“I’m a bad candidate for Lasik.”
She laid a palm over his cheek. “That’s the strangest thing anyone has ever said to seduce me.”
Russ laughed. She laughed with him. “You laugh a lot during sex,” he said.
“We’re not having sex.”
“Okay, you laugh a lot during foreplay.” They were both whispering.
Cherry laughed again. She wrinkled her nose. “I think I’m just glad that you’re here.”
Russ was lying half on top of her. She could feel his cock on her hip. Hard. A little wet. He kissed her again—like he was glad, too. She could feel him smiling. He took a breath and whispered, “What’s our plan for birth control?”
“Oh.” Cherry realized that she hadn’t thought about it.How had she not thought about it?“I’m not on anything.”
Russ ran his hand up the inside of her thigh. “We could just...”
His fingers got to her vagina. (Cherry was old enough to call the whole area “vagina”; she hadn’t gotten on board with modern precision labeling.) She braced again for him to feel how fat she was. Every part of her, even this one. (Cherry’s vagina wassubstantial. She wasn’t one of those women with just a hint of lip. Asliverof labia.)
His hand curved around her, and his eyes closed. “Fuck,” he said—like he was cursing, not suggesting. “Cherry.” And then, “We could just...”
She hummed. He was rubbing along the seam, feeling how wet she was. Feeling the split. His fingers slid back and down into the canal, the vagina proper. Cherry groaned. “Fuck,” Russ said again.
She opened her legs, and his fingers sank deeper.
He looked up at her face. Cherry was still holding his cheek. She kissed his nose. He pumped his fingers, and she made a noise that was half sigh, half whine.
“We could just...” he said again, swallowing.
“Oh.” Cherry sat up. Suddenly. Her shoulder hit Russ’s forehead.
He jerked back, surprised, and pulled his hand away.
“I think I have...” Cherry leaned toward the nightstand again, opened a small drawer, and came back with a strip of condoms. She and Tom had used condoms, and period tracking—Cherry didn’t do well on the pill. But it had been a long time...
She squinted at a packet, looking for an expiration date. “A-ha,” she said. “We’re in business.”
Russ laughed and grabbed the strip out of Cherry’s hands. He pulled her close again, levered her back onto the bed, and pushed his hand back into her pussy. Less gently this time. He rubbed his palm into her clit. “Oh,” Cherry said.
“Good?” he asked.
She nodded. Itwasgood. She could maybe come like this. Eventually. It wasn’t what she was used to. She was used to Tom’s thick fingers. Or her own. Not the flat of an unfamiliar palm.
Cherry was worried suddenly that she wouldn’t beableto come, not on demand like this, even though she really wanted to. Even though she really wantedRuss.
Had the clock already started? This was the thing now, right—the woman comes first?
Back in college, it had taken several tries for Cherry to work out anorgasm with the guys she slept with. And coming was come-and-go at first with Tom. Tom’s approach to her body had changed over time, as he got to know her better. As Cherry felt more comfortable giving direction, and Tom felt more comfortable taking it...
(Cherry knew that she shouldn’t be thinking about Tom right now, but how could shenotthink about him? She’d been married to him foreight years. He was the only man her body recognized. This was hisbed, for god’s sake.)
“Cherry,” Russ whispered, kissing her cheek. He pushed his fingers in deeper, giving her clit a break.
Cherry groaned. This was a less complicated feeling—she liked being fucked. She wanted more of it. She tried to think of a way to say so that wasn’t “Just do it.”
She pulled Russ’s body closer, spread her legs wider.
He got the message. “Yeah,” he said, lifting off of her to put on a condom.
