* * *

For the next 48 hours, Picasso turned into a submarine. A black stealth metal whale diving to depths only giant squid and phosphorescent fish occupied. He was slow and deliberate, moving through dark waters displacing particle for particle, as if water had become metal, and then metal to water, and back again to hard steel. He lost all of his skin and was an empty skeleton, no blood, no veins, no pulse. He became the ocean itself, a frozen body of water, the moon and surface merging. The center of him was empty, and his limbs were everywhere.

That is when he knew he was home. That was the second kiss.

* * *