How Not To Fall by Emily Foster (16)

“Eyes and ears,” he says. He ties the black silk, folded in thirds to make a fully opaque covering over my eyes. No light comes in from anywhere. I feel him shift on the bed near my head, and there is stillness, silence.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Rolling up the earplugs,” he says. And then the first one is thrust delicately into my ear, and I listen to the foam swell. Charles says, “Tell me when it’s expanded all the way.”

“It is,” I tell him, and he puts the next one in. I feel his hand on my breastbone, resting warm on me, as I feel and hear the foam expanding. His hands roam over my breasts and throat. The darkness and silence have done their jobs—my skin feels hypersensitive.

Then Charles’s mouth is right at my ear. He says through the muffle, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“What will you say if you want me to stop?”

“Stop,” I say. “But don’t stop now.”

“No. And if you want me to slow down?”

“Wait.”

“Good,” he says. And then his mouth is gone. It returns on my nipple, a surprising, warm, wet sensation out of nowhere. I groan and roll my shoulders, thrusting my breast up, deeper into his mouth.

“I like that so much,” I say, my voice muffled to my own ears.

The sensation of his touch seems to change in the quiet, dark world I now inhabit. My own blood rushing in my ears, my own breath, uneven and heavy, these are all I hear. But I imagine I hear the slide of his hand on my skin. I imagine I hear the pop of his mouth as he sucks on my nipple, releasing it sharply. I imagine I can hear him groan with me when I groan, could swear I can see him watching me when he makes me come yet again, his mouth on my clit and his fingers tugging at the beads inside me.

He kisses me again after I come. I kiss him back, fighting the swamping fatigue. It’s a losing battle. With his mouth against my earlobe, he says quietly, “Do you want to stop?”

“Do you?” I pant.

“That’s not the question. Are you done? I need you to tell me. Shall I stop?”

“No,” I say.

And he doesn’t stop.

He seems to keep finding new ways to make me come. I lose count of the orgasms; they come more slowly, and they change. They get deeper, darker, not bright, pulsing star orgasms, but dark matter orgasms. I start crying after one of these big, dark things escapes me, and Charles holds me, though I’m still tied to the bed. He kisses the tears that leak from under the blindfold. He says into my ear, “I’m going to take this out,” and then he does, gently easing the foam from my ear.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he says against my earlobe.

“I don’t know. I’m just crying. It’s weird.”

“Want me to stop? Just tell me to stop.”

I shake my head. “It’s interesting. I like it.”

He makes a harsh sound—it’s the first evidence of the control he’s kept on himself, and it shudders through me down to my clitoris. He says, “So do I.” He kisses me, his hands in my hair, and I receive his kiss almost passively, too enervated to respond.

He breaks the kiss and mutters softly against my mouth, “Sweetheart, I’m going to make you come again, all right?”

I nod a little and make a noise of assent. “I’m not sure I can.”

“You don’t have to anything, my harpy. Just let me touch you.”

“Okay. Um, wait. First can you—?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you take out the beads now?”

“Sure.”

He does, gently, slowly. Then he replaces the earplug and moves away.

When he comes back, I feel his weight on the bed and then a vibration and cool, smooth plastic on my clit and realize suddenly it’s his toothbrush. I laugh at this—and he kisses me. And then he’s gone.

His hand is brushing, warm and light, over the insides of my thighs. Then his lips join his hand, his lips and his tongue. Tension builds in me again, almost against my will now, but I let it. I let him. I let him do what he likes, and I love what he does, I love handing my body over to him, just letting my body be open to him.

All the stimulation, all the sensations are focused intensely on about six square inches of my body, while so many of my senses and even my breath are muted and constrained. My attention closes in on the warmth and pressure of his hands, the intense vibration on my clit, the wetness of his mouth, and the fact of my surrender. I let everything else go. My body is finished, ready for a nap. If there weren’t so much sensation, so concentrated, I might actually fall asleep. And yet I flex and arch on the bed, bowing my spine and pressing my body against his hands and face. I hear whimpering coming from somewhere, and I realize it’s me. I don’t even really want to come anymore, but I need to. My body can’t resist moving toward orgasm again, like a mountain climber within sight of the peak, too exhausted to take another step, but too close not to march on. When I finally climax, it feels more of a relief than a pleasure.

And he doesn’t stop. Though all my muscles are slack and I’m panting hard, he keeps up the direct stimulation. I don’t try to make arousal happen, and it doesn’t, not for a while, but I let him do what he likes—and I love what he does, and I love letting him. I love saying yes to him, love coming for him, love the sound he made when I said I liked it.

And the vibration is too persistent, too targeted, and the experience of having my senses removed, of having my body bound and fully available to Charles to do with as he likes, is too erotic, for me not to get aroused again. At last he pulls from me another orgasm, an isolated pulsing that drains the last of my energy.

I feel Charles’s mouth travel gradually up my body, until he’s lying over me, his weight supported above me. He puts his mouth against my ear. “Sweetheart, I’m going to untie you, okay?”

I make a small noise of assent, and he removes each earplug gently. He pulls off the blindfold. I don’t open my eyes—it seems too effortful—but I let the light penetrate my lids, and I feel the air move over them.

Then he kisses me. This time I don’t move my mouth; I just let him kiss me. With his thumb, he tugs my chin downward to open my mouth for me, and he kisses me that way. I receive his kiss willingly, but I really just can’t kiss him back. I have drained myself dry—I have let myself be drained dry. I have given Charles everything I had. And I’ve never felt more completely satisfied with myself, with my body.

He’s cutting the stockings with the scissors rather than undoing the knots. My limbs bend and soften as they’re released, but I can’t muster the energy to move them down.

And then he’s over me again, naked now, and I can feel his bare skin along my whole body, feel his cock pressing lightly into me. I inhale deeply at the sensation of his skin against mine, and exhale on a hummed sigh.

He says, “Shall I stop?”

“Mh,” I say, too lazy to open my mouth.

“Annie,” he says in a sharper voice.

“Ngh.”

“You must answer me. Shall I stop?”

“No,” I whisper.

In an instant he’s sliding into me, and I let him, my body softened and pliant under his. He tucks his hands under my shoulder blades, his hands on my trapezius muscles, so I’m braced against his thrusts as he begins to fuck me—hard. His face is against my neck, and he’s making raw, rough noises. This is not my usual Charles. He’s fucking me deep and fast, almost rudely, and I think, I have made him desperate. It is exactly what I wanted. I am elated. Exultant. And totally still.

“Annie.” His voice is wild, broken. “Tell me to stop now. Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I say, managing a little voice in the whisper.

Another raw noise, and then he’s kissing my face, kissing my eyelids, then kissing my mouth, his tongue thrusting around mine while he fucks me almost painfully deep.

When he comes, with the final three thrusts, he holds my jaw with one hand and kisses me wildly, hungrily, and I love it and I want to kiss him back, though still I can’t muster the energy. And when his body collapses, he puts his forehead against mine, breathing hard over me, saying with each labored breath, “Oh my god. Oh my god. I can’t believe . . . you let me do that. Oh, Annie. Oh my god.”

He bites my lips and kisses me again, the palm of one hand on my forehead. I consider putting my arms around him, but all I manage is to draw my hands closer to my shoulders. He notices the movement and pulls away a little to say, “What do you need, sweetheart?”

“I’m a little cold,” I whisper.

“Yes.” Immediately he pulls gently, carefully out of me and away, leaving me bereft. I feel his hands take mine, one at a time, and lay them lightly over my belly. I feel his hands run down my thighs to my knees and push them together. First a sheet and then a blanket fold over me. His hands lift my head, and a pillow slides under it. Then he’s lying beside me, on top of the blanket, smoothing my hair back with one hand. He kisses my forehead.

“All right?” he says. He’s still breathing heavily.

I nod slightly but say, “My feet are cold.”

I hear him laugh at this as he leaves the bed. My eyes are still closed, my lids far too heavy to lift, as I feel the covers move off my feet, and Charles puts socks—I think they must be his socks, giant and woolly—on my feet, one at a time, and then the covers fold over my feet again.

He lies back down by my side and, with his hand over my heart, warm and affectionate, he kisses the tip of my nose, then my eyebrow, then my temple.

“Time is it?” I mumble.

“A bit past nine,” he says. “What else can I do for you?”

“Just stay here,” I say as I slide into sleep.

 

I wake to kisses on my shoulder. When I open my eyes and meet his, he asks quietly, “Well, and how are you, my termagant?”

“Sleepy,” I mutter, and I turn over.

I feel his wet hair against my temple, feel his breath on my ear when he says, “I have to go to work, sweetheart. Text me if you need anything, all right?”

“Mh,” I say.

I wake again to find myself alone in the bed, the curtains pulled over the windows.

I check the time on my phone: 10:38. Jesus. I sit up and notice aches in unusual places. But I get out of bed, wander into the bathroom to pee, and then, led by the smell of coffee, make my way to the kitchen, where I find a note on the counter by the coffeepot. I stand there in Charles’s hiking socks, reading:

In a matter of days, Charles and I have traveled this far, I think to myself, from having A Thing to him on his knees and me utterly, totally surrendered to him.

And now we have to spend the next four days barely seeing each other.

Look, I love my parents. I do. But seriously. They’re in the way.

I consider just telling them about it, being like, “Hey, listen, while you’re here, I’ll be spending my nights having brain-melting sex with this twenty-six-year-old English dude whom I’ll probably never see again after June third, so you might just want to get used to that idea.”

But no. I love my parents. We’ve been planning this weekend for a long time. It’s going to be amazing. And part of what I’ve learned in the last few days is that waiting for something you want does not make it worse when you finally get it.

Before I leave, I write on the back of his note,