Our bodies moved in conjunction together in the heavy summer haze, racing towards the inevitable climax with desire and need, and afterwards, I lay pressed against her for a moment, her laquered nails etching her initials into the flesh on my back.

Eventually, I rolled off, after some minor resistance from her; exhausted, lactic acid flooding the muscles of my shoulders and stomach. Her naked form next to me, covered with a faint patina of sweat, breathing heavy in the warm breezes from the window. The curtains rippled the light from outside and cast shimmering shadowy forms on the far wall.

For me, sex flows with the mood, the whim and rhythm of the weather and environment. This is summertime sex, muscles sore, coming down from the heat of the moment and the air outside. It's a more athletic variety than most other moods, I think; my arms are almost immobile, shouders red with exertion. But mostly, I can feel it in my abs, the muscles there tense and tight. I'm not about to win any fitness competitions, but I'm not in bad shape either - still, regular workouts like this one have, over time, given quite a bit of definition to my abdominals, like iron bands.

Sex can be seasonal, the ambience outside affecting the mood within. There's slow and passionate winter sex, quiet and muffled like falling snow, a delicate scene lit by the glow of a fireplace or wood-burning stove, where the coffee is brewing. She likes her coffee black, afterwards.

And there's springtime, the storms rolling in under a silver poisoned sky, immense lightning corkscrewing to the ground, the energy inside these walls matching the electricity of nature's thunder outside.

Languid and beautiful early Saturday autumn mornings, gentle rain and slowly tumbling leaves, side by side we lay, her fingers on my chest and my arm under her neck. There's sex on the shores of some distant beach, slow and frustrating and moving in time with the surf. There's tawdry and soulless sex in cold and generic hotel rooms, incandescent lights and cheap off-the-wall paintings.. primitive and emotionless, but still dictated by the mood, the surroundings. Light and energy and decor. The ambience, the atmosphere, patterns emerging and commanding the rhythms and motions.

The smoke rose from her postplay cigarette as she gently purred to herself, and I'm at the bathroom mirror, cold water falling from the faucent into an azure glass, temperature and color counterpoint to the still-growing summer heat of the room. I could see the ember of her cigarette in the darkned reflection, forming an arc as she tapped ash.

And then she was on her feet, behind me, reaching under my arms with her own and wrapping them round my chest to hug me from behind, the waterglass forgotten in the sink as she explored my body with slender fingertips, precise mappings, a forearm against my back and the other brushing against the flat muscles in my stomach.

"You've got great abs," she told me, and giggled, taking the glass of water back to the now-rumpled bed.

Her hair was a mess.