10.10am

Morning, you.

Sorry about the abrupt exit. It wound up being a long, rough night, though I didn’t mind it so much. Sometimes it really wears me down into that place of despair, but not this time. Even after maybe three hours’ real sleep, I feel pretty functional. I have you to thank for that, you and our date.

Did you get Man vs. Wild in the UK? It was one of those survival shows, and it followed this dude named Bear around the wilderness while he used his Special Forces training to keep from dying, e.g. by sleeping in a hollowed-out elk, or sometimes a hotel room.

Anyhow, in this show, he’s forever talking about morale. Like, at the end of a long, harrowing day, he’ll build a fire, or boil some tea out of twigs and pine needles, or eat a grub, or drink a canteen of his own warm pee, and then talk about how much better he feels, how it’s boosted his morale. (And also boosted his vitamins, pronounced the wrong-ass British way, like “vittamins.”)

I’m not into hot pee-drinking, but the morale thing is definitely true. The circumstances of my long night were no different than those of any other I’ve endured since I moved here, but following on the heels of our movie date, it was so much easier to bear. Like you make me stronger. Or you make dawn worth waiting for, thinking I might get to read your thoughts, learn a little more about you, maybe make you smile and try to picture exactly that.

You’re the twig in my pine needle tea, Maya. You’re my steaming elk carcass, sheltering me against the dark and cold.

Sorry. I’m feeling silly this morning. Sleep-deprived and smitten. It’s a dangerous combination. I’d better not operate any heavy machinery. I can’t, anyhow—I’m basically made of mangled jerky from my hips down, thanks to yesterday’s run.

What are you up to? I’m about to drink some coffee and sit in the living room with the boy, watch him stare at the tablet probably, and talk, unacknowledged, in his general direction.

I spoke to my aunt this morning—my mom’s sister. We used to be pretty close, and I guess we still are, though she only knew the broad strokes of everything that’s been happening, here. I’ve been avoiding her calls, just because there’s so much to say, and so much of it hurts.

To be honest, you know way more about it all than my dad even does, which is partly my fault for not calling much, but also partly his for not really asking or seeming interested. I don’t want to say he doesn’t care… I know him too well to think about it like that.

Anyhow, this time when my aunt called, I answered my phone. I was feeling stronger than normal, no doubt thanks to you. To us and this little Charlie Brown-looking tree of a friendship that we’ve managed to plant and sprout together.

I told my aunt everything and did an okay job keeping my shit together. She asked what she could do for the boy. I said we have everything we need. Material stuff, at least. I was sitting on his bed while we talked, and I was looking around, realizing just about everything in his room is from the Time Before, as I think of it. The Time Before I showed up, when his life looked like god knows what. I kept it all, because I figured something should be familiar. Now I think maybe I had that all wrong.

It made me worry what memories are tangled up in his plaid sheets and faux-quilt bedspread and the pictures on his walls, and in his few and largely untouched toys.

I told my aunt maybe I ought to redecorate his room, new covers and pillowcases and pictures, maybe buy some curtains. She got really excited and told me she’d send money, that she wants to be a part of it. I don’t really need the money, but I told her sure, if it makes her happy.

Now I’m kind of excited myself, to take the boy to some stores and pick out new bedding, maybe a mobile of the solar system like I had … only without Pluto these days, I assume.

He’ll probably be as catatonic as always on the mission, but he’ll know we picked this stuff out, that it’s new, nothing to do with whatever came before. That whatever memories get woven into it all, they’ll be safe ones, if not necessarily joyful. I’ll do that tomorrow, maybe, or start on it, at least. If my legs work by then.

Wow, check me out, going on and on, and only halfway through my first cup of coffee. I’ll shut up now. What are you up to today? What did you get up to after I disappeared on you?

Tell me everything. Fill my eyes all the way up to the brim with you.

11.42am

First of all, it’s not silly. I’d be your hollowed out elk any day, and you should know that by now. Second of all, how dare you disparage the correct way to pronounce vitamins! Third of all, your aunt is a wise woman, and you are amazing. The boy will know that you’re doing this for him, and it will matter to him. Fourth of all, anything I do that helps you is awesome, the end. Fifth of all, brace yourself for brim-filling.

Things I did after you disappeared:

1. Fantasised about what being there with you would be like. Mostly it was amazing. Sometimes it was terrifying. I managed to stop short of filming the side of my face while I said words to see if I looked like a normal person.

2. Told myself I would never tell you the above in case it made me sound like a serial killer who doesn’t understand how to be human.

3. Tried to get some sleep, but failed completely at it. In fact, I haven’t been to sleep at all. Something about our movie night just turned me into a jittery, overjoyed mess. Like I’d drunk ten cups of coffee and then discovered my numbers came up on the lottery.

I don’t regret comparing you to winning the lottery.

You make me feel like I’ve won something all the time.

I got all the way to the elevator before I had to go back.

2.45pm

Be careful with your comparisons—doesn’t winning the lottery only ever ruin people’s lives? Or maybe it’s different in the UK.

The boy is down for a nap. He passed out on the couch, half sitting up, so I’m camped in the chair by the window with my feet up on the sill, listening to the tick of the radiator and the drone of some construction truck or other working down the street.

I wish you could have seen me getting my legs into position. They hurt so much, I had to haul each one up with both hands hammocked under my knee. I don’t know how I’ll ever get them back down.

I meant to tell you, I started Earthsea yesterday. I’m about halfway through already, at the part where what’s her name reveals her powers. Some parts of the story hit a little close to home, but I bet the ending’s going to cancel out any anxiety it’s giving me.

I hope you’ll be around tonight. Or rather, I hope you’ll be up for talking more. Letting me maybe ask you some questions. If I came right out and asked, would you tell me anything about your parents, I wonder? Or your brother? Would you tell me where you’d go if you found the nerve to hit the call button and step inside that elevator? (You’re beyond amazing, you know, to have made it all the way to the elevator. You blow my mind anew every goddamn day.)

If any of those questions sounds like too much, that’s fine. I don’t want you to be anything more than what you’re ready to be, with me. But I think you know … I think you know I have feelings for you. The kinds of feelings you’re not supposed to get for people you’ve never seen or even really spoken to, not for someone you might never meet. But I have, and they’re not going anywhere, so I figure it can’t hurt to ask.

We could take it slow. I won’t barge in like I did when I asked your name.

You can take your time. You can tell me, not that question, not yet.

Or you can turn yourself inside out and tell me everything. I don’t care if it’s ugly. There’s nothing you can say that’ll scare me off.

Know that I’m only asking because I want to know you. I won’t even say it’s because I want to understand you, because that’s too fucking grand and too fucking patronizing. I just want to know. There’s so much I’ll never know about my own son’s past, I guess maybe hearing a few bits and pieces of yours would make me feel less alone.

Anyhow, I’ll pester you tonight after ten. Until then, keep practicing your normal human speech mechanics.

P.S. I started writing a song about you. I haven’t written a song in probably five years. If I drink enough later, maybe I’ll share a few of the corny-ass lyrics.

10.39pm

You don’t have to barge in, and you don’t have to pester. Truthfully, it’s always on the tip of my tongue now. Or at the tip of my fingers, if you want to be more accurate. All of which is weird to me, because I spend so much time pretending it never happened. I press my thumb down on the memory so that it can’t get out.

I’m here, stranger. Whatever it is you’re holding in, just know it’ll find a safe home with me.

Good, because it wants to be out, with you. You make it easier to think about somehow. Like you’ve created a force field around me, and once things have escaped my fingertips they can’t beat their way back in with a hammer.

Or at least, not this time.

What do you mean?

That was what he used, you see—though even now I don’t think he meant to. I think it was just in his hand, ready for things like locks that were in the way and windows that wouldn’t smash on the first try. Only once he was inside, he realised we were there, so he just smashed us instead.

Though I say us. When I really mean everybody else.

Nothing happened to me, safe in my little attic room that he didn’t even know was there. It all happened to them—first to my dad, who surprised him on the stairs. Then to my mum, who went to defend her husband. And then to my brother, my brother, I don’t know why he killed my brother.

Oh, honey.

He was just a little thing. He barely came up to my waist. His arms were made of sticks and air, and his hair was so fine you could almost see through it.

I know that boy well.

I know you do. I know. So maybe you can tell me: why did he do it?

The police said he surprised the guy too. That he pounced on him to protect my mum, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to know, I think. Because if it’s true, if he did, then I have to think about him being so good and so brave and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t.

I heard them. I heard him. I heard it all.

But I didn’t come down.

Honestly, I think I’m still there.

Still waiting to be as brave as my tiny brother, with my hand clamped over my mouth and my face made sticky and taut with tears. Still wanting to go down but not daring to, never daring to. Why didn’t I dare to?

I could have grabbed him before he ran to help our mum. Got us both out of a window and away through the fields behind the house. Or maybe if I had fought, too, the tide would have been turned. The murderer was only young, only slight, and only there to take our things. He wasn’t expecting a fight.

It might have been all right if I’d joined the fray.

You were a kid. As helpless as your brother.

And part of me gets that. Most of me knows it’s just as likely that he’d have killed me too. Sometimes I even wish that, along with all the others. Like the sweetest fantasy of the three—just to be wherever they are, instead of in this hell.

Though I say hell, I say it, when the truth is … it isn’t anymore. It was, it really was for a long time. And it was an impervious sort of thing, too. I had counsellors and therapists and foster parents who tried to crack it, and some of them were even nice. Some of them partly got through.

But nothing has ever made me feel as free of it as you do.

Maya.

Don’t, don’t, just let me say.

You make me feel like a person, not a thing who had that happen to them.

Not a mess of guilt, not a lonely girl made lonelier by families that were not my own, not someone afraid he’ll come back even though I know he can’t. I’m just me, with you. The one I should have been if time could be turned back and everything started again. Like you were waiting in the dark of our house with a shotgun in your lap.

Then you just blew it all away.

I wish I had been there. Waiting, protecting you. Same as I wish I’d been there for the boy, through whatever he endured before… Before things that I haven’t told you the whole truth about.

This sounds ridiculous, considering how we’ve never even met, never even heard each other’s voices. But if I could get in a time machine and be there in that house, with that shotgun laid across my thighs, I would have killed for you. Not happily, but easily. Thoughtlessly.

I’m glad you shared all that. Honored you did, and humbled that you trusted me with it. I’m so, so sorry you went through that.

You don’t have to be sorry. I’m not anymore. I’m not even upset, the way I usually get.

That’s good, though in all honesty, I’m sobbing right now. My vision’s blurred, the words on my screen running like rain on a windshield.

Thank you. I want to know you, the real you. I think you believe that now. You must, to turn yourself inside out like you just did.

I do I did I am. It was so much easier than I ever thought it could be, too.

The strange thing is, I don’t feel any different. I mean, I knew there must be something sad in your past, something traumatic. And knowing now what that thing is, and who you lost, and how… It means a lot. But it doesn’t change anything about how I feel for you. You’re the same person to me. It’s like…

It’s like, you’re a tree.

Bear with me, this is going to be a cheesy analogy, because I’m weepy and I’m just a little drunk.

I’m bearing, in the best kind of way.

But it’s like you’re a tree, and after just these couple weeks, I know that tree like I’ve spent my entire life sitting under it. I know which directions the biggest limbs stretch. I know how the leaves ripple and the branches sway in a storm.

Before today, I knew where the knots were, and I knew that someone, at some point, sawed away a limb or two, leaving hard and secret scars, and soft pulpy bits, weeping sap. I knew the tree, and I knew it cast a long shadow. Now, I know what’s hiding in that shadow. I know a little about which limb got hacked off and who by. But it doesn’t change the tree as I know it.

It doesn’t change how I feel. And I feel a lot. More than I dare spell out for you. At least not before another glass of this whiskey.

I’m not even sure if it feels like something daring for me now. I’ve shared the scariest thing, and you still see the tree that is me. And I promise, I will always see the tree that is you. No matter what you say.

You asked me, way back when we first started texting, whose number yours used to be. Who I’d thought I was texting. I’ll tell you now, if you want to hear. If you’re not too raw from everything you just shared with me.

There’s nothing that could make me not want to.

Your number used to belong to an ex-lover of mine.

I met her over three years ago, when I was in Birmingham for a wine and spirits expo. She wasn’t with the convention. We met in a bar, hooked up for a few nights. I didn’t even know her last name at the time, and I don’t think she knew mine.

She was this beautiful, wild tornado of a girl, all art and music and light and energy. When I was with her, it felt like I was vibrating, so hard my bones might rattle apart. It was exhilarating. And after three nights, exhausting.

I figured she’d just be a fond memory, a merit badge on my Narcissist Scout’s sash, proving I was charming and worldly enough to get taken home by a hot English girl.

Then in the spring of last year, I heard from her out of the blue. She’d kept my number. And a year and a half earlier, she’d given birth to my son.

I sent her money. Every month, and didn’t ask for proof he was mine. I waited for her to invite me to see him, all the while praying she wouldn’t, because I’m a coward. She never did.

Last September, I got another call, this one from her mother. The girl had killed herself, cut her wrist in the bathtub. The police think she tried to drown the boy at the same time but didn’t manage it. Only he knows for sure, and he’s not talking.

So to answer your question from all that time ago, I didn’t think you were anyone. I thought that number belonged to a dead woman, to a SIM card trapped in a forgotten phone, its battery dead, lost in a landfill or an evidence bag or who knows where.

You can understand why I never expected to hear back.

Oh, Malcolm.

I thought she was a free spirit. You know that term—manic pixie dream girl? I guess that only works in the movies. In real life, it’s called schizoaffective disorder, and the suicide rate is something like ten percent. Probably higher if you mix in the stresses of single motherhood and a side of drug abuse.

I remember you saying something about a package. About venturing out into your hallway to retrieve a package, seven months ago, I think you said.

It’d be so eerie if that package was a new phone, with a new number. Your new number. Her old one. I’ve never been able to shake that possibility, not since you first mentioned it.

I think you can’t shake it because this feels like something big and crazy and unreal. Like when people talk about fate in the movies, and things come together in a way they never do in reality.

But it is coming together, whether it was a phone or not.

Right? Or am I just dreaming it all?

No, you’re not. And here we are, stranger. No more secrets.

I won’t lie, yours were hard to hear. It all echoed so loudly what the boy’s been through. Or the worst of what I imagine, anyhow.

It feels like we’re standing here, naked, with a hundred ugly scars, dark and shining between the two of us.

But…

Forgive me, I’m properly drunk now.

You’re forgiven. Always.

But those scars don’t scare me. And standing naked here before you, seeing you exactly as you are, it doesn’t change a thing. I still want to take you to bed, as badly as I ever had. Worse.

What that says about me… Something noble or something depraved? I can’t say.

Can it be both? Though if I have to pick one, is it bad if I say depraved, here? It feels bad. But still, I don’t care.

This is going to sound corny as fuck, but even bad stuff feels nice with you. Even when we share really fucked-up memories and feelings, I feel better after. Lighter. Like some kind of psychic blood-letting.

Wow, I’m really drunk.

That doesn’t sound corny to me. It sounds right. It sounds perfect. It sounds like all the things I want to say, only they’re coming from you. And I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is. To have someone say things first.

Can I tell you about something that happened this evening? Something kind of amazing?

Do you even need to ask? I’m already greedy for it before you’ve even begun. Tell me your something.

Tonight, after dinner, everything was just the usual routine around here. I gave the boy the tablet and plunked him on the couch to swipe swipe swipe while I did the dishes. But when I finished stacking everything in the drying rack and went into the living room, he was gone.

I was scared for, like, ten seconds, because he’s the most habitual creature of habit you ever met. It was like I’d misplaced the ceiling or the walls, it was so weird. But I ran around and I found him in my bedroom. He was standing beside my bed. My guitar was lying on the end, and he was just standing there, strumming the strings, so quiet I almost couldn’t make it out.

I didn’t say anything for a whole minute or more—I didn’t want him to stop. But eventually I walked over and stood beside him. I told him, “That sounds really good, buddy.”

He didn’t look up at me. He never looks me in the eye. But he looked sort of at my feet, and he slid the guitar toward me an inch or two. So I sat down, and I played a few bars, and he just stood there. It was…

It was the best fucking thing.

Of course it was the best fucking thing—he wanted you to play! That’s what happened, right? He was asking you to play. Oh, I’m so happy for you, Malcolm. I’m so happy for you both. He knows you and sees you, and you know and see him.

He’s in bed now. I wish you were here. What I played for him… It was some of that song I started writing for you. It’s almost done. You want to hear a couple lines?

I wish I was there too. But only because I want more than a couple of lines. I want them all, every one. I want to hear every bit of it. Two would be a good start, though.

How about the first verse, then?

You found me, stranger, way down deep in this place /

A man with no name, no voice, no face /

I was counting on silence, but you sent me words /

A girl with eyes like stones, hands like birds /

Eyes I’ll never see and hands I’ll never feel /

How do you do it, honey? Seem this real?

Is it possible to swoon while still staying conscious? I think at the very least I need a fainting couch. Honestly, what are you trying to do to me?

Speaking of couches, where are you? I’m in the chair by the window again. But if you were here, we could move to the couch. It’s rainy and clammy here. Probably the same where you are. The radiator’s cranked, but since some genius parked it directly under a single-pane window, it doesn’t do much. But we could get under a blanket.

Forget the blanket. Just imagine me tunneled underneath the jumper you’re probably not wearing. I’m somewhere around your left armpit, still recovering from the Song of Complete Swoonation. And so cosy I could probably live right here forever.

I am wearing a sweater, actually. And since I’m teasing you, it IS very cozy with a Z.

You can have it. I want all four of our arms free. I want us to dissolve into a big, sloppy octopus of cuddles on this couch. So you take the sweater. I’ve got a thermal on anyhow.

For a second, I thought the Z was for extra sexiness somehow. And then I remembered I’m just super British and you’re just super American. I’m not disappointed though—the thermal upped the steam levels by at least fifty percent.

Are those levels in Celsius or Fahrenheit? I need to know so I don’t crank them to 85, thinking that’s a bit humid but actually I’ve boiled us alive.

And the Z was because, bless you, you just don’t talk American right. It’s not your fault. You’re not a cultured people, you English. Plus extra-sexy cozy is spelled COXXXY.

Thank god you got the temperature right. I don’t think I could hit you with a teabag while being boiled. That’s the correct attack for a Brit, right? Teabag assault?

Or am I supposed to do it with a can of baked beans?

Either way, I’m very ferocious. You’re probably lucky you didn’t go with coxxxy.

What movie are we pretending to watch on this couch? Tell me while I kiss your neck.

Something sexy. Preferably with all the things I want to do to you in it, so I can segue artfully into all of them. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” I could say, in a completely innocent tone of voice. And then hopefully you oblige.

There’s no movie with all the things I want to do with you. There’s no movie that filthy and sweet and hot and romantic and cuss-riddled, at least not with the right lighting, the right soundtrack. So let’s just say we’re watching Blade Runner because it doesn’t really matter—neither of us is going to remember a second of it.

I guess we’ll just have to make up our own, then. No artful, innocent segues. No suggestions. Just me telling you what I want and you telling me what you want.

There’s a thousand things I’m nearly literally dying to know about you. Like how you taste and how you smell, what your hands feel like on me. But even more than that, what I really want to know is how it would go if we were actually together right now.

Like, you’re… What’s the right word?

“Innocent” makes me feel creepy.

“Inexperienced” sounds weird too.

You’re… Fuck, I dunno. You are how you are. What I want to find out is, would you want me to lead? Need me to? Would you ask me to? Ask me to do everything to you first. I would. You have to know that by now. But I know things about you, too. And those things make me wonder just how long I’d lead for. Before you stole those reins and made a messy, grasping experiment of me.

You don’t have to wonder. I think I’m already holding them. At the very least, I don’t mind saying that I want to push you back on that couch and lick you from the insides of your thighs to the slant of your jaw. I want to map out your body in bites—never quite going over into painful, but never quite giving you anything sweet, either.

And then when I’m done, I want to begin all over again.

Here’s what I want, then. I want your hand at my neck. Your thumb pressed hard to that little hollow behind my ear, tight, so you feel my pulse thumping there. I want those teeth on my other ear, just like you said—almost too hard. And I want that free hand wherever it wants to be. My chest, or under the hem of my shirt. Fingers wrapped around my belt buckle. Anyplace that’s almost there, almost there but not quite. And just hear me panting. Because I am.

I can practically feel that pulse through my phone. I can taste your skin. And that coolness against my fingertips is definitely your belt buckle. Now the only question is: how long do I take to give you what you’re panting for? A minute? Longer? I think it’s going to be longer. There’s so much more I want to do before I get to the main event.

I couldn’t tell you if it takes a minute or ten years—it’d feel the same, either way. Like an eternity. And I couldn’t even tell you what it is I want, aside from pleasing you. Teaching you, letting you explore me. But let me think.

I want your voice, I know that much. I don’t even know what it sounds like, but I want your voice, right there against my neck. Words, or just your breathing, or sounds. I couldn’t guess what you’d give me, only that it would drive me wild.

At this point, it would have to be all three. Me telling you things like give it to me, even though I barely know what I want you to give. Maybe some sounds every time I taste some new part of you, or hear you respond to whatever I’m doing. Because that’s what would get me: knowing how this was making you feel. God, I long to know exactly how this is making you feel.

It’s making me feel like I’m slowly melting and maybe exploding at the same time. My skin is practically vibrating, and so far I haven’t even taken off your pants.

Fuck, I need you in my bed.

I’d knock that hand off my belt buckle and grab you by the wrist, all but dragging you past the kitchen and down the hall, into my room. It’s dark. I slam the door behind us.

You probably can’t make out much of anything aside from the gap in the curtains, the slice of streetlight there. But you’d feel my messy covers as I lay you down across my bed. Cool cotton, almost cold—this room’s always cold. But then me, above you, burning alive.

I see it all—the room, the light, you. And I feel you. I feel that urgency in the way you grab me and drag me and lay me down. In the way you slam that door. It takes me higher than I’ve been before. It makes me react in kind: almost wildly, I think. Bucking up against you before you’ve done a thing. Begging for more instead of being patient.

I can’t be patient with you. I don’t want to be anymore. I want you bare, and my greedy, grasping hands are there to make that happen. They’re wrenching at whatever clothes you might be wearing, too desperate suddenly to stop.

Please tell me you don’t want me to stop.

I don’t, no. I’ve never wanted anything worse than I want this. But the thought of your hands, grasping at my sweater and my jeans… That changed things. That made me want to slow this all down. To imagine this is us, for real. Together, in the same dark room… I want to tell you stop, just for a minute. Slow down. I want to switch on the light so I can see you. I don’t want to miss an inch of your skin or a single expression passing across your face.

Lie down with me, on our sides. Let me kiss you for an hour, until you’ve learned everything that people spend high school figuring out, one awkward teenage kiss at a time. Just feel what I do, try to do the same back. Would you like that?

Now I’m blushing over the thought of my clumsy rushing—but even that has a sweetness to it. It feels good to stumble and crash headlong into things, and then have you catch me, guide me, show me how this should go. Is that crazy? It feels a little crazy, but I don’t care.

Because you wanting to see me makes me crazier. And the thought of getting those awkward teenage kisses—yeah, that’s even better. I think of you saying part your lips for me or put your hand in my hair, and I go ever so slightly out of my mind.

Though I don’t quite know why. I just know that I’m a seething mess, long before the hour of kissing is up. By the third touch of your lips I’m probably pleading with you for more, body bucking on the bed, always trying to go a little too far. Can you see me like that? Can you see how I really am right now?

I’m smiling. It made me smile to think of you bucking and squirming with impatience, so I’ll take pity on you—no full hour of kissing.

I want to rush too, trust me. But if this were reality… It wouldn’t be like these texts. I couldn’t go back the next day, relive each and every thing that was said and done with perfect recall. And I don’t want to miss anything. So I suppose that’s how we’d be, stranger—you rushing, me slowing you. I find that quite charming, actually.

Now tell me this—when I undress you, are you shy? Or do you not even bat an eye?

I think it would have to be both at the same time. Thinking about what you would think of me would make me want to stop you. Especially if you did it the way I think you would. Slowly, I bet. Peeling off one piece at a time. Maybe savouring every step, because you’re right. That’s you.

Guilty.

And I’m the one who wants to rush. I’m the one who’s been starved all these years; I’m the one who feels impatience so deeply it’s like being dominated by it. It overrides everything else—a thirst that I can’t check or satisfy.

It would definitely get the better of any shyness, eventually. I know it would, because it’s getting the better of me now. It makes me want to tell you things I shouldn’t: like what you’d find as you took off each item of clothing.

So tell me.

The flush all over every inch of me, the stiffness of my nipples, the roll of my hips and the wetness between my legs. It’s all there, just waiting for you to uncover. And I want you to uncover it, I do. Never doubt that.

Fuck.

Now it’s me who’s wanting to rush. But I won’t. Because you’re right, you know me well enough after even this short time.

I have brown eyes. I don’t know if I ever even mentioned that before, but I do. I have brown eyes, and they make an inventory of you, every new sliver of pale skin I uncover as I undress you. That much I’ll take slow. I don’t ever want to forget this moment, the first time I get to see your naked body.

But what you said, and what I’ll find—you, wet. That changes everything. All my best romantic intentions to take this at a glacial pace, it all falls apart at that little word. My cock’s aching, here in reality, and there in that room we’ve created together. And it’s not cold anymore. All I want is to get inside you, so bad it’s like I’m dying every second it’ll take to get there.

I’m dying just seeing you say that. Thinking of the way I look between my legs—slick, so slick—being the thing that pushes against your control. Your need to take things slow. And imagining what you look like now, as you imagine me like this.

Are you still inside your jeans, pressing against the material all thick and heavy? I think so. I think you’re straining in a way that makes me want to grab, to unzip, to map things out greedily with my hands.

But you’ve already held me back twice. You’ve pressed the need for patience into me, and that stops me short.

Do you still want me to stop short?

Fuck no. And fuck patience.

I was wrong. All we’ve ever had were words. Words and nothing but words. So the first time we ever touch and kiss and lay our eyes and hands on each other, let it be your way. There’s no other way it could be. Fuck words.

Also, fuck my clothes. Fuck this sweater. I peel it away along with the shirt beneath it, fling them to the floor. Your curious hands—fuck those too, if only for the moment, because I need to get these pants off before they strangle me.

There’s a clatter as my belt hits the floorboards, a rustle as my jeans join the heap, but no words. Just my shorts now, and I grab your hand and put it right where I need it, curl your soft palm around my hard cock. Hold it there, just for a breath. Then I’ll show you how to touch me, with slow, tight strokes through the cotton.

And no words. Just breathing. Just my moans as I let your hand go, let you take over.

Yes, god yes, let me take over. Let me be clumsy and too eager and out of control. Guide me, and then let me go. I can go. I know what feels good—I can tell by the look of you, the sound of you. We don’t need words anymore, you’re right. This is enough. Just my hand on your cock, stroking greedily. And you knelt over me, urging me on with every sigh and groan.

Oh, just the thought of you sighing and groaning. Just the idea of your cock in my hand, straining against my grip.

I’d have to put a hand between my own legs as I worked you. Is it okay to put a hand between my own legs as I work you? I hope so, because it’s happening. It’s there in this fantasy, and it’s here in reality, and oh it feels so good I don’t know if I can stop—not even if you want me to.

I don’t. You keep doing that, and I’ll tell you what happens next.

I’m kneeling above you. I’m torn—my eyes want to see it all, every stroke you give me, but it’s so good. Too good. My eyes shut and my head cocks back, my mouth’s open and I’m panting, helpless.

But it changes, in time. There’s aggression now, that almost angry feeling when you want somebody this bad, need them this bad. I’m meeting your pulls with my hips, thrusting into your fist. And soon that’s not enough either. I know how it must feel between your legs. What you’re feeling now, against your fingers. And I want that so fucking much. It’d be so easy to peel your fingers from me, shove your legs wide with mine, pin your hands to your sides and take exactly what I want from you.

But I won’t. Not without asking, because there’s no way I’m fucking that bit up, even if I know you’re screaming for this, too. So fuck words, still, but I’d have to utter these four, before we go any further—

Do you want me?

I’d say here that you don’t need to ask, but that would be a lie.

Because asking makes me so wild I barely know what to do with myself. I’ll think of those words every time I touch myself from here to eternity. Just knowing you want to take me, but stop to ask. That you broke the heavy silence to get those words out.

And I’d say yes. You know I’d say yes, right?

Take what you want. Take it now.

I wish I knew what this moment feels like for a woman. I don’t.

I can only tell you how it would feel to me. How hot your skin would be as I held my cock, drew my head up and down your lips. Nothing’s ever felt so slick, and soft, and lush. It’s my last shred of self-control, taking those few seconds, those few strokes.

But the time for control’s over now. I’d angle myself, find that spot. You’d welcome me in, but I wouldn’t sink deep—not at first. You’re too flushed, too tight. I know it’s from wanting me. I know it’s the answer to that question I just asked you.

So I don’t slip inside. I push, just softly, just enough. There you are. You’re hot like a fire, deep and dark, swallowing me whole, and so much more than my cock, it seems. I wish I could tell you how it would feel for you. Perhaps your fingers inside you could give you some idea. Are you there already? Imagining it’s me?

You know I am. I was there before I even told you to take me. I was there as soon as you started talking about my hand around your cock. Two fingers sliding inside my pussy—which is as swollen and tight and slick as you described. It’s so slippery I can hardly do this with any skill. But I’m trying, because I want that echo of you. That idea of you pushing into me, slowly like you said. That sense of being spread and filled.

Because that’s what it’s like. Even when it’s just me, easing my thin little fingers back and forth—that’s what it’s like. My body welcomes the intrusion and clings to it when I draw back. And every now and then, when I hit that spot inside me just right, when I fuck into myself hard enough and can picture you perfectly, can feel the fantasy of your cock just right, I tighten around whatever is thrusting into me.

I tighten and roll my hips right into it. Seeking more. Needing more. Moaning for more. God, can you hear me moaning for more?

I can.

And I’m fucking you now—there’s no other word for it.

Can you touch yourself while I fuck you? Say yes, please say yes, because I won’t last long, not tonight. Not the first night with you, Maya. Touch yourself, because you know how, exactly. I’ll learn how too, soon. So soon, but tonight I’m a wreck, and it’s all because of you. Help me get you there before I lose myself. Put your free hand on my hip and show me how fast you want me, how rough.

Here in my room, alone, with just your words, I’m close too. My belt’s undone, and my fly’s spread open, my cock’s out and hard and heavy and hurting, but I barely dare touch myself, as I read your thoughts. Tell me you’re close and I will. Tell me when you get there and I’ll be right behind you. It’ll take nothing at all, I’m so lost in you. In your body, inside my head. You’re everywhere. Now help me get you where you need to be.

Oh baby, I’m already where I need to be. My fingers are on my clit as you fuck me, but it’s not that frantic rubbing and stroking that really gets me there. You have to know that’s not what gets me there. It’s the idea of you losing it. Of you holding back for me. I can practically see you above me, trembling with the need to just come and come and come.

But you don’t need to wait. Don’t wait, because I’m right there. My clit is swelling against my busy fingers, and my body is just one big shuddering mess. And you should hear me—god, I’d love you to hear me. I’d love to hear you.

Do you moan when you come? Tell me. Tell me as I do it.

Fuck, I’m so fucking close. Moan’s not the right word. It’s a sound. Like seething. A desperate sound sucked through my teeth. Honey, it hurts. Make it stop hurting. Just tell me where—tell me where to come and I will. So goddamn hard.

Inside me. Come inside me—fuck yes, that’s what I want. Fill me, fill me as I go over yes now now now. Now, Malcolm.

11.59pm

Are you there? Maya?

I’m still here. Just.

Me too. In a sweaty, undignified heap with my pants still half off, but I’m here.

I look like I’ve been destroyed by a sex hurricane. Somehow my underwear is on the dressing table—though I don’t remember hurling it. Maybe the ghost of you did it.

Never stop looking exactly like that.

Fuck.

Sorry, I swear so much. Though it’s your fault, really. But FUCK.

I love your swearing. I want to marry your swearing. Your swearing and me are going to run away together to a fantasy world.

You and your fantasy worlds.

There’s so much I want to teach you about sex. Real sex—not just the hot things. Like, I want to show you how some of the sexy shit people get up to in movies is so fucking stupid. Like how fucking in the shower is completely impossible, not unless you enjoy slipping and hitting your head on the edge of the tub, or taking turns being the one scalded by the tap or standing there on the other end all wet and shivering.

And how anything involving food is the fucking worst. Like how you’ll have to sleep on your bare mattress that night if you don’t want to lay on a souring, sticky puddle of whipped cream.

That’s the shit that pops into my head sometimes when we talk, all this ridiculous, anti-sexy stuff, but it feels so intimate to me. All the stuff that fails. Maybe because it’d be so easy just to keep on saying only the cinematic stuff. Easy and obvious.

Do you honestly think that’s anti-sexy? To share things like that with me? I live in fantasy. That’s all I have. So far, fantasy is really all we’ve had. And it’s lovely and awesome and safe—it’s made me feel very safe. But it’s done the opposite of what reality usually does. I imagine it dampens things for most people.

For me, it’s a raw and ridiculous thrill. I’m almost craving those mistakes. The frantic fumblings and fucked-up things we could dream up together. And I shiver over you saying them all to me, telling me how it would really be.

So go on, go on. Share with me how it really feels.

Tonight, everything we did, everything we said… It was perfect, worthy of that movie that doesn’t exist. But if it were all real, if you and I were actually real…

Maybe three days from now, I’m going to go down on you for forty-five minutes, until my jaw’s aching and my left arm’s gone numb. You’re going to start panicking because you haven’t come yet. Then you’ll get close, so close, only you’ll get a charley horse right before you get there, and you’ll just about fall off the bed, it hurts so bad.

Three weeks from now, we’ll be fucking for ages. You’ve come already, maybe twice, three times. And now it’s me who’s close. But I really, really need to pee. But I’m so close, and so stubborn. But eventually I’ll shout, “Fuck!” and I’ll limp out of the room to piss so I can fucking finish already, because that’s how sex looks, sometimes.

Three months from now, one of us will fart in the middle of it all, and we’ll die a little inside and pretend like it didn’t happen.

Three years from now, we’ll fart in the middle of it and not think twice. And I can’t fucking wait, because I’ve never gotten there with anyone. I’ve never been that comfortable. But I know I could be, with you.

I never thought I’d say that not thinking about farts sounds like heaven, but it does. All of that does. You make even my silliest fears seem like sexy things I should want.

I want those years with you. Those messy, so real years.

If we were together for real … you and me, on that couch the way we started tonight…

As much as I’d want to race to all the predictable places, I almost want to take those hands, move them away. I want to fall back and drag you down with me, just feel the weight of you on top of me, wrap my arms around you and sigh or laugh or fucking cry, I couldn’t even guess which. I want to ignore my dick and just let that impatience simmer inside me. Listen to you breathing, listen to whatever’s happening at this point in Blade Runner, and when the DVD ends, listen to the radiator ticking and the rain hitting the window.

That doesn’t seem strange to me. It seems lovely—just to lie there with you, maybe feel your heart beating against the side of my face and smell whatever you smell like and know that you want it, you want me, but at the same time that you need something else too. I’m the one who was racing ahead to sex. You’re the one who wants to slow down and savour.

I can’t deny there’s something sweet about that.

Fuck, Maya…

There’s something I want to say to you.

But I can’t. Not quite.

Because I’m not drunk enough.

And because I’m too drunk.

Because to say it now would be a waste. Because I’d wake in the morning and remember, and I’d know I said it at the wrong time, and be sad I was too buzzed to trust that I could remember it right.

But I think you know what I mean. I don’t know if you want to hear that, to read that. Not yet, or ever. I don’t know. I hope maybe you do. I hope maybe my saying what I am, it’s like that hand on my buckle, the way we started out. So close, too much, yet not anywhere near enough. Maybe it’ll simmer inside you, sweet torture. Maybe I’d make you wait.

Maybe I’d make you wait, because I could only ever say it in person.

You don’t have to do anything but say it in person, if that’s what you need. I’m okay to wait, or to only go the places you feel comfortable going. After all, you wait for me. I’m the reason you can’t say it in person, yet you don’t make me feel bad about it. So in this, I won’t rush you. Tell me what you want, when you want to.

I can tell you one thing right now. I can tell you how we’d fall asleep if you were here. Us, realizing once again how cold this room is, with our sweat cooling. I’d want us to take our clumsy turns using the bathroom, feeling awkward and shy, realizing how we’re naked, how we managed to forget about it during the sex. I’d want you in one of my shirts and nothing else. Watching you leave my room, watching you come back, your breath smelling like my toothpaste and the rest of you smelling like sex. I’d try to make the covers warm. Your feet would be ice blocks, but I’d just hold you closer, tucking your head and your messy sex hair under my chin, hugging you from behind.

God, you give good reality. Yes to all of that. Yes to your shirt, yes to the taste of your toothpaste, yes to me curling into the curve of your big body. I’d be your little spoon, so comfortable that I think I’d almost be unconscious before I’d had a chance to say goodnight.

I’m yawning. Maybe you can even feel it against the crown of your head, smell that same toothpaste. Should we say goodnight, right here? Both of us in my bed, before the orgasms burn off and the imagining gets harder?

That sounds sweet to me, I have to say.

Perhaps tomorrow night, I’ll take your virginity all over again.

Picture me laughing as I drift off to sleep.

I can feel you here in my arms, trust me.

All right, someone has to say it first. Goodnight, Maya.

Goodnight, Malcolm. Sweet dreams.