I don’t know if he’s offended or just trying to sort out how I know he buys in bulk, but I need his head back in the game.
I toy with my nipple while my free hand digs into his hip, urging him to regain his momentum.
“Nothing,” I say, my voice purposefully breathy and wanting. “I never do this either. It’s my first time.”
Who’s to say if he takes it to mean it’s my first time on the apps or myfirst timefirst time? Either way, I’m lying and he likesit.
“Shit,” he groans, finding his rhythm once more.
Lawrence pulls out of me abruptly, before expertly flipping us over, so I’m on all fours with him at my back. He enters from behind and a smirk plays at my lips. Real comfortable tossing me around for someone whonever does this.
By my second failed attempt to coax his hand between my legs, it’s clear that tonight it’s every man for themselves.
I back into him to stay fuller a bit longer as my fingers get to work. The familiarity of my own touch is a welcome departure from the night’s series of disappointments. Focused only on tending to my own budding tremors, it doesn’t take long to find release. It’s guttural, and primal, and probably nothing like the girlish sighs Lawrence is used to from his video girls.
With all my senses fully spent, my brain is finally blissfully quiet. So quiet, in fact, that I could almost forget I’m not alone in the room if not for the “Oh fuck” my final pulses draw from Lawrence as he finishes too.
He collapses back onto the far side of the mattress to catch his breath and gently rolls the condom down before tossing it indelicately onto the hardwood.
I don’t read the new Tinder notifications on my lock screen when I grab my phone, but I do open the app just long enough to pause my account again before texting myself one simple reminder:buy spare charger.
10:37am
Zola:And then what happened??
As I finish recapping the night for Zo, the promise of leftover lo mein propels me through the half-empty apartment. For years, this place felt like it wasmine,but when the sleeper sofa and both roommates were carted off after graduation, I finally saw it for what it’s always been: temporary.
Me:He asked if it was lame to invite me to breakfast.
Zola:Wait, that’s actually cute.
Me:Don’t squint too hard trying to see what’s not there. I’m not paying for your professional delusion.
Zola:Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t afford me.
An incoming call interrupts our conversation, and I drop the phone like my landlord can see me through it. I can’t believe I let it come to this.
I should’ve been planning for this ending all along—it had allbeen right there in the University of Kansas brochure: four years. That’s what they promised and that’s what I got. I just thought by the time they handed me my degree in early education, I’d be transformed into someone new. Someone with a job, a 401(k), and a clue what they were supposed to do next.
All I’ve got is cold Chinese takeout and the acute awareness that I’d rather do almost anything but teach.
When the ringing stops, I come back into view of the phone and Zo’s text.
Zola:I’m afraid to ask if there’s more.
Me:He wanted my number, but I said I’d rather keep things on the app til we know each other better.
Zola:this is what you said AFTER you fucked him?
Me:correct. Then I closed the door and promptly unmatched.
Zola:How romantic.
I mindlessly clear the voicemail notification from my screen, as if that alone negates the inevitability of whatever my landlord’s been trying to tell me for days.
Zola:You shouldn’t be allowed to do life without adult supervision. If you were my client, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.
Me:if I was pathetic enough to use a matchmaker, I’d deserve whatever I got.
