A laugh gets stuck in my throat. Am Isure?
“Oh yeah.” It comes out with the affect of a joke, but I mean it. I’m never “sure” about any aspect of my life. I pretty much thrive on ambivalence. But now? “Positive.”
I shift my hips a little bit and start to sink down. The gasp that escapes my mouth sounds manufactured. Like someone sweetening the dialogue for an adult video. But it’s genuine. ThankGodI’m on top.
It’s crazy how the first few seconds feel so impossibly tight before easing into this fullness that feels so comfortable. Like he could live inside me. And he could look up at me like this forever. I’ve hardly moved—hardly exhaled—and he’s just barely hangingon.
“F-fuck,” he mutters. “Hold on. Don’t—” There’s a bulging vein in his forehead. “You’re gonna make me come if you do that.”
We’re breathing together, my breasts pressed against his chest.
“Okay,” he says. “Just let me…for a second.” I try to stay still as he slowly thrusts up. And then once more. “Yeah. Just…slow.”
He moves at a steady pace and I have to fight the impulse to speed toward the end. We get a good rhythm going and he wedges his fingers next to my clit and that friction is sending me toward the edge.
“God. You’re fucking gushing.” His voice is ragged. We’re both sweating.
“Your fault.”
I’m taking, rather than giving, and I kind of don’t care because I’m certain everything will be reciprocated. I’m not policing a single thing about myself.
And even though he’s hitting all the right spots in a sort of maddening way, what’s really doing it for me are the sounds he’s making. Maybe men are just socialized to stoically keep quiet, but he didn’t get that memo. Or maybe he tore up the memo, because his moans are more resonant than mine and I am living forit.
Because he’s fucking me.
He’s. Fucking. Me.
And it’s undoing him.
Which is undoingme.
Like, immediately.
“I’m—I’m gonna come.” He’s nodding at me and I know he’s right there, too. Sometimes I don’t like to announce it because it creates this extra pressure to deliver, but my brain has reassigned most of its synapses to whatever region handles orgasms, so I can’t be held responsible. “Don’t stop. Don’t stopdontstopdontstop.”
“Holy shit. Holy. Shit.”
I grab on to the headboard and he lets out this deep, guttural sound that drives me careening over the edge. I’m desperate for it, but I don’t want anything to stop. I let go of whatever grip I had on myself and yell something—I don’t know what, because…head empty. For a few seconds, my body drowns in euphoria.
I feel Nick come with a shudder. I definitely hear it. I see it on his face. It wasn’t precisely simultaneous, but close enough to make me feel grateful for this intenselysharedexperience.
I let myself collapse on top of him in a sweaty heap. He’s still inside me and I just want to stay like that. Little animated hearts must be radiating off my body, into the ether.
“Fuck.” He laughs and it moves my chest, too. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“Behind that wall.”
28
I was not expecting to cryafterward.
I brace myself for a round ofwhat’s wrong, what’s happening right now, is it something I did?—all questions guaranteed to send me into a deeper spiral. But instead he just holds me tighter and runs his fingers through my hair.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks. I sense the trepidation in the question, like he’s expecting the worst from whatever I’m about to say.
“I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but I feel, like, weirdly comfortable with you.” The way relief floods his face—it’s kind of wonderful to lift someone’s mood. “I don’t ever feel that way. With anyone. I think it’s my curse.” I look up at the ceiling. “I’m permanently on edge.”
“Why is that?”
