How Not To Fall by Emily Foster (9)

I’m not wearing a bra—bras are of no particular use to me—so I’m standing in front of him, naked from the waist up.

“Oh my god,” he says, and in the darkness I can’t see his face well enough to tell what he means. My breasts are never a worry to me when it’s just me, but when it comes to public display, I get a little anxious about the notable lack of them.

“I don’t know what to do now,” I say, beginning to feel self-conscious. Beginning to wonder if this was a good idea.

Charles stands up too, his eyes roaming over my skin as he approaches me. He puts one hand at the back of my neck and the other on my chest, his fingertips brushing the curve of my clavicle while he meets my gaze. I’ve never seen this expression on his face before—almost like pain, almost like anger.

He says, “I was just thinking it was time to send you home.”

“Oh.” I frown, but then he kisses me, and I know he’s not thinking about that anymore.

With his eyes on mine, he says, “You are—” He stops and blinks a few times, shaking his head minutely, and then he tries again. “You are unspeakably beautiful.” His fingers trail downward from my clavicle bone to the faint little curve of my breast, down over the nipple and along the lower curve, continuing to my waist, and then around. He puts the full flat of his hand on my back, his warm hand directly on the skin, and kisses me again. I feel his blue Oxford shirt against the tips of my breasts. I’m trembling in his arms; my knees aren’t steady. I put my arms around his neck to keep myself on my feet.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” I say.

“Not a chance,” he says. “I’ll just fuck you if we go in there.”

“I know!” I say.

He groans and kisses my throat, his hands traveling lightly over my back now. “At five o’clock I had very good reasons not to fuck you tonight. I can’t currently remember what they were, but I’m sure they haven’t changed.”

“You wanted me to go around the bases,” I say, knotting my fingers in his hair.

“Right. Right. The bases,” he says, and steps away a little to look at my face. “Shall you stay tonight?”

“Unless you don’t want me to.”

“Oh, I definitely want you to,” he avers, his hands still traveling over my skin. “I’ve got to go to work on Monday, unlike some people I could mention, but until then it seems to me the best possible use of every minute is finding new ways to give you pleasure.”

“Yes, please,” I say.

He smiles a little. “I like the way you say that.” Then he takes me by the hand and leads me into the bedroom, saying, “The rules still stand, Miss Coffey. Is that clear? No hands or mouths below the waist. Until midnight tonight, that is.” He pulls back the covers and gestures me in.

“Are we going to bed?” I ask.

“If you mean, are we getting in the bed,” he says in a didactic tone, “yes. If you mean are we going past second base, no. And if you mean are we preparing for sleep ... somehow I doubt it.” His eyes slide over my body.

“Can I take off my pants?” I ask.

He answers by stepping toward me and unbuttoning my jeans, his hands lingering with rule-bending leisure over the task, while he kisses my shoulders and chest. He pushes my jeans down to my knees and I step out of them. I put my hand on the placket of his shirt and meet his gaze with a question.

“Go ahead,” he says, and I start undoing the buttons of his shirt.

The ducklings were right. A Greek god. “Oh my god,” I mutter as, with each button, I reveal more firmly muscled chest and abs, glowing in the streetlight through the window. When his shirt is open, I run my hands over his chest. I push the folds of his shirt apart and, wrapping my arm around his waist, I press my bare skin against his. We both gasp with it.

Before I can think, he lifts me off my feet and dumps me onto the bed. He follows me in, lying beside me, his chest pressed against mine. For a long time, we just kiss, our bodies pressed together this way.

Then I move my lips to his throat, then his shoulders. I press him onto his back and climb over him, to kiss and stroke across his chest and his ribs and down his belly. When I get to the tops of his khakis, I lick a trail slowly, tenderly, into the gap under his waistband. His belly contracts hard, involuntarily, and his hand grips onto my shoulder.

“Can I ask for something?” I say.

“Anything,” he breathes.

“I want you to come,” I plead into the dark. “I’ve had, like, five orgasms, and you haven’t had any. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“You really want me to?”

“Really,” I say. I crawl up and lie on him, brushing my breasts over his chest and watching the effect on his face.

“And how would you suggest that happen, given the rules of second base?” His hands are traveling all over my skin, my back, my arms, my shoulders.

My first three ideas are clear violations of the rules. I put them aside and say, “I could watch you?”

“Watch me . . . DIY it?” he says. Can you hear a person blush? I swear that’s what’s happening. “You’d like that?”

“Yeah,” I say, and I slip off him to his side and kiss him. “Yeah, I’d like that. I want that.”

He kisses me back, and my mouth explores his tongue. At last he makes an uncomfortable noise and says, “If you’ll do it with me.”

“Have another orgasm? That’s the opposite of the point. I want to watch you.”

There’s a short silence, and then he mutters, “All right.” I feel his hands go to his pants and undo them. He tucks me into the crook of his shoulder and whispers, “Tell me one of your fantasies.”

No problem there. “Hm . . .” I say, trailing my hand over his chest and trying to select a fantasy I think he’ll like—there’re a lot to choose from. “There’s the one where you turn up at a party and I’m all fancied up and it’s like you’re seeing me for the first time, realizing how irresistible I am.”

“You are irresistible,” he says. “What does ‘fancied up’ entail?” And I can feel that his hand is moving. I don’t see anything in the dark, but I can feel the rhythm of it.

“A really, really short skirt and really, really high heels,” I say.

He turns his face to mine and kisses me lightly. “Is that what makes you feel sexy?”

I shrug against him. “It’s what I guess turns guys on.”

“Mh-mh,” he says, his lips still on my face. “Maybe some guys, but I like you barefoot. Barefoot and damp.”

“Oh really?” There’s a useful tidbit.

“Really,” he says, gasping a little. His hand is moving faster, and I so want to put my hand over his, feel what he’s doing. “Seeing you fresh out of the shower on Wednesday nearly killed me.”

“Then you’ll probably like the fantasy I had that night, where you didn’t stop in the kitchen. You didn’t call it a disaster. When you pulled away, it was to unbutton my jeans. You yanked them down to my knees and went down on me right there in the kitchen,” I say.

“Oh god, I wanted to do that,” he says. “What else?”

“Well.” I lick my lips and say the rest quietly into his ear, feeling the vibration of his arm movements. “You go down on your knees in front of me and put your tongue on my clit and lick me until I’m desperate, then you pull my jeans off and fuck me on the kitchen counter.”

“Tell me how you like to be licked,” he breathes.

“I don’t know,” I tell him softly. “Nobody has ever done it before. I guess we’ll find out in about twenty-three hours.”

He makes an involuntary noise as his diaphragm contracts. I put my hand on his belly, and he puts his hand over mine, wrapping me more firmly in his arm. At first I think he’s going to push my hand away, not let me touch him, but he grips my fingers between his, and his arm clamps around me, locking me close and tight against him. His other hand is moving faster now, and he breathes, “What else?”

“After you fuck me in the kitchen? You carry me over your shoulder into the bedroom and . . .” I stop, inexplicably shy.

“Yeah?” he prompts, squeezing me and pressing my fingers.

Blushing in the dark, I tell him in a small, uncertain voice, “I imagined you put me on my knees on the bed, and you put my hands on the wall, and fucked me that way, with your hands over mine.”

“Oh god, Annie.” He turns his face to mine again and kisses me fiercely as he comes, whimpering a little, pinching my fingers almost painfully between his.

When his muscles begin to relax and he’s breathing hard but steadily, I say, “That was amazing.”

“At midnight,” he answers in a whisper between breaths, “I’m going to bury my face in your pussy and lick you until you come so many times, you can’t move.”

“Okay,” I whisper back.

He laughs silently. “Oh, I like you,” he says.

“I like you too.”

“The tissues are on your side of the bed,” he says, more pragmatically.

I roll over and grab the box and put the whole thing on his chest, telling him, “I don’t know how many you need.”

He laughs again. “A lot, I think.”

As he puts the box on his bedside table and pulls a few to wipe himself off, I say through a yawn, “I’m gonna wake up early and take a shower so you can be tempted by my dampness.”

“No arguments from me,” he says, and I drift into unconsciousness, his lips on my forehead.

 

Of course he wakes up before I do. I emerge from sleep only when he puts a mug of coffee on the table by my side of the bed.

“What time is it?” I mumble, reaching for the cup.

“Just past ten.”

“Oh my god,” I say. “I usually wake up at, like, eight.”

“You’re on holiday.” He kisses my cheek and joins me in bed. “What do you fancy?”

“What do I huh?” I drink my coffee.

“What would you like for breakfast?”

“Oh. Usually I just have coffee.”

He shakes his head sadly. “That will never do, not for the day I have in mind for you.”

“Does it involve a lot of exercise while naked?” I ask hopefully.

He takes the mug from my hand, and I almost protest, but then he kisses me. He tastes like coffee and toothpaste, but I taste like coffee and morning breath, so I pull away. “I’m yucky,” I say.

“You’re yummy,” he says, and grips my jaw in one hand and kisses me harder. Who am I to argue? I move my hands to his back, noticing, now that I’m awake, that he’s mostly naked, dressed only in his boxers. But he pulls away and says, “We need a plan that involves leaving the flat so I don’t fuck you silly today.”

“Or: you could fuck me silly today,” I suggest.

“No. Behave,” he says. “No fucking until Monday at the very soonest.”

“But touching now,” I say, and I guide his hand to my breast.

I have successfully distracted him. His eyes move to my chest, watching his own hand move over my skin in full daylight, and then his lips are on my nipples, first one, then the other. I lie back, relaxed and reveling in his touch.

“Can you come this way?” he murmurs against my skin. “Just from this?”

“I dunno. I never tried,” I say.

“Let’s try now,” he says.

It’s easy for his tongue and mouth on my breasts to turn me on—turn me on a lot. Turn me on wildly. With his hands and mouth on my breasts and my ribs and my waist and my belly and my throat and in my hair, within ten minutes I’m panting and writhing. My clit is throbbing for more direct contact, begging to be touched. I knot my fingers in his hair and try spreading my legs wide and rotating my pelvis. I try crossing my ankles to lock my legs together. Still I’m hovering on that desperate, agonizing edge. If only he would touch even the inside of my thighs, I’d come instantly. But he won’t. He won’t even put his knee between mine and let me hump him like I did last night. He wants me to come just from this, but I can’t. I’m in agony.

“This is gonna kill me, Charles,” I whimper. “Please.”

Without changing the soft caresses at my breasts, he takes my hand in his and pulls it down to my panties. He presses my fingers against my clit, through my underwear, in slow, soft circles. All the while his mouth is on me, sucking and licking my breasts. In a matter of seconds, I break apart joyously into a million splintery shards. I make a grotesque sound with it, a desperate, gruff noise that echoes off the walls.

He kisses me with urgent little bites and grunts. “We have got to get out of this flat.” Giving me no time to recover—which would give me time to persuade him to stay in bed—Charles shoos me like a stray chicken into the shower. Once I’m clean and dressed, I find him in the kitchen, where he has made French toast and turkey bacon. He looks me up and down—I’m dressed in leggings and a tunic and Chacos—and says, “Can you go for a walk in the woods in that?”

“Sure,” I shrug, piling food onto my plate. Have I ever been this hungry in my life? No. No, I have never been this hungry in my entire life. “Not, like, ten miles, but sure.” I start shoveling food into my mouth.

“You’re allowed to chew,” he says with a grin.

In the end, he drives us out to Brown County State Park, and we hike maybe five miles. We take our time, pausing to look at views and eat the fruit he brought with him. (“You brought food? It’s only a few miles.” “After watching you eat breakfast, I didn’t want to take any chances you might die of starvation on the trail.”) And we talk. Or rather, I talk. Most of his talking happens right at the trailhead. He says, “So. Story of your life. Go.”

I begin with the usual, “Not much to tell,” and then ask for more guidance. “The story of what aspect of my life? There’re a few different stories.”

“What about the dancing? How did that start?”

“Oh! How that started is simple. When I learned to walk, I would always walk on my toes, which my parents decided meant I should take dance lessons, so when I was three, they signed me up for Baby Ballerina lessons at Joffrey, which is—”

“What? You were training with the Joffrey Ballet when you were three?”

“No no, not ‘training with,’” I say. “I took lessons, like lots of little girls do. And I liked it, so I kept taking lessons, and by the time I was ten, I started in the young dancers program, and then by the time I was twelve, I was dancing five days a week. I did the summer intensive when I was thirteen, and then I auditioned for the trainee program and got in, and then . . .” I pause and think.

“There was this moment when I was fifteen. I was in a guest instructor class taught by this really famous dancer, and she came over to me and gave me a correction—this really important correction, right? Like, I’m getting this life-changing correction from this amazing artist—and what she did was this.” I hold the fingers of my right hand in the fingers of my left hand and adjust the angles of my thumb, index, and middle fingers. “And I was like, ‘This is it. This is what it means to make art with your body.’ And that was the moment when I knew . . . I didn’t have the thing that dancers have. I could learn the technique, I could practice as hard as anyone, be as driven to be perfect as anyone, but it’s not the way art expressed itself in me.

“I loved dancing, loved it. It was fascinating to me, and a glorious challenge. And I loved working hard. I loved being pushed and challenged and yelled at sometimes and hugged other times and told, ‘Look, you can get there, you just need to work really hard on these three things, and you’ll get there.’ I loved it, the toughness of it. And there I was, dancing eight hours a day and doing my academics basically as a hobby, right, and I was—”

I stop, with sudden, senseless tears in my eyes, as I remember the intensity of my loneliness then, my sense of being torn away from a member of my family—a member of my own body. I swallow them back and continue, “I was really missing the math and science I’d been obsessed with in junior high. And what I realized is that it was science that made me feel like me.” We’ve hiked up a big hill now, both of us a little out of breath. I pause and look at Charles. “Does that make any sense?”

Without answering, he waves us over to a fallen log, and we sit side by side at the top of the hill, overlooking the valley and the creek. “What then?”

“Well, I explained to my parents and then to my teachers, which was horrible, but they were all really understanding. Nobody was mean or judgmental—they actually helped me with transferring to Bronx Science. They understood. I mean, more than anything else to be a dancer, you have to want to be a dancer, it has to be your life, your identity, your art, your soul. And it wasn’t my soul, it was only my body. My soul is science. My soul is . . . the biology of the brain.”

We sit there for a few minutes. I close my eyes and let the sunlight warm my eyelids. I inhale the sweet May breeze and listen to it in the trees.

I put my head on Charles’s shoulder and say, “There’s this one student in the ballet class I teach—you’ll see her if you go to the recital, she stands out a mile. She has it. She’s eleven, and she’s an artist. She doesn’t even know that’s not how everyone experiences dancing. She thinks it’s automatic that your personhood just comes out when you move your body. I’ve been encouraging her to get preprofessional training, hooking her up with a school in Indy. They can give her a scholarship. I’ve had a couple of moments of envying her, when I see how her entire being shines when she dances.”

I tilt my head up to face him. “But then I remember, I shine other ways.”

“You do indeed,” Charles says, and he puts his hand in my hair and pulls my face to his. He kisses me there at the top of the hill, in the sunshine and the breeze and the sweet smell of leaf litter. I fist my hands into his shirt and squeak with pleasure.

When he pulls away, I say, “I was afraid you would argue with me about when second base started.”

“I probably would have, if you’d given me a chance.”

“But then again, you proved this morning how little regard you have for the rules,” I grin.

He grins back and stands up and says, “I never touched you. Come on.”

We hike on, and he says, “So then, Indiana?”

“Yep, Indiana. I came here to work with Professor Smith, and I’ve been in her lab every semester but my very first one. And next, eight years of med school and research. It is weird as hell to think I’ll be in school until I’m thirty. But that’s what I get for being just ordinary smart and not a genius, like you.”

“Am I a genius?” he says in surprise.

I stop and look at him. “Are you kidding?”

He just blinks at me.

I roll my eyes. “When we trade off and you tell me your life story, I’ll be sure to point out all the things that prove you’re a genius.”

“Okay, Miss ‘My Soul Is the Biology of the Brain.’” He leads me across the ridge for another half a mile, and then we begin the descent, which switchbacks sharply down the hill.

“Being a nerd is not the same as being a genius,” I correct him.

“Is it the same as being a pedant?” he asks, turning his head to grin back at me.