The observatory was called The Eye, a concrete dome on a mountain ridge two hours from the city, where the light pollution ended and the universe began. I’d come tonight for a public viewing — “Jupiter and Its Moons,” the website had said — but the public had left at 10 PM, and I’d stayed behind to ask questions.
Sloane was the astronomer on the late shift. Twenty-eight. She wore puffer vests over flannel and had a habit of looking at me through the telescope eyepiece like I was a celestial object she intended to map. She’d offered to show me “the real thing” after the crowd left — not the planetarium projection, but the actual sky through the 24-inch refractor.
“The dome is open,” I whispered, leaning against the telescope mount in my thick cream turtleneck, looking up at the actual sky through the slit — a river of stars, the Milky Way, Jupiter glowing like a beacon. The red safety light turned everything the color of a darkroom. Sloane was standing behind me, her hand on my waist, her face inches from my neck. “The telescope is tracking Jupiter. The red light is the only illumination. The night air is freezing. And your hand is on my waist, not the focuser. You’re supposed to be showing me Europa. Not touching me. Not pressing your palm into my hip. Not sliding your fingers under my sweater—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in from behind, her cheek brushing my neck — her skin warm against the cold air rushing through the open dome — her hand sliding from my waist to my hip, then under the edge of my thick cream turtleneck, finding my skin with a precision that was completely devastating.
“If the astronomer on duty comes up,” I breathed, my voice trembling as her fingers traced my spine, “he’ll see his colleague kissing the visitor under the real stars. He’ll see your puffer vest open and your mouth on my neck and the telescope tracking empty space because you’ve forgotten the sky and he’ll know that this isn’t astronomy. This isn’t education. This is—”
She turned my face toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like cold air and infinity and the exact moment when you stop looking at the stars and start falling into them because the gravity of another person has become stronger than the entire universe. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding higher inside my sweater, finding my breast, my nipple, pinching with a pressure that made my knees buckle against the telescope mount.
The dome stairs creaked.
Heavy footsteps. The night astronomer — Dr. Chen, sixty, completely focused on his spectroscopy data, completely unaware — coming up for his midnight shift.
“Sloane?” His voice, echoing in the dome. “You still up there? The spectrograph is showing anomalies!”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand against the telescope controls — adjusting nothing, just holding on, her fingers still pinching my nipple, her eyes locked on mine in the red light.
“Just showing a visitor the Jovian system, Dr. Chen!” Sloane called out, her voice perfectly steady, completely at odds with the hand that was currently sliding down my stomach, into my jeans. “Give us five minutes!”
“Okay! But the seeing is perfect tonight! Don’t waste it!”
Sloane looked at me. The dome was open. The real stars were watching. And I was completely at her mercy.
“Jupiter has 79 moons,” she whispered against my mouth, her thumb circling my clit, her fingers pressing deeper, finding a rhythm that matched the telescope’s tracking motor. “But you’re the only body I want to orbit. The only mass I want to measure. The only phenomenon I want to observe. So let him come up. Let the stars watch. And let me show you exactly what happens when gravity takes over.”
She made me come against the telescope mount. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the cold air rushing over us, the real stars watching from above. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the dome’s darkness, my body shaking so hard the telescope’s alignment shifted by half a degree.
After, she adjusted the focuser. She pointed the telescope at Europa. She showed me the moon — beautiful, silent, completely unaware.
“Same time next month?” she asked. “Perseid meteor shower. I’ll open the dome.”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I still visit The Eye. Dr. Chen still doesn’t know why the telescope shifts slightly at midnight on clear nights. Sloane still works the late shift. And every viewing, when the dome opens and the red light glows, she stands behind me and shows me exactly what “deep space” means.
She says my understanding of astronomy has improved. She says I now know that the most powerful force in the universe isn’t dark matter — it’s want.
She’s right. I do. And I’ve stopped looking at the stars. I only look at her.
