I take a deep breath and close my eyes because I’m not reallydoinganything and they can’t hear, and if they come in here, I can just pretend I’ve been talking about wedding stuff this whole time, right?
“Hands and knees,” I say. “With my elbows, like—braced against the arm. Of the couch.”
There’s a ragged inhale on the other end. “Are you still dressed?”
I look down at myself and nearly sayYes, I’m in Ben’s kitchenbut manage to stay in the spirit of things. “Yeah. I’ve got on…a skirt.”
“What else?”
“A tank top,” I say and pinch the bridge of my nose, because why is my imaginary sex outfit so boring?
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Fuck,” he whispers, and I can hear him swallow through the phone, so maybe my imaginary sex outfit isn’t that boring. “If you’re already there, your skirt’s up around your waist and your shirt is pushed up over your tits the way you like it, yeah?”
The way I like it. Jesus Christ. “Yeah.”
“I’d eat you out first,” he says, and his voice is low and rough. “Just—slow. I’d take my time. Listen to you moan. Wait until your thighs were shaking before I made you come, and you’d be?—”
There’s a long, ragged breath on the other end, and I grip the counter even harder, my eyes squeezed shut as I imagine Javier, on his couch, head back and legs wide as he touches himself through the slutty pants.
“Begging?” I ask, voice horrifyingly loud in the empty kitchen.
“Demanding,” he says. “I’d have to hold you still with both hands so you didn’t suffocate me.”
“You love it,” I say.
“Yeah. After you came, you’d be all boneless and wet, and I’d slide in. No condom, just skin on skin?—”
A thrill of alarm washes over me at that, and I hear myself say, “Right.”
“I’m not gonna wrap it up for imaginary phone sex,” he says, teasing. “This is as safe as it gets.”
“Maybe for you, alone in your apartment with no one but a cat.” I glance at the door.
“I think you like the danger, Madeline.”
“I think you like that I’m still on the phone with you, Javier.”
That gets a sound that’s half laugh and half groan, and it makes my toes curl. “You have no idea. I’m leaking like a faucet over here, Jesus. I don’t know which is better—the idea of you naked and demanding on the couch or the idea of you in someone else’s apartment, fully clothed and wet and watching the door.”
“So you’d fuck me?” I ask, nearly a whisper, because we’re getting off topic. “Tell me how.”
“Slow and deep, until you moaned,” he says. “After a while you’d start rubbing your clit again when you wanted to come. Maybe I’d let you.”
My real-life clit is throbbing, offended that the attention is imaginary, and I squeeze my thighs together. It does nothing.
“What do you mean, let me?”
“I mean, I like making you wait, too. Uh, can you come without touching your clit?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t ever.”
“Good. I’d keep it slow until you were—grinding back into me on every thrust, dripping with it, and you’d be desperate to come but you wouldn’t touch yourself yet. God, I’d make you feel so good.”
I shift slightly on the countertop so the gusset of my jeans jolts over my clit, and it feels something like relief but also something like shame. I do it again anyway, and maybe? Maybe if I move just right I can come like this?—
