Once we were all clean--after messing ourselves up again--and dried, we decided it might be best to sleep in Erica's bed for the night. My sheets were a mess, and the smell of the night's activities was far worse than it had been in the past. We both dressed--me in a pair of shorts and Erica her robe--before stripping my sheets off the bed and opening a few windows before heading down to the main house, hand in hand.

The bottom floor of the house was dark, but I could hear talking from upstairs. Erica deposited the dirty sheets in the laundry while I grabbed a bottle of water from...