Chapter 41 Double Quasars Colliding
We spend the rest of the day shopping, feeding each other ice cream, trying to avoid the paparazzi and failing. They don’t know that the flower in my hair is one Issac tucked there after our visit to the botanical garden. They don’t know that when he glances at it now, we both blush at a memory made, that there’s an increased buzz between us, a secret we share, something brave we did together that we may not ever get to do again. We stop caring when they snap pictures of us. I kiss Issac, he kisses me, we let them see whatever they see.
Night comes fast and Issac’s excited about my planetarium idea. Neither of us has ever gone before. When we pull up, we don’t get out of the car right away because there’s a box of teriyaki fried chicken to finish off. Issac doesn’t mention his beautiful white seats or ask me not to stain anything. I lick sauce off his fingers. He tells me I’m being gross, but he likes it.
Inside the planetarium, we find seats under the massive dome-shaped ceiling and watch celestial objects move, twist, and tangle, blink all around us. Issac finds my hand and laces our fingers to show the way we fit under the stars. There’s an achy, knowing feeling in the base of my throat about how small we are in a beautiful way, the same as when we’re by the water together. Two star-shaped souls who happened to be in the right place at the right time, to find friendship in each other among billions of other souls.
Issac smiles at me in the dark, eyes glinting the way they did when we were kids searching for fireflies in moonlight. I grasp my seat with my free hand, breathe through the overwhelming feeling spreading through my chest. When I stepped onto the plane to surprise him, I couldn’t have imagined we would end up like this.
“You alright, Ni?” he asks.
“Yes, I say,” and for some reason, I think of my father, what he might’ve done feeling a million things for my mother in a room like this. Then suddenly, I’m standing in front of Issac and extending my hand. “Will you dance with me, best friend?”
He doesn’t glance around the packed observatory to see who’s watching when we descend the stairs for a corner of flat space in the room. He laughs when I try to spin him, failing because he’s too tall. I pull him close, and we dance under the solar system to imaginary music.
“Sing something for me,” I ask.
He chooses Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer,” and I smile when he scrunches his face and drags the notes. It’s funny until his voice softens and the words hit. I lean my forehead against his chest so he can’t see all the feelings on my face. My eyes will tell him I never want this dance to end, but it will. With it, my flight home will be closer, the new deal will soon be over. Once it is, what will we have left? If either of us decides friendship is all we can handle, will we ever get to dance like this?
Issac tilts my chin, as if realizing my mind is running. I wonder if he can see the sheen of tears in my eyes under the glowing lights. I wonder if he can feel the fear in my heart when he bends to brush his lips over mine.
Since arriving back at the condo, there’s something different and unspoken between us, something tender. Raw. A fraying thread we’re careful not to break. Questions we’re not ready to ask. I pack my bag for my early flight, then find Issac out on the balcony. The sky is dark but he’s still searching for stars. I debate backing out quietly, worried he wants to be alone, but he senses me behind him and says, “Come be with me, Ni.”
Issac’s arm grazes mine as we stand on the balcony, looking at the water in the pool below. When he sighs, my anxious brain begins creating scenarios. I wonder if I acted too intimately at the planetarium and it stirred up fear inside of him. Maybe I won’t have to be the one to tell him I’m scared of what it’ll mean if we decide one weekend is too little time to spend dancing together.
“I feel selfish for saying this,” Issac says, “but sometimes I find myself wishing you moved across the country with me. My heart wants you to stay. But you can’t, and I should keep my mouth shut about things like this because the last time I told you I wanted you here, you flew out to surprise me. I’m so damn happy you did, but…”
The coil in my stomach starts to unravel. Three years of distance feels like none. I smile and know he’ll be able to hear it in my voice when I say, “You’re not selfish. Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if I packed my bags and followed you here.” It’s the truth but my heart is thrumming when I admit it out loud. Especially since so much has changed since then.
Issac turns, cups my face, and stares down into my eyes. He opens his mouth, and my chest tightens, waiting for him to speak. But then, he exhales and leans in to press his lips to mine. The magnet between us causes a collision. We are two host galaxies merging to form one massive blackhole full of unknown. His hands roam my backside while I catalog every touch, every taste, greedy in the hope that I can collect every feeling, so that reaching for memories in the future will send my body back here too. I search him with hungry want, burning need, finally finding his boxers and pushing them down before my knees join them on the floor.
“Laniah, no…” He reaches for me, but I push his hand away.
“Shh…let me take care of you too.” I move his hand to my hair, silently giving him permission to pull and push and do what he wants with me.
When I brush the veins on his shaft with my thumb, he shudders out a shaky breath. I smile in response, loving the feel of him tangling his fingers in my hair for a better grip. When I move my lips against his sensitive skin, lick the tip of his head, work my way down the pronounced line of his dick, he curses again and again.
His hisses and moans feed a deep desire in my belly, make me soaked between the thighs, wetter realizing I’m causing him such pleasure. He uses one hand to steady himself with the railing, then thrusts his hips to push deeper into my mouth, unable to contain his need. He cries out, calls me baby. His baby. God, baby, God damn, Dear Lord, oh my fucking…baby.
When he finishes with a ragged breath, I kiss the inside of his thigh.
He pulls me to my feet, tastes my tongue, murmurs sweet things against my hair, uses his hand to feel how wet I am. At the ready look in my eyes, he turns me around so that I’m gripping the edge of the balcony, then spreads me open and slides inside. My breasts bounce in his hands, and I’m dizzy with the pleasure and pain each time he strokes.
I think he could send me over the edge in this position, but suddenly he pulls out and leads me to the bed. We toss the blanket aside, and I lay him on the sheets, then slide down on his dick, listening as he breathes through his teeth. He reaches for a kiss. Then: “Come here,” he says against my lips. “I want you closer. I know you want to be closer too.” He helps ease me down so I’m lying flat against him. I didn’t have to tell him this is one of the best ways for me to climax. “How are you so perfect?” he says, kissing my neck, moaning through my slow movements.
I become all heartbeat and nerve endings while grinding him. He peppers kisses over my areolas, and wherever his skin touches mine feels like a live wire, small sparks of pleasure and pinpricks. The friction between us, the penetration, the way he grasps my ass and moves his own hips, how he allows me my pleasure without complaint of the way he’s curved inside of me. Perfect. Issac is perfect. I’m comfortable, safe in my need for this position, soaring because he likes it too. When I feel my orgasm swell to the surface, Issac starts calling my name, close to coming too. I moan into nothingness. Words are lost to the feeling of him getting harder inside of me. Everything is heightened. Issac touches my arm and gives me goose bumps.
“Talk to me, baby,” he begs. “Please.”
“It feels so damn good,” I manage, but that just makes him wince. I pray for my body to reach its climax, then pray it holds off because I don’t want this feeling to end. He stops moving to save himself, just lets me rub my clit against him until the pressure builds. Until it hurts. Until I start to cum with his name on my lips, but as soon as the release hits, Issac starts moving again, faster, pulling me closer. He pushes me past a point, bringing me somewhere higher, and the orgasm I have this time is like nothing I’ve experienced. My toes curl, my body convulses. He cums with me, then holds me while I tremble, pushing hair from my face and kissing my temple.
We lie there for a few moments, breathing heavily, happy, and when I roll off him, he’s quick to complain. “I liked you there.”
“I don’t want to hurt you longer than I had to,” I say, throwing my leg over his.
“You weren’t hurting me at all. I loved every second.”
I kiss his face, his chin, his eyebrow. “Mm…you’re the perfect one,” I tell him.
He looks like he has something serious to say, that same look out on the balcony before he told me he wished I lived here, but then he kisses me. “You should get some sleep. Your flight is in a few hours.”
I want to argue. Tell him we can spend the rest of our time laughing in each other’s arms, or watching movies; we could definitely eat. The sex made me hungry again. But I’m exhausted down to the bones too. I lie that I’m not tired before sleep finds me.