I like it better than the quiet.
His hips snap against mine. He hooks an arm under my leg and pulls it up, and the angle is delicious. Not a single one of my moans is perfunctory—he earns each and every one.
But it occurs to me as we’re getting into it, and honestly I’m shocked that I’m still capable of coherent thought at this point in time, but I’m wondering what I’m adding to the whole scenario. And I take stock: he stripped me. He stripped himself. He made me come. He got the condom. He put on the condom. He’s currently fucking me while I lie on my back and take what he gives.
That’s not to say that I’m not clearly enjoying our current activity. There’s no doubt there. He’s getting plenty of positive reinforcement.
But really, he could be fucking anyone right now.
It’s a short hop, step and jump down an anxiety spiral from that little thought nugget.
Yes, he very much could be fucking anybody. There’s nothing about me in this scenario making it a different or enjoyable experience for him; I just happen to have my body parts in close proximity to his.
You know what? It’s probably just his unhealthy competitive streak driving him to do this, to prove he can make the impossible woman come.
So, it’s not about me at all.
It’s just about my body.
There doesn’t need to be a person inside the body for it to matter.
Which is lucky, because all this has proven to me is that for all my efforts, I’m still just a shell. A void. A mirror. A projection screen. Whatever the person in front of me (or on top of me) needs me to be.
Arthur suddenly stops moving and looks down at me, concerned. Because of course he has noticed my distraction. Fucking emotionally available man. ‘Hey, where did you go?’ he asks.
I shake my head, trying to set my anxiety free. ‘Nowhere.’ It’s clearly a lie that he doesn’t dignify with a response.
‘Do you want to stop?’ I don’t get a chance to answer, but my pause is enough for him to pull out and move to lie next to me. ‘What do you need?’ he asks, kissing my shoulder and cautiously draping an arm across my waist.
I clutch it with both hands to ground myself.
A deep breath. A pause to collect myself. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask. And my voice sounds so small.
Concern bleeds into confusion. Turns into panic. ‘Why am I…? Wait, what? Did I completely misread this, because I thought you were very enthusiastically consenting to this, but if I was wrong…’ I place a hand on his chest to stop him.
‘No, you weren’t wrong.’ He breathes a sigh of relief. NowI feel guilty for distressing him. Just add it to the list. ‘I just mean, doesn’t it bother you, having to do all the work? Or is the challenge you set for yourself enough for you right now?’ I turn my face away from his to hide the single, solitary tear making its way down my cheek. I’ve dug up the grave of the mood I just killed only to kill it a second time.
‘Hey. Hey.’ He pulls my face back towards him, wipes the tear from my cheek, forces me to really look at him. His face is a proper open book, and it’s heartbroken, torn up by my words. ‘I hope that you’re here with me because you want to be, because that’s how I feel too.’
I place my hand over his on my cheek. ‘I do want to be here.’
‘Okay, so that’s a great start. As to the other thing, sex isn’t a transaction, and it’s not the same every time. I’m having a great time making you feel good. If you want to try to do more, I’m open to it, but please don’t think I’m getting some short end of the stick here. I’m having sex with a beautiful woman after an amazing first date. In no version of this am I lacking anything.’
‘The stick is anything but short.’ I really just can’t help myself, can I? Serial mood-killer, should get my own podcast.
‘Thank you,’ he replies. ‘We’ll pass that feedback on toheadoffice.’
‘That joke might be a crime.’
‘Well, you started it.’
I let my head flop back onto the pillow, and he mimics me. We’re just lying next to each other, almost touching but not quite, stark naked. Although he is still wearing the condom.
‘So, what do we do now?’
He looks over at me, gestures down the length of my body, then over his, pumps his eyebrows once, twice, three times.
‘Have I not entirely destroyed the mood with crying insecurity?’ He just points to his still-hard dick. At my nod, he rolls back over on top of me, turns my whirring brain off with a kiss. I’m not sure I’m capable yet of doing themorehe alluded to, but now I cling to him, his shoulders, his arms, his back. Try to pour the closeness I’m feeling out through my fingernails as they dig into his skin, make him understand what he’s doing to me.
