Peter had intense sex with his lover three hours before she disappeared.

He opened one gunk-crusted eye to find Petra gazing at his face, her own hinting a smile of intimacy that Peter never knew was possible from another person. Petra was naked, her short hair, a kind of standard brown color that looked closer to burnt honey in the pale grey light of that cloudy morning, rested on her cheeks. Peter glanced down to her breasts, exposed from the sheets, and eyed the pink nipples stiffening. He sensed her hunger, but Peter hesitated to call it lust. From Petra, it was so much more. A deep need, sexual and emotional, that overtook both of them.

When they made love, Peter pictured the two of them like balls of pure energy, feeding off one another, tendrils of pure white pleasure reaching out, connecting until they were nothing but a pure blazing brilliance. The morning Petra disappeared, Peter’s erection came quickly, as it always did in her presence.