The erotic can be that which opens us, peeling away our protective layer. Like citrus, there’s a juicy, delicious part of us, which if always exposed may wither. That’s what the erotic accesses in us. The peel is there for a reason. There’s nothing wrong with it. I cannot move through the world without protecting the parts of me that are the sweetest and most vulnerable. But the erotic can be the way in which the smell of a lover’s neck exposes something in us, like a thumbnail making the first opening into the skin of a tangerine. The vascular and the venial become one, and our breath itself changes. The erotic exposes complex layers of surface area: psyche, heart, body, desire, beauty.