically, though any implication of regret is by now tinged with an enormous amount of self-doubt. Unable to control the feelings she has held in check since the very first time she saw him she walks to him, walks to him quickly in a few short steps before she can stop herself, stands on tiptoes, throws her arms around his neck and pulls his head down to kiss her.

One fine early Friday morning, so early that most people would still consider it Thursday night, they both finally admit to themselves and each other, the memory of her rising and falling over him in the half light of the bedroom he normally shares with his wife, of his hands on her hips and his mouth on her small pointy breasts, of her cries of passion and his grunts of intense desire of the suddenness and the shock and the overwhelming power of their orgasms, they both finally admit to each other that opposites attract, and this thing, this thing called love they hold between them is utterly and completely and forever sexual.