Eighteen
I tell myself that there is no way on earth Mabel is correct about this.
And everything that then happens only backs me up. I sit next to him on the couch to watch some macho movie Doug put on. And when I do, my hand brushes his leg. Just a little – but he actually flinches away from me.
Which is good in one way, because Doug says: ‘Ooooh, trouble in paradise, huh.’ And if we’re building toward a phony divorce, that’s what we need. But in any other way, it’s terrible. Because of course I don’t want him to feel this dreadful over a slight touch. It’s breaking my supposedly dead heart to see him nervy and distant and not his usual cheery self.
So much so, in fact, that I go to whisper to him through the darkness, just as the movie gets super loud. I lean in and put my lips close to his ear and I get the start out. ‘Beck,’ I say. But I don’t get any further than that. He jumps right out of his seat almost the second I speak his name.
‘Okay, I gotta hit the hay, real tired, need a whole heck of a lot of shut-eye, big day tomorrow,’ he blurts out. Then I turn just in time to see him dashing up the stairs about three at a time. He’s gone before I can even call after him.
Though I don’t know if I would, anyway.
Doug is looking at me very curiously. And that means I have to sit there like nothing weird just happened, worrying and stewing and watching this ridiculous movie. Listening to Doug’s inane comments, while upstairs my phony husband is probably getting even more unshaven and dishevelled.
By the time I get to reasonably excuse myself, all I can think about is how bad this is going to be. And it’s no comfort when I get into our bedroom, and I find him asleep. Sleep just seems like he’s trying to avoid talking to me. Like he might even be faking it – and oh, fuck, that is awful.
I get changed in the bathroom with my guts churning. And they’re still doing it when I emerge, in three layers of clothes. I’ve got on a pair of pyjamas, a jumper, and a robe, and even that many things doesn’t seem like enough. I still have to creep into bed like someone trying to steal the crown jewels.
If the crown jewels were shaped like his hot body.
And once I’m in there, perched so close to the edge I can feel the line of the mattress digging into my ass, it takes me ages to get to sleep. He stirs and I tense up, wondering if he’s going to move closer to me. His breathing quickens, and I think god, he’s awake . Then I finally, finally manage, I drift into a fitful doze, only to get woken barely half an hour later by the most awful sound groaning out of him.
I swear, it sounds like he’s been stabbed. I come very close to frantically reaching for him and begging for forgiveness, for the gut wound I obviously gave him. In fact it takes me a good minute to calm down, and breathe, and remember that there is no wound at all. That I have to fix this more normally, with maybe a gentle question.
‘Beck, oh my god, what’s going on?’ I whisper.
And in response, I feel him go very still.
Tense, it seems like. ‘Nothing,’ he says.
But his voice wavers in the middle. And after he’s squeezed that word out, he makes a noise I’m more familiar with. This kind of frustrated, that-made-me-queasy-and-I-am-trying-not-to-be noise. ‘You’re lying though,’ I say, and I know he goes to try it again.
He starts some lie, and gets foiled by his own guts.
‘Gosh darn it,’ he mutters, under his breath.
Though he still doesn’t give me any answers. He just lies there with his back to me, breathing in so shaky a way that it tells me all I need to know. He had a terrible dream, most likely about this whole situation, and now he’s all fucked up. And so much so that when I reach for him, and try to get him to turn over, he actually jerks away from me.
‘No, I can’t do that right now,’ he says, so frantic and loud that it makes me whip my hands back. I clench them into fists, just to make sure I don’t ever touch him again. And then I plunge on into this trial for the crime I’ve obviously committed.
‘Look, I know that I’ve done something to you—’ I confess.
Much to his very obvious outrage.
‘You’ve done something to me? Hazy, I was the one who grabbed you.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, but. But you didn’t mean to do that. It was an accident.’
‘And what are you saying you did that wasn’t accidental?’
I glance at him through the darkness, but can’t see anything aside from his broad, tense back. I have to just imagine those big expressive eyebrows giving baffled. Before I do my best to reply in a way that sounds normal.
‘Kissing you really rudely.’
‘That’s not a bad thing.’
‘It must be. You won’t even turn around.’
Silence, then. One in which I feel certain he’s trying to come up with a lie that won’t induce nausea. But I know the exact moment he fails, and is forced to give in to the truth – I feel him sag, and a sigh comes out of him, and I’m pretty sure that’s his hand reaching up to swipe over his weary face.
About ten seconds before he answers.
‘Hazel, I’m not refusing to turn around because I’m disturbed by your very lovely kisses. I’m refusing to turn around because I just dreamed some incredibly inappropriate things about you, and they made me react in a way that is going to be super visible to you if I do,’ he says.
And now it’s me who doesn’t know how to speak.
I open my mouth to do it, and nothing comes out.
It takes me about thirty seconds to even guess.
‘And by that you mean you’re hard.’
‘I wish that was all I was. I could probably hide that.’
‘So it’s worse then. You are in a worse state than aroused.’
I laugh when I say it. Like that’s the most ridiculous idea ever.
But he doesn’t even hesitate now.
‘ Much worse. I dare not even tell you how bad it is.’
‘But maybe I want to know. Maybe I’ll like knowing.’
‘Nobody likes knowing that someone has just done this all over himself.’
I see him gesture, and know what the gesture is. I see where he’s swirling that hand. I get what it means. Yet somehow, I still can’t quite bring myself to believe it. The very idea makes this howling void open up between my ears.
It takes me an age to venture my best guess.
‘Does done this mean come?’ I ask, tentatively.
But even tentative is too much.
‘Oh Lord, don’t say that word,’ he groans.
Then he shoves his face into his pillow, for good measure. While I just lie there, all electrified by the idea in a way I really do not want to be. I don’t want to ache like this over the thought of him having a wet dream, like I did. Like some horny teenager, completely unable to control himself. It feels completely terrible to – and especially when I’m still apparently messing him up. ‘Because me being specific and explicit is disgusting to you,’ I venture, but god, the frustrated sound he makes in response.
‘Hazy, no, it’s not disgusting. Nothing you do is disgusting.’
‘But it must be something you don’t like. Something bad.’
‘Yeah, it’s called making me need to do it again.’
‘And by that you mean—’
He spreads his hands before I can finish. I see them, even through the darkness.
Which means there’s no getting around it. Or getting around the other things that immediately impress themselves on me, really strongly. ‘So one rude word from me makes you hard. Even right after you’ve just had an orgasm. Like, not even five minutes later and you’re ready to go a second time. No big deal, that’s not abnormal to you,’ I say, and expect him to laugh.
Of course not, he’ll tell me.
Then I get his actual, completely matter-of-fact answer.
‘Three times, one after the other, isn’t abnormal to me,’ he says.
After which, I kind of have to put my face in my hands. Because it’s one thing to know that he’s horny enough to come in his sleep over a weird situation. But kind of another to have it impressed upon me that he might just generally be a rampantly horny person, who can apparently go all night.
Now I’m picturing him spending hours on some random Saturday, making himself come. And that’s a lot on top of every other unfolding revelation. ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay. Okay. Okay,’ I babble, between my fingers.
Then I hear him shift. I know he’s trying to turn to me.
‘Hazy, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said,’ he says.
Because he’s bonkers, quite clearly. ‘Never mind saying, Beck. That’s something you need to put up on a billboard. Surrounded by neon lights. With a number to call so people can reach you for a real good time.’
‘But that sounds like you like the idea of me being that way. That it—’
‘Excites me? It does. All of this does.’
‘Even the wet dream part?’
God, he sounds so incredulous.
Even though I almost moan to hear him actually say it. He’s probably all coated in come , I find myself thinking. But thankfully manage to be less perverted in my words. ‘Dude, I’m just laid here desperate for you to describe it to me.’
‘But it was awful. It was something you should never think about your sweet lady friend,’ he says, while I try not to put my hand under the waistband of my pyjamas over the idea of how slick and sticky he must be.
‘I think we’ve established that I’m not sweet, Beck.’
‘But you are my buddy. And I want you to stay that way. I don’t want to lose you because I can’t cope with kissing a beautiful woman and lying next to them night after night and seeing things we both know I saw.’ He swallows thickly, and I can tell it took him some effort to get that out. To admit that he caught that glimpse. And to get out the rest, too. ‘I didn’t mean to see them but I did and now, no matter how much I block them out while awake, they’re there when I sleep. In fact, I think blocking them while awake makes the sleeping part worse.’
So now I’ve got to deal with him being turned on by my breasts.
While attempting to reassure him. ‘Beck, I promise you. You’re not going to lose me over thinking about my bare tits. It’s cool with me that you do. And doubly so if you’re desperately trying to not think about my bare tits, to the point where it’s making you dream about them,’ I say.
But it doesn’t help. He just groans, even more hotly than he did before.
‘Lord, don’t give me permission. Or say bare . Or that other word.’
‘But now I know you like it when I do. Don’t you?’
He pauses, just long enough to look over his shoulder at me. Like he can’t believe I’m serious. Then when he sees I am, he shakes his head. ‘Yes. Of course I do. I don’t even know how you can’t know.’
‘Because it looks like you’re coming apart at the seams, Beck.’
‘I am coming apart at the seams. But not because you’ve done anything wrong. Because I feel like I’m doing something wrong, whenever I get worked up over things I shouldn’t. Like the way those pouty lips of yours look when you turn your face up for a kiss you don’t mean. Or how warm and soft and good you feel in my arms every time I have to hold you. Or what that mouth of yours does to mine, god, I was not prepared for what your mouth does to mine. I thought kissing would be easy to cope with, and instead you make it all hot and wet and ohhhh, when you stroke your tongue into me, oh, that feels so—’
Hot, I finish for him in my head.
And astonishingly, that doesn’t even feel wrong . He’s into this, he’s into all of it, Mabel was right. Or at least, she was partly right. I mean, at least some of his reaction has to be simple inexperience. He’s not used to it – which means I have to tread lightly. To just reassure him, and let him decide what happens next. ‘Well, you should know I don’t feel like that’s wrong at all.’
‘You might if it gets any worse. And it definitely will, because usually when I feel something like this I can just see to things. I can get home and put on some eighties movie soundtrack full of saxophones and light some candles, and three hours later the problem is solved. But here, well. There’s just nothing I can do to alleviate the issue at all.’
‘Because I’m with you all the time.’
‘Right. And even when you’re not, someone else is. Plus the walls—’
‘I know, I know,’ I finish for him. ‘They are so ridiculously thin. I swear, I heard Doug fart the other night.’
‘I mean, he farts loudly. But even so, yeah. It’s bad. And doubly so when you’re as loud as I just cannot seem to help being. I’ve tried over the years, god knows I’ve tried. But I just can’t seem to go about it quietly.’
‘And by that you mean you go hard at yourself.’
‘Enthusiastic would probably be the word I would use.’
‘So the enthusiasm makes a lot of noise.’
‘Well, I tend to get pretty—’
He cuts himself off before he can finish that thought.
But I can’t let that stand now. I’m practically on the edge of my seat for the next instalment in he is actually into this and also can apparently go all night and likes listening to sexy music while he masturbates.
‘What?’ I ask.
Breathlessly, too.
But he still seems to tense up.
‘It’s embarrassing.’
‘Nothing can be more so than both of us getting riled up over something perfectly natural, and being too afraid of what the other person thought to say anything about it. So just don’t worry about it, okay. Just take it like I want to hear it, and I like to hear it, and I don’t care what you say.’
That gets him, I can tell. He makes a little noise of what sounds like shock or maybe even delight, over the words riled up , and then again over the words like to hear it . Though he still takes a second to reply. And when he finally does, it’s all in a rush. ‘Okay. Okay. When I’m this worked up I get very... you know. Slick ,’ he says, then I practically feel him wince.
I don’t know why, however.
‘ Ohhhhh, that is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’
‘It is? But that sounds so gross. Like, I’m just so... messy.’
‘I like messy. I love messy. Tell me more about the mess you make.’
‘Well, obviously, when I – there is usually a lot of—’ he tries. But it’s all right that he can’t get it out. In fact, I think I like that he can’t. There’s something exciting about him being so secretly filthy, underneath all these layers of politeness.
And getting to peel them back for him.
‘You do a big, thick load all over yourself, huh,’ I say.
Then get to hear him gasp, in this clearly aroused sort of way.
‘Oh my stars, Haze.’
‘Was that too much?’
‘I want more, honestly.’
‘Me, too. Me, too. Tell me more.’
‘You want further details about how loud I am,’ he says, like he can’t believe it. Even though I know how I sound now. Greedy. Desperate. Ready to ransack him for every single specific about how horny he actually is.
‘If there are details. There are, aren’t there? You moan, too.’
‘More than just moaning. Way more.’
‘So you grunt, and gasp, and get all breathless.’
‘And I say things. Lots of things. They just kind of spill out of me.’
Fuck, I think. Then have to physically stop myself from squirming over something he hasn’t even described. To wait, until I hear what exactly I’m dealing with here. ‘Oh my god. What sort of things? Like, dirty things?’
‘Too dirty to say in the presence of a lady.’
‘Even if this lady just made her panties all wet, simply by thinking about that,’ I say, before I can stop myself. As if this combination of his revelations about wanting it and his confession about his own horniness and his continuing dedication to politeness are just dropping all the guardrails around my mouth.
I find myself wanting to shock him, now that I know he’s okay with being shocked. Though I don’t expect the results to be so compelling. He groans, all low and deep. And I feel him move on the bed, in this very specific way.
This rubbing-himself-against-something sort of way.
‘You didn’t. I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to be nice,’ he chokes out, as he rolls those hips all lewd and good. God, it’s so good. I can almost imagine him between my legs, big and solid and heavy, rutting into me like that.
So of course I go further.
‘I can prove it, if you want. All I have to do is slip my hand between my legs, and get my fingers all messy, and then simply—’ I say, and as I do I go to do just that. I slide the waistband of my pyjamas up, and ease my fingers underneath.
And I know he can hear it. He holds his breath.
Starts to turn like he can’t help it, like he just has to see.
But then he seems to realize.
‘No, wait, stop,’ he blurts out, loud enough that I do.
‘Sorry. Sorry, that was too much. That was too far.’
‘No, Haze. It wasn’t. That wasn’t it, you just—’
‘I disturbed you.’
‘You didn’t. I just don’t want to beg you to do that if you don’t mean it.’
He rushes out those last words – like he has to really force himself to say them. But it doesn’t worry me, because of the tone of his voice when he does. It shifts, from the light, cheery thing I’m used to, to something else. Something deep and dark and close to a growl, in a way that makes me moan.
And talk.
‘Oh god, Beck, I mean it so much. My whole body is just aching for a fuck. It has been for days and days – and you’re right, it just makes it so much worse when there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve thought more than once of going down to the car and doing myself in the back seat, when I’ve been too turned on to take it. And the other night – I think I came in my sleep, too,’ I say, hesitating for only a second, before I correct myself. ‘In fact, I know I did.’
‘Right. Right. But maybe that’s just because you’re used to lots of great sex.’
‘I’m not used to lots of great sex. I’m used to lots of mediocre sex, at best.’
‘So then what is it about this that does that to you?’ he asks. Genuinely bemused, I think. So of course I have to answer him. Even though the answer is like trying to walk a tightrope over twenty thousand land mines.
One false move and he’s gonna think you’re too wild about him to ever be able to let this go when the time comes, I tell myself. Before I answer as carefully as I can. ‘You’re an attractive man, Beck,’ I say. Though even that makes him go very still. I think I actually hear a sharp intake of breath. Then after a moment of deafening silence:
‘And it’s the kind of attractive you like.’
‘Anyone would. I mean, if they stopped to really look.’
‘Yeah, but there are reasons they don’t.’
‘Not good enough ones to stop me seeing.’
Again, his breath seems to catch. Even though he must have some idea. He must know how he looks, objectively speaking. Those eyes, that jaw. That black hair, so thick I just want to run my hands through it right now. His big, burly body, all ripe and ready for a million things I want to give him.
But quite clearly he doesn’t.
‘Still though, you probably don’t really want to do that. That thing you said,’ he says, so unsure and bemused about it that there’s nothing else I can do. I have to tell him otherwise. I need him to know his own worth.
‘The only question is if you want me to,’ I tell him.
And I get such a groan in response. Then words, hoarse and low.
‘Gosh, yes. Yes, I want to hear how excited this has made you.’
So what else is there to do but go ahead? I ease my hand down, right between my legs. And oh god, I’m even messier than I thought I was. My panties are soaking wet, to the point where I have to peel them away from myself. It takes a second to really work my fingers underneath the waistband, and over my slick pussy.
Then I get it, and holy fuck.
I don’t think I’ve ever made such a mess.
It’s all over me, all in the strip of hair I have down there, all slippery over my smooth sex. And when I sink into that seam between – ohhhh , it’s like warm syrup, it’s delicious, it’s wonderful, I swear just the feel of it electrifies me. It has me stroking myself before I can even stop and consider what I’m actually supposed to be doing here. I’m just supposed to be showing him how slick I am.
But that doesn’t seem to matter now.
All that matters is how good it is to finally get to rub over my aching clit.
In fact, it’s almost too good. I do it once, and the pleasure is so intense it makes me go rigid. A sound comes out of me, low and guttural. And I have to back off it, just a little. I have to work to the left and to the right and just anywhere but right on it. Though even that feels like too much.
I’m arching my back and shuddering and gasping within seconds.
And I can’t help getting ruder about it. I just want to get a little more, so I slip two fingers down, down to my greedy cunt. Then I work them in, as I work my clit. I fuck myself, just a little, just in the way I like, completely unthinking.
But, of course, the sound that makes.
It’s no wonder he makes one in response.
‘Ohhhhhh my goodness,’ he blurts out. And it’s so big and shocked-seeming that of course it pulls me up short. I panic a little bit, in fact. Too far, too far , I think, and pull my hand away from all that filthy noise. I go still, and try to think of something reassuring to say. But before I can, he speaks into the sudden stifling silence.
‘Why are you stopping? I thought you needed to—’ he starts.
And I know the word he wants to end on is come . I can hear whatever dirty thing he can’t say now, in his silence – louder than if he’d actually said them. They ring like a gong inside me, made all naughty and forbidden and transgressive by his sweet, polite nature. Like I’m crossing lines that don’t even exist with anyone else.
Just him. It’s only him I have to tentatively ask.
‘I do but I have no idea if that’s okay with you,’ I say.
And then relish how trembly and low his voice sounds in reply.
‘Nothing has ever been more so.’
‘So you want to listen to me making myself come.’
‘Well, I could leave the room if you wanted me to.’
‘No. No, stay there. I like the idea of you hearing me play with my pussy,’ I say, then get the reaction I expect for that last word. He moans restlessly, and I feel him shudder. In fact, he’s almost constantly shuddering now. And it gets worse when he hears what I’m doing. Because I’ve got my hand back between my legs, and I’m not holding back now.
I circle my clit, nice and quick.
Two fingers in my cunt, working just the way I like.
And oh god, it sounds loud . It sounds hot . As does the stuff coming out of my mouth. I’m almost constantly making little desperate noises now, in a way I don’t think I ever have in front of a man. Usually I fake a few moans and fall asleep.
But not here.
Not when he reacts the way he does.
‘Ohhhhh gosh. Oh man. That is really. That is. That might make me—’ he blurts out, about thirty seconds into me fucking myself. So I guess what word he wanted to finish on, just like before.
I tell him, ‘Yes, go on, touch yourself, too.’
But he shakes his head in response. ‘I don’t think I need to,’ he says, and I swear I have to stop what I’m doing. I have to still my hand and take deep breaths, because honestly even just the idea of that makes me almost go over.
‘So you’re gonna come just hearing this.’
‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, it feels like I might.’
‘What will make it definite?’
‘Those moans of yours.’
I sight, in delight. ‘You like them, huh.’
‘God, yes. And the way you touch yourself.’
‘How does it sound, baby. Tell me.’
‘Greedy. Like you can’t get enough. Like you want more.’
‘I do want more. I want you to do this to me. I want you fucking into my cunt, with those thick fingers, nice and slow until I come for you, oh god, I’d come so hard for you, Beck,’ I groan, sure that I’m going too far. Being too dirty, as the pleasure coursing through me reaches some inexorable peak.
But the thing is, it’s not the cunt that makes him lose it.
Or the suggestion that I want him inside me.
No – it’s his name. That is the thing that makes him moan, all loud and long and broken. That is what makes him roll his hips over and over, and so insistently that the bed moves with that motion. It rocks me, like he’s not lying over there at all. He’s between my legs, driving me to the same ecstasy he’s currently feeling.
And as soon as I think that – about his big body over mine, spreading me, fucking into me – the pleasure just rolls up through me in a great wave. It heats my belly and blooms in my chest and steals my breath. For a second I can’t even moan, it feels that intense. I just go rigid, teeth clenched, everything building and building to the point where it seems impossible.
I’m going to burst.
I might pass out.
Even though all I’ve done is masturbate, beside a man I shouldn’t even be this attracted to. It’s ridiculous, and yet knowing that it is doesn’t change anything. My whole body still shudders and jerks, I still almost scream against the bars of my teeth, I still spill over my own fingers.
I soak them, in fact. I soak everything. The sheets are wet, I realize, once I start to ease down from whatever that was. The most intense orgasm of your life , my mind informs me. And I try to argue with it, I do.
But there’s just no way to go about it.
I’m still shaking over it ten minutes later. I go to get out of bed to clean myself up, and my legs won’t support me. I have to urge him to go first, and only when he returns – looking like he wants to say something to me but doesn’t know what the saying should be – do I manage.
I dart to the bathroom.
And when I finally come back out, he’s asleep.