Chapter Fourteen
4 Years, 0 Weeks, 1 Day
In the entire history of planet Earth, no one has been more of an idiot than I have. Except God, or the big bang, or whatever you wanna call it, because it made this place, and us. Because that was, objectively, a very bad move.
Anyway, God and I are tied for universe’s biggest morons because I did something equally stupid, which was to hurt myself. For years. By keeping a nasty secret inside me.
I thought I was stronger than the traumatic event, which is entirely true except for the part where I forgot to admit it was a traumatic event to begin with, because, as Jemma tells me after I pass out on one of the cots in her office and wake up to birdsong and a Styrofoam cup of coffee she hands me, no matter what happened, or for how long, it still happened. Just because it wasn’t prolonged or penetrative doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape.
He still held me down and masturbated on me.
It was still rape.
Jemma invites me to come in next week to talk some more when she changes my bandage again, and I agree. She’s not a therapist, and she’s not getting paid to do it, but she’s taking a chunk out of her free time to listen to me talk, and I’m grateful. Also, sore and worn out and mentally exhausted from reliving the entire event in one night, but mostly grateful and ready for nine pizzas.
But I walk differently now, like all the space in my body was replaced with helium overnight. My shoulders feel lighter; my head feels lighter. I flip my hair dramatically as a couple walks past and realize I don’t actually harbor the urge to barf on them anymore.
Nameless, though, is a different story.
I duck into the front office and grab a cup of water, the office ladies’ chattering following me out the door.
“Summers? That’s impossible. He’s such a nice-looking man.” One lady sighs.
“Well, one of the students did it,” another lady says. “And we had that harassment complaint against Summers a year ago that the dean refused to listen to, remember? The poor girl dropped out.”
“Do you think it’s true, then?”
“College students do a lot of silly things,” the first lady says. “But they don’t typically write ‘pervert’ in fake blood on doors unless they have a good reason to.”
“If he’s been inappropriate to the female students, so help me, I’ll—”
“Campus security is interviewing his students now, you know…”
The door shuts and their voices cut off, but word of my exploits doesn’t stop. It filters around a few people eating cream puffs on the steps of the culinary science building.
“Ew, blood?” A girl wrinkles her nose.
“It deserved to be written in shit,” a guy scoffs.
“I’ve always thought he was too nice,” another guy says, shaking his head.
“Why does a guy with his looks need to perv on girls? That’s sleazy as hell.” The scoffing guy scoffs again.
I keep walking. A group of frat boys sees Summers crossing the lawn and hoots at him, and he drops his notebooks and scrabbles to pick them up. The snide glances and doubting whispers are proof I’ve turned the school against him. It’s proof I’ve still got the magic, sweet-ass Isis touch that strikes fear into the hearts of evildoing men everywhere—
“Isis!” Kieran runs up to me, a scowl on his face. “I told you not to do anything!”
“Yes, well, orders and I don’t exactly jibe. I mean, we jibe, but it isn’t smooth and it isn’t pretty to look at.”
“They’re going to bust you! They have cameras everywhere on campus!”
My stomach twists unpleasantly, but I shake it off.
“Never fear, they spontaneously combusted because of my hotness.”
“Nothing is spontaneously combusting, and you’re going to get kicked out!”
“Then we must make do with what little time we have.”
“Isis—” I feel his hand on my wrist, jerking me back. I whirl around and plant my feet and clear my throat.
“I know that kiss was nice,” I say. “And we kissed a lot for two people who met each other next to a shirtless guy throwing up on some petunias, and you’re a really nice guy and you look sort of Scottish, which is always a good thing, ladies love kilts, not me specifically but most ‘ladies’ in air quotes, denoting roughly seventy percent of women aged eighteen to thirty-eight, and I know you think you like me as a person, and that you want to date me and that we’d get along well, but here’s me, overturning your hopes and dreams. I don’t wanna date anyone. Or that’s not true, actually, the butthead I want to date just doesn’t want to date me. So. So I was just trying to get over him. And I was using your lips to get over him like a terrible person in a movie would, a villain, but I’ve always been the villain or the dragon and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m a dragon and I burn stuff down and I’m sorry.”
Kieran’s green eyes well with shock, and his grip goes limp. I tear away and leave behind another person I hurt, and I’m sorry for it, but I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I hate walking around with black eyes on my heart all the time.
I march away so hard I don’t even notice when Diana passes me. She squeals, backtracks, and catches up with me.
“Isis! There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for y—”
“Not now, moon goddess, I have boys to confront.”
Diana laughs and slows. “What about the county fair tonight? You said you wanted to go.”
“I’ll be there!” I shout, and push through the door to the boys’ dorm. I take the stairs two at a time and knock hard on his door. There’re three seconds of silence, and then it opens. Jack looks like he’s taken a casual jog through a meat grinder, if said meat grinder ground only the souls of good-looking boys.
“Hello,” I say crisply. “I want you to help me kill Will Cavanaugh.”
Jack’s ice-cold eyes crack a little with surprise as I say Nameless’s full name out loud for the first time in four years. I suddenly remember my priorities.
“Oh, but actually we can put that off for a while. First, I want you to come with me to the county fair tonight, and if Brittany doesn’t want you to, I don’t care. You’re still coming.”
I expect him to refuse or get angry, but his eyes crinkle on the outside—the Jack version of a smile.
“All right.”
“I’m driving.”
“All right.”
“Meet me by the Psychology Building at nine.”
He nods and opens his mouth to say more, but I quickly pivot and walk away. I can’t have any more words with him—not until I’ve practiced what I want to say. Six hours and a flurry of closet-raiding is all that stands between me and figuring that out. Yvette watches with the casual interest of a hurricane observer as I chuck socks and pants and shirts over my shoulder.
“Where were you, though, seriously?” she asks finally. “Diana and I thought—”
“I was talking to a nice lady,” I say. “And she helped me figure some stuff out. Contrary to popular belief, strangers work nicely when divulging your desperately nasty secrets.”
I hold up the pink blouse, and Yvette makes a cooing noise.
“Oooh, that one.”
The Isis of a day ago would have wrinkled her nose and thrown it aside. I should do that even now. But for some reason I pick it up and pull off my shirt, replacing it with the blouse. I test the waters, pivoting in front of the mirror. I wait for the voices, for Nameless’s voice whispering how ugly I am. For once, nothing happens. I can’t hear him when I look at my own reflection. No insults, no sneers, no nothing.
He’s gone.
He’s not gone, because he’s on campus and in my scars and my nightmares, but right now, in this mirror, he’s gone.
The blouse is cool and airy on my skin, the ruffles flickering with my every move. Yvette helps me pick out jean shorts and lends me an old, ratty army surplus jacket that looks balls rad and is perfect for the cool fall weather. Yvette pulls my hair back from my neck and puts it in a ponytail for me.
“You look way hotter like this,” she says.
“I just want people to look at me and think I want to give her a million cash dollars.”
“Why are you so obsessed with money?”
“Because with it you can buy stuff and also things.”
Yvette laughs and shakes her head. “I want to give you maybe a ten. And a dime. A single dime.”
I hold out my hand expectantly and she riffles through her wallet for a single dime. I tuck it into my bra for good luck.
I practice in my head what I want to say, over and over and over and under; through all the possible loopholes of conversation I create counterarguments, quips, and the finest of snarks, but they all drain out of my ears when I see Jack waiting for me near the parking lot. He leans against a peach tree, hair combed but still somehow messy, with dark jeans and a red flannel shirt on. His legs are so long, his shoulders so broad, his face proud and fine like a lion’s. It hits me just then—he’s getting older. I’m getting older. Time isn’t waiting. I spent four years of my time mourning over someone who was never worth it to begin with.
But this boy. This stupid, wonderful boy just might be worth it.
“It’s not a lumberjack carnival,” I say as I approach. He looks at his shirt beneath his leather jacket, then speaks without turning around.
“I just like flannel.”
“You and the entire hipster populace of Seattle,” I say. Jack smirks and follows me to the car. We drive in utter silence, but a not-weird silence, until the carnival tents and the tip of a neon-highlighted roller coaster come into view.
“I’ve got the tickets,” I say as I pull into the parking lot and we get out. “So you have the honorable privilege of buying me all the food I want.”
“All the food you want? Woman, you want the rough equivalent of a third-world country’s monthly intake.”
“Does that make me gluttonous or evil?”
“Both,” he offers, and takes the ticket book I hand him. He pauses under the archway into the carnival, the moonlight making every tree black and every cloud silver. The lights on the Ferris wheel and roller coaster and pharaoh boat beckon, the smell of greasy popcorn and hot dogs mixing with the dry, crisp smell of autumn leaves.
“The last time I came to one of these was with Sophia,” he finally says. My heart turns into a ton of lead and lands like a weight on a cartoon character’s head, except the character’s head is my solar plexus.
“Shit. L-Let’s go,” I say quickly. “We don’t have to do this. I didn’t mean to—”
Jack’s warm fingers encircle my wrist, and he holds me there. It isn’t a rough grip, like Kieran’s. It’s loose. I could rip away if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.
“I want to,” Jack says, voice soft but steely as he meets my eyes. “I want to go to this, with you.”
I melt a little around the edges, but I remember who I am and stick my tongue out and skip under the arch, leading the way.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I make him buy me a sundae and a corn dog and a slushy.
“Milady,” he drawls. “Your appetite is like a horse’s.”
“Your face is like one, so it’s all balanced in the end.”
“We’re in college now. You’re officially banned from doing ‘your face’ jokes.”
“But that’s like, ninety-five percent of my comedy routine!”
“Alas, Horatio.” Jack sighs. “However shall you make a living now?”
“I can’t make a living as a college student!” I protest. “I’m supposed to be broke, and drinking all the time, and doing the nasty like…everywhere. It’s a complicated list of demands.”
“You don’t have to do it like Hollywood says you do. You can just be you.” His eyes soften.
“Sometimes it just…feels like I’m in the wrong place. It feels like I should be doing more with my life by now, you know?”
His hand ruffles my hair, and I look up at him, half shocked. He grins a little, in that barely-an-actual-smile Jack way.
“I know.”
My tongue is blue and it hurts with all the pure sugary goodness of an exploding Peeps factory, and Jack says I’ll die and I tell him my willpower is stronger than diabetes, and he laughs at me but then I laugh at him when we go on the pharaoh and he looks like he’s going to shit himself the higher we get.
“Are you okay?” I shout at his white face. His lips are thin, his fists clenched, but he manages to yell back.
“Oh, I’m just fine.”
“You look less ‘fine’ and more vampire-y! If you’re a vampire you have to tell me before I eat the garlic breadsticks down there!” I point at the breadstick stand.
“I’m fine!” he snaps.
I put my arms up and whoop when we reach the apex, our stomachs lifting out from our abdomens, and he swears brilliantly and throws his arm over my chest as a mock-seat belt even though I don’t need it because I already have the big black one over my lap.
“You’re scared of heights!” I breathlessly exclaim as we get off. Jack wobbles a little and grips the edge of a nearby trash can.
“I am not scared!” he insists, green around the cheeks. “I have a perfectly valid wariness of being suspended fifty feet above the ground in a wildly swinging pendulum.”
“Physics protects us.” I pat his back, rubbing it sympathetically. “The only way we would’ve died is if the center axle went loose. Or if we all weighed eight hundred pounds.”
I pick up a cotton candy from a stand and look at him expectantly to pay. He grumbles, fishing a five from his wallet.
“The way you’re going, you’ll be at eight hundred in no time.”
“And I’ll be equally sexy as I am now.” I sniff haughtily and bite off a chunk of floss. Jack’s smirk returns, and he leans in so close to my face for a second I think he’ll kiss me and everything slows around us, the lights blinking in half time and people’s voices low and distorted, but he takes a bite of the floss and pulls away with it and time catches up. I decide to punish him and start toward the roller coaster. Jack gives a massive groan but follows dutifully.
After he’s stopped almost-hurling into yet another trash can, I take pity on him and wander toward the games alley. Goldfishing, water balloon tossing, shooting ranges, this place has it all. Jack strides after me.
“Hey, slow down,” he says.
“Your request has been carefully considered by the Board of Me, and denied.”
“You really should’ve brought Kieran here,” he presses.
“Why? Don’t like carnivals?”
“No, he’s just—” Jack furrows his brow. “Aren’t you and him…?”
“No. He’s fine, as a friend. But no. Too straightforward. Cute, but too normal. And in the long run, being normal is a huge no-no. Along with, you know, being a serial killer, but normal is like, number two—number one point five-ish.”
I can feel Jack staring at my face, and it makes some deep part of me squirm uncomfortably, so I pick up a shooting gallery rifle and aim it at his forehead. He looks appropriately terrified.
“Wrong way,” he deadpans.
“No, no, this is the right way,” I insist.
“Miss, please, the targets are behind you,” the high school guy running the booth says nervously. I turn and eye him, then the sign, then the huge stuffed panda that’s a prize for all five targets. It’s perfect. It’s Ms. Muffin but huge. Mr. Muffin. I want him.
“Give me some of the bullets you’re sweating,” I say to the booth guy. The guy chokes and airs out his dark armpits.
“Excuse me, miss?”
“Six shots isn’t enough,” I clarify. “Gimme more.”
“Six shots is plenty,” Jack steps in, handing the guy some tickets and taking the rifle from me. “Watch and learn.”
“Oh, this’ll be good, and by good I mean hilarious.” I lean against the booth and watch him position, narrowing one eye. He pulls the trigger, the shot sailing cleanly into the bull’s-eye of the first target and exploding in pink paint. Jack turns to me, quirks a brow in an “I told you so” way, and I scoff.
“So what? You’ve practiced a little with some squirt guns. Big whoop.”
Jack moves on to the next, and lands that, and the third and fourth, each taking just one shot and each perfectly in the center. The booth guy whistles and squints a lot, like he thinks it’s a hallucination, and Jack looks at me before the fifth target.
“Bodyguard school’s been good to you,” I admit. “Or you’re actually a serial killer.”
“I have a talent for hurting things.” Jack perches the rifle on his cocked hip, and it’s so insufferably arrogant I want to shove him into the ball pit next to us and/or furiously make out with him. “But we always knew that, didn’t we?”
He laughs, and it’s despairing and his eyes are a little cold, and I regret ever bringing up the killer comment, but before I can apologize, he positions and aces the fifth target. The booth guy offers him the prizes, and he debates for a half second before settling on the giant panda. Jack turns and hands it to me, and I swallow my gasp.
“What are you—”
“I saw you drooling over it. It’s yours.”
“Nay.” I shove it back in his hands. “Give it to Hemorrhoid. She’s your girlfriend.”
“We were never really dating,” He puts it on my head, the legs flopping into my eyes. “And I told her yesterday I didn’t want to see her anymore.”
I quash the thrill that runs through my veins and assume an appropriately lofty expression.
“Tsk, tsk. It’s almost like you use these women and throw them away like tissues.”
“Historically, most women have used me,” he says darkly. I hug the panda to my chest and try not to dwell on the pain in his voice. He always hid it so well, but now I can hear it clearly. We really are getting old.
“You ever think about that?” I ask, trotting along the games alley in an attempt to keep us moving, keep us light. “That escorting maybe affected you more than you want to admit?”
“I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again, it meant nothing to me, I felt nothing—”
“You felt used,” I interrupt. “You were reluctant, no matter how much you insist it was a mutual business arrangement. And reluctance is not consent. It’s reluctance.”
He’s quiet. I point at the Ferris wheel and smile back at him.
“C’mon. It’s slow, and if you don’t look down it’s almost like you aren’t suspended a million miles in the air.”
The Ferris compartment sways and Jack looks a little queasy, but the lights of the carnival below are too beautiful for even him to ignore. We watch the arcs of pink and green and spots of blue and white flicker on and off as we ascend, the music getting fainter. Our knees are almost touching.
“How is your arm?” Jack asks. I look down at the Band-Aid and shrug.
“I won’t turn into a zombie, so. That’s one good thing.”
“I was worried,” he says tentatively. “Not that I have the right to be worried about you any longer. But I was very concerned and I couldn’t help it. I’m glad to see it’s doing well—that you’re doing well.”
“Am I doing well?” I laugh. “I can’t tell anymore.”
“You look better,” he says. “Something in your face isn’t so sad anymore.”
I look out the window. I burn to tell him what I told Jemma, but it’s not the right time. Telling him what happened would bring Nameless into the Ferris wheel with us, and right now I just want it to be me and him, and no one else.
“If you squint, the carnival kind of looks like a galaxy from up here,” I say. “Minus the cryogeysers.”
Jack smirks. “Oh, I don’t know, the ice cream carts get pretty cold.”
If this were a movie, the Ferris wheel would get stuck or something, or fireworks would go off, but it just pauses at the apex, a short pause, and Jack’s looking at my face again and my stomach feels like it’s shriveling and growing all at once and I should say something, this is the moment I should say something, every movie ever has told me so, but the moment passes, and the Ferris wheel starts going down but I can’t let anything get in my way anymore, especially not a giant LED hamster wheel—
“Isis, you’re talking out—”
“I love you,” I blurt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for saying it, but I love you. And you don’t have to…you don’t have to do anything, or say anything, I mean, I could just drive you home right after this if you never want to talk to me again, I’d understand, because girls saying ‘I love you’ is something you get a lot and you hate it, I bet, but I realized a lot of things lately and the biggest thing is that I probably love you, I’m not sure, but I think so, and it’s not very romantic or confident to not be sure, but I barely even know what love is, I just sort of learned the definition, but I know that what I feel for you fits that, and I want to learn more, and I think you would help me learn, but also I just love you, no weird creepy learning involved, I just love you, you stupid idiot, so if you could just—if you could just love me back, that would be really great, but if you can’t, I mean, I understand, it’s hard, and also I’m hard and not your type and it would be too much work for a broken person, so maybe instead you could just pretend to love me, and not work so hard, and I could be a nice distraction for you, or you could use me for…I don’t know, sex, or keeping your mind off things or getting less broken maybe, and I wouldn’t mind, as long as you pretended—”
Jack leans in and this time, it’s a kiss, and it doesn’t sear my soul or make me woozy like the books say, but I can taste him and smell him and he’s kissing me, me of all girls, and when he pulls away he’s smiling the sort of kind smile I only ever saw him give Sophia, except now it’s on me, all golden and sweet and genuine as he rests his forehead on mine, and that smile is better than fireworks. And maybe I do feel a tiny bit woozy.
“Moron. There would be no pretending,” he says. “Because I love you, too.”
I freeze, trembling, not daring to believe it.
“D-Do…do you mean that?” I whisper. “Do you really, really mean that? Because…because I don’t want to get my hopes up again—I just—I couldn’t take it if they were smashed again, you know? It hurt.”
I laugh, on the verge of tears, and Jack cups my face in his hands, ice eyes locked on mine, clear and bright.
“I love you,” he says. “Ever since that night in the sea room, I’ve wanted to love you. I’ve wanted to take all the hurt away, to hold you and protect you and make you laugh, and smile, and show you what love is. I’ve wanted to show you for so long that you are worthy of being loved for exactly who you are. And I tried to deny that, I tried to convince myself…that I wasn’t good enough, that I would do nothing but hurt you. And I have. And I’m sorry. I was afraid. I was afraid of loving someone as delicate and beautiful and unique as you. I knew I only had one chance, and I was terrified I would make a mess of it, and you’d only become sadder and more convinced you were unlovable. I was afraid of my own shortcomings, and because of that I hurt you.”
I sniff, and Jack thumbs away an escaping tear.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I love you, and I’m so sorry.”
I grip the flannel of his collar and kiss him again and again, and he runs his hands up and down my spine and cups my cheek gently, and I’ve never wanted anything more than for this moment to never stop, but I do want it to stop, because I want more, more than this, I am hungry and empty and I want to be full and the Ferris wheel attendant opens our door when we hit the ground and I pull Jack out and away, laughing, letting the wind dry the happy tears in my eyes as we half run, half stumble back to the car, stopping to kiss against a darts booth and a doughnut stand, the smell of sugar and sweat in our hair, and in the darkness of the parking lot I try to unlock the door as he kisses my neck and I elbow him to stop and he laughs and gets in the passenger side, and the entire ride back to the dorms he tickles the inside of my palm with his fingers.
“This might ruin everything! We might not be able to be friends after this in the conceivable history of forever. There’s still time,” Isis says as we get out of her car and she locks it. I double around and reach for her hand. She squeezes it, blushing brightly. “We can just be friends, still. Or enemies. We can go back to the way things were.”
My chest swells, and before I can stop myself I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her toward me, kissing her hard. Her shock melts to eagerness, breath sweet and shallow and distinctly her against my mouth, and I pull back.
“I want you, Isis. Not as a friend. Not as an enemy. But as the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”
There’s a pause, a suspended thread twisting in the wind. And then she smiles.
She half pulls, half drags me, the both of us laughing when I nearly run into a glass door of her dorm. She fiddles with her keys and the door swings open; her roommate, she says, is sleeping over at someone else’s dorm. The thought of having her all to myself, in a closed room with a soft bed, sends ripples of hot anticipation down my spine. She kisses me again, kicking off her shoes as I kick off mine, pulling me toward the messy paisley-spread bed. She is a fire that burns brighter, scorching every thought from my brain. Her fingers run over my chest, and I shrug off my jacket to give her better access, to feel her more keenly. I bite at her lip, and she bites back, a spark of almost-pain nudging me that much closer to the sweet edge. Her hands are insistent, roaming over my shoulders, my back, sliding lower to my navel—
“Isis—” I grab her hands and look her in the eyes. “Listen to me. I can’t…I can’t give you all of what you want. I’m just starting to rebuild myself. So. This is your last chance. You should find someone who isn’t so broken.”
She frowns and leans into my chest, murmuring.
“That sounds so boring.”
“I’m serious, Isis, you deserve better—”
“And so am I!” She looks up, eyes flaring and bottom lip set stubbornly. “I don’t care about what you can or can’t give me. I just want you. Even if you’re broken. Nobody else. Just Jack.”
The sudden surge of excitement to my heart at her words is nigh painful. I crumble like a dry sand castle against her wave, edging her down onto the bed with hasty force. I freeze and sit up, afraid she’ll be angry, or frightened and shaking, but she laughs and holds her arms out instead.
“C’mon, butthead.”
Her hair’s splayed out against the pillows and her blouse is hiked up, showing a bare wisp of her creamy hip bone. With soft slowness, I lean down and kiss her exposed hip, nudging the blouse higher with my nose and kissing upward. She giggles, but it quickly turns to pleased mewls as I reach the edge of her bra. I pull up and look her in the eyes, tugging at it.
“This comes off.”
She quirks a brow and sits up, grabbing the hem of my shirt. “So does this. Only fair.”
I pull it off in one swift movement and watch her eyes light up as she takes me in. She rests her lips against my skin, kissing each contour and indent of muscle, and when she reaches the lowest part of me I can’t suppress my audible breath hitch.
“Isis—”
She buries her nose in my skin and sniffs. “You smell good, like honey.”
I growl and push her gently back on the pillows. “And you”—I inhale her wrist, her hair, between her breasts, which earns me a squeal and a bop on the head—“you smell like summer and cinnamon. I could eat you. I will eat you,” I add. Isis flushes.
“I-If I had known you were into cannibalism, I would n-not have agreed to this in the first place.”
“Too late.” I smirk, licking her neck. “You’re mine now. Bon appétit.”
Isis gives a little sigh, tensing her shoulder when she gets too ticklish. We laugh, and I pull her blouse off, slowly, tentatively. She can’t look at me, eyes darting this way and that to avoid my gaze as I take her in.
“May I?” I ask. She nods, lip set stubbornly again. I run my fingers over her stomach, milk-smooth and soft, with paler lines running vertically around her belly button.
“They’re gross,” she says. “Stretch marks. Sorry.”
I lean in and kiss them, each one, kiss up to her wrist burn scars, kiss every scar I can see, and she gives a soft cry, arms suddenly darting out to pull me up and kiss me fiercely, needy and hot and more eager than ever before, and then she’s on top of me, kissing my collarbone and my neck, my arms, my chest, and down to my navel again in a whirlwind of soft lips and warm breath.
“Isis, you—”
“Shhhush up,” she says quickly, unbuttoning my jeans with alarming ferocity and yanking them down to my ankles. She smirks at my black boxers, then looks up at me.
“That is entirely your doing,” I offer. She just hums happily and rubs her hand down me in response. And I dissolve. I’ve imagined this, over and over, but nothing can compare to the real thing, to the real Isis, smirking and flushed and half naked. It’s all my dirty fantasies come to life, all the aching need for her touch culminating in one moment.
But no. This is not how our first time should go. I flip us over, and she squeals, a pout on her lips. I kiss it away between murmurs.
“There will be…plenty of time…for you to tease me,” I say, one long kiss for each pause. “But tonight…this is about you…and what I can do for you.”
“You can lie down and let me figure out what this dick fuss is all about,” she huffs.
“Like I said, there’ll be time for that. But right now I want to make you comfortable. And then make you scream. In that order.”
She squeaks and hides her face behind her hands. “Don’t say stupid shit like that, idiot.”
I smirk and unclasp her bra, inching it aside.
“H-Hey!” she protests, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t look!”
“You got to see mine,” I lament.
“That’s because yours are small and pathetic.”
“It’s true.” I glance my lips across the thin skin above her chest, tracing her veins. “Compared to what you’re hiding under your arms, mine are very underwhelming.”
“And floppy,” she adds, more out of spite than anything. I’m very toned.
“And floppy,” I agree. She relaxes slowly, so slowly, and finally her hard edge evaporates, a blush replacing it as she hastily puts her forearms over her eyes.
“Fine. Look.”
The ordinary person would overlook her considerable assets, because that’s exactly what she wanted them to do. Her clothes were always a little loose, one size too big on purpose. But I’d caught enough glimpses to guess at the truth, and now I confirm it. Soft-looking, round, and perfectly teardrop-shaped, with the right breast barely noticeably larger than the left. They quiver, and it’s then I realize she’s shaking.
“Hey,” I say. “Isis, what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. “They’re weird.”
“Look at me, Isis.”
She peeks over her arms.
“Can we agree that I’ve seen many breasts in my life?” I ask. She frowns and sighs.
“I know, I get it. They’re really weird compared to the hundreds of other perfect ones you’ve seen—”
“They are beautiful.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not.” I lean down and kiss the swell of one. “They are the most adorable I’ve ever seen. And they’re turning me on. Your whole body has me on point. But I’m sure you know that.”
I smirk, and she squirms pointedly, her fingers scrabbling for her jean shorts. I undo the top button for her, and then she stops me.
“Um. Wrap your willy. Um. Before you get silly.”
I chuckle before turning and rummaging through my discarded jacket. I pull a condom from my pocket.
“I always carry one with me,” I say. “Habit.”
She frowns, no doubt displeased at the thought of the others who helped form that habit. I lean in and kiss her neck, moving to her ear and murmuring.
“Oh, don’t give me that face. For months now you’re the only one I’ve thought about using it with. You’re the only one. God, Isis, you’re the only one I’ve wanted for so long—”
She cuts me off and kisses me, her tongue darting out and mine eager to meet it. I pull back, fingers dancing down her tensing and relaxing stomach. She helps me pull off her jean shorts, and when she throws them they land on her computer, and we both laugh. I pause at the hem of her underwear—white with a green ribbon—and look up. She isn’t shaking, which is a positive. She isn’t rigid or tense.
“If you ever feel uncomfortable, let me know.”
“Okay.” She swallows.
“I mean it. If you don’t want to do this anymore, at any time, tell me. And I’ll stop.”
She nods, and I sigh and lean in, putting my forehead against hers.
“Please, Isis. Promise me. Promise me you’ll communicate with me. I can see the visual clues, but I’m not a psychic.”
“I know.” She sighs. “Sorry. Okay. Okay.” She takes a deep breath, hard determination in her eyes. “I promise. Now shut up and kiss me and take off those dumb boxers.”
And he does, but he ignores what comes out of it, preferring to pay attention to me.
“Are you okay?” He looks up, panicked.
“Do that again,” I demand.
And he does, over and over until my arms are coiled around him and my thighs are practically crushing him, and his fingers are different, they’re longer and more slender and can reach all the places I never could, all the places that make me pant and twist and finally, finally, explode soundlessly.
“H-Hey, dumbo.”
He sits up. “What is it?”
“What about you?”
“That’s a very dangerous game you’re playing.”
His hiss spikes. The ice of his eyes is all but spring water now, soft and pleasure-hazed. He throws his head back, and I kiss his exposed throat, and suddenly I’m down on the pillows again, his hands on my shoulders and his bangs shading his eyes. He licks down my neck to my breasts, and I arch. Faintly, I hear the crinkle of plastic and a sudden pressure, and I should be afraid or hurting more, my brain and my past tell me this should hurt and be terrifying, but I feel safe as he slides in easily with slow, careful movements.
I’m full, and a little uncomfortable, but it’s fading and I don’t want to tell him just yet. Not when his expression is as achingly satisfied as that. His groan is hoarse, and he dusts my neck in kisses.
“I-I’m sorry. Are you all right? I should’ve asked, I should have warned you—”
“It’s okay,” I insist. “Really. Didn’t hurt at all.”
He looks doubtful, and I smile.
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Promise?” he asks.
“Promise,” I say. “Just…maybe don’t move all that much. For a while. It’s kind of new territory.”
“‘Virgin territory’ is the term I believe you’re looking for.” He smirks. I punch him with my pinkie. We stay like that, him breathing and me breathing and me getting used to the feeling of someone else. Finally, the pressure lessens.
I feel him, for the first real time, and moan.
“Jack, ah—”
“Say it again.”
“Jack.” I curl around him, my legs moving higher of their own accord, linking around his back.
“Oh hell.” He groans into my shoulder. “I missed you. I missed you, Isis. It feels so fucking good to hear you say my name.”
I say it many, many more times. Loudly and involuntarily.