Anson
I crumble, I fall, there’s no going back. She won’t remember. She won’t be clingy. She won’t want it to happen again, but I will to all of those.
I love her.
Am in love with her.
I clutch at the blankets that cover me to still the shaking of my hands. How am I supposed to please her if I can’t keep my finger still or my breathing even? She’ll know. She’ll know that I really want her. That she didn’t have to convince me. I cannot let her have that leverage over me. She and I aren’t meant to be, never were and never will be.
If I let her love me, if I love her the way that I want to, publicly and forever I’d never be able to leave her and I have to. I’m no good for her, my dream would take me on the road for endless days. I wouldn’t be able to just pick up a phone and her dream leaves her here. Settling for this town and herself. I would hold her back, hold her down.
My dreams would drown her.
Her dreams would suffocate me.
We’re oil and water and everything in between that doesn’t mix. Our future would be toxic and it would ruin us. We wouldn’t have this friendship, we wouldn’t even know one another anymore because we’d poison each other.
I can’t do that to her and I won’t let myself.
I can give her this though. One night to show her how I feel, even if I fumble, she’ll get the meaning.
“Ready?” Lyrik asks me.
“Yes,” my voice shakes.
She came waltzing into my room as she does every single night, in an old faded tee-shirt and flannel pajamas. I wear the same sweatpants that I do most nights too. Every other day I laugh at those pajamas she wears, but not tonight.
Tonight, they’re sexy because they’re just her. She’s faded and worn by the life that she’s lived yet comfortable and beautiful and my favorite like they are for her. Instead of joining me in the bed right away she pulls out a condom and places it on my nightstand beside me. She slowly pulls her shirt off over her head and pushes her pants down letting them to fall on the floor where they drop. She steps out of them leaving her in a basic black and white sport bra and navy blue boy shorts panties and on her they’re easily the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Yes, they beat out good old Victoria’s Secret.
Because it’s her.
It wouldn’t be the same if she were wearing a hot pink push up bra and matching thong. It wouldn’t be the same if she did a striptease and danced before removing her clothes. It wouldn’t be the same if she seduced me with teasing words because none of those would be her. They wouldn’t be real. Only a fantasy.
And I wanted the real thing.
I wanted her, all of her.
I pull the blankets down for her beside me. I don’t even have to speak, she knows what I’m saying because this is us.
This is our friendship or relationship, whatever you want to call it. It’s her and me.
Me and her. We speak without words, we converse with our eyes.
She slides in next to me and covers herself fully, facing toward me I can feel that she’s shaking too.
I roll over to my side so that our bodies face one another. I hold my head up in my hand, she follows suit. I don’t want this to be rushed. I want this to be slow and special.
I want this to mean something.
To her.
I want this to be the best first time that anyone could have. I don’t want her to have regrets. I want her to look back on this with fondness and admiration that I wasn’t a lousy first timer. I don’t want her to think she would have been better off choosing someone else.
I want to be worthy of being her first.
She’s already it for me.
I reach my hand out under the blankets, I wish the lights were on so I could see her entire body without shadows. I didn’t want black, white and grey hues. I wanted peach skin littered with freckles. I wanted soft brown eyes watching me back, inspecting me too. I wanted her to see the love that I felt not just feel it. I wanted to watch her lose herself with me.
I wanted her to see me lose myself, for her.
I glide my fingertips along her rib cage, I can feel the goosebumps producing in the wake of my touch. I slide my leg in between hers, needing us to be closer and I slowly inch my face near hers.
She gasps.