They could barely make it to her waiting town car before they tore into each other. His hands were all over her body, leaving imprints on every last inch of her skin. Hers worked their way under his shirt, over his face, through his hair, onto his belt buckle.
“So we are definitely doing this?” Birdie managed. After a decade of wanting, she needed to be sure it was real, he was real.
“Yes,” he said again, “we definitely are.”
Birdie thought she might be having an out-of-body experience, but not like when she was with Kai, when her disbelief was because of the fantasy of him. Rather, this time, it was because of the reality of Elliot.Elliot!Whom she had loved and dreamed of and wanted since she was old enough to want such things.
“Wait,” he managed in the back seat, sounding very much likehe did not want to wait. “Not in the car. I don’t want this to happen in a car.”
It was all she could do not to straddle him and pull him inside her.
They held it together until her apartment building, where Birdie frantically pushed the elevator button while Elliot nibbled on her shoulder, and then once they stepped inside, his hands snaked up her thighs, under her dress, and pushed her underwear aside, his fingers diving into her. And she was ready for it. He buried his face in her neck, and she whimpered at how good he smelled, how good he felt. Like he belonged there. When the elevator doors opened again, he pulled his fingers out from inside of her, and she nearly begged him to keep going. She fumbled with her keys until the latch blessedly unlocked, and they stumbled inside, then he kicked the door closed with his foot, never missing a beat, and pressed her against the front foyer wall, flipping her so her back faced him and he could unzip her dress, tooth by tooth.
The dress dropped to the floor, and she turned to face him, braless, exposed, in nothing but her black thong and her heels.
Elliot took a step back to stare at her, his eyes roaming all over, everywhere, like she was fucking edible. He looked animalistic, wild, and Birdie loved every moment of it. His hands found their way to her hips again, and he stepped closer, half an inch away.
“I’ve wanted to do this to you forever,” he said, his voice low, hoarse.
Birdie swallowed. She didn’t think she’d ever needed something so desperately, not even with Kai. She was on fire. Everywhere.
Elliot sunk to his knees, his fingers winding their way over the elastic of her underwear. He gazed up at her. She nodded. Hestarted with his lips on the inside of her thighs. Slowly. Gently. Driving her wild. She spread her legs open an inch, then another. He accepted the invitation and slipped a finger inside her and, when she gasped, slipped in another.
“Jesus, Birdie, I—” He lost his breath then, and it was just as well because she wasn’t capable of talking. He pulled her thong lower, then down to her ankles, and she kicked it aside, and then his tongue was inside her with exactly the right amount of pressure, and he worked his fingers again, and she cried out for him because she didn’t want him to stop.
He glanced toward her and grinned.
“Tell me what you want me to do to you. Because I know what I’ve been imagining. Forever. But I want what you want. So tell me, Bird.”
“Everything,” she managed. “I want you to do everything.”
He nodded and then his mouth was back, his tongue probing, and Birdie wanted to make it last. But she was slipping away, her body on fire, her breathing ragged. He sensed it and refused to relent, sucking and pressuring and intuiting exactly the right spots to make her absolutely crazy. She was sweating and her breath was hitching, and her palms were flattened against the wall as if they were holding her up. They were. She couldn’t even feel her legs anymore. Finally, when she thought she was going to pass out from how fucking good he felt, he pulled back and said, “More?”
And she whispered, “Please.”
And he worked his fingers and his thumb to exactly the spot that even Kai had never found. And then she was cresting and tipping over over over, nearly leaving her body, wondering if she would ever stop. When she did, finally, the room was spinning, and he rose to his feet, and she led him to her bedroom, and they did it all again, only this time, it wasn’t just his fingers that wereinside her. He kept his eyes on her the whole time, like he couldn’t believe it, like if he looked away even for a second, none of it would be real. For Birdie, nothing had felt more real, nothing had felt better.
They kept at it all night. Every time Birdie thought she had to come up for air, Elliot pulled her under again, as if he’d been starving for her body for a decade, and now he needed every second, every inch of her.
“My god,” Andie said from the floor of Birdie’s childhood bedroom. “My. God.”
“I know.” Birdie nodded. “Trust me. I know.”
“So explain to me why you’re sitting here with me, and not over there with him? Because if you don’t, I may. And I’ve been a lesbian since birth.” Andie refilled her vodka and swallowed it in three gulps, then clutched her chest. “Oh god, does that burn.” They were both going to regret this in the morning.
“Because then he left,” Birdie said. “Just like he does with every other woman. I wasn’t any different than anyone else.”
“Explain,” Andie said. “Let me be the judge.”
Birdie wasn’t particularly interested in reliving the humiliation, but her brain was buzzy and her tongue a little numb, so she didn’t stop herself. Maybe she’d feel better, to have Andie share in her embarrassment, tell her what she could have done differently all those years ago.
The next morning, she decided to call in sick for work. She and Elliot hadn’t discussed what any of this meant, other than that they couldn’t tell Mona just yet, but she didn’t want him to leave. She knew that much. Maybe, she told herself in the months afterward, she was wrapped up in the fantasy, the way that one of her characters would have been: daydreaming about how the two of them could last forever. Even though she’d been certain thatbeing with Elliot was grounding, true, the realest thing about her now gargantuan make-believe life. But regardless, when she woke, Elliot wasn’t there. His pillow was still indented, his side of the bed still rumpled and smelling vaguely of his shampoo, and yet Birdie was all alone. Her chest got tight, and nausea crested in her throat. She buried herself under the sheets in a cocoon to get a grip. It didn’t help.
After so many years, she’d finally gotten what she wanted, and then it hadn’t been real at all. He’d panicked, she assumed, and fled.
She found her phone on the nightstand. Nothing from Elliot. She triple-checked her email, her spam, her texts. Definitely nothing from Elliot. But Kai. Kai must have heard that she left with someone the night of the premiere because he was all over her phone. Twelve texts. Two emails when she didn’t return the texts. Three missed calls.
She replied to his last text.
