6. Josephine #2
I want to answer right away, but everything is trembling, my free hand restless against the knotted towel. I’m so wet it’s embarrassing, a secret only for myself and for him, atomized across the city, fuzzed and pixelated in a way that makes all this feel both unreal and closer.
Josie: I won’t.
Clay: Good.
Clay: Now get your hand under the towel.
I let my thumb drift, draw a line down my sternum, reeling from the thought that he can break me open just by asking. I hesitate, then type with my left:
Josie: It’s there.
Clay: Touch yourself.
I imagine him leaning against the bar, reading this with his free hand wrapped around a sweating glass, the other in his lap, palm pressed hard and cruel over the crotch of his jeans. The idea makes my mouth go dry.
But I follow orders. I push the towel aside, let it fall in a ruined heap around my hips, and listen to the silence of my room.
I touch myself very lightly, at first. It’s almost clinical, a curiosity. It isn’t until I lean back, arch into the couch, that all the hesitation sloughs off and my fingers come alive.
Clay: I wish I could hear you.
I’m not thinking about the words anymore. I’m only thinking about the way it felt last time, wrist bent and elbow locked as he opened me up so slow I thought it would kill me.
I dig in with the heel, slow circles that turn my knees to jelly.
My phone slips off my hip and hits the floor, screen up, his name still bright against the black. I wonder if he’s still there, waiting for the play by play, but my neck’s too soft to let me bend and see.
It’s just me and the water left cooling on my skin, and the animal sound of my own breathing.
If I close my eyes hard enough, I can see him. The way his hand would find the center of me without hesitation. The drag of his fingers. Unkind, then sorry, then unkind again.
The heat pools and gathers inside me, furious and greedy. I push back, arching off the couch, shoving at a ghost.
Even the ache is good; especially the ache.
My brain splits. Half of me inside the memory of him, the other half still here, teetering on the ledge, reckless and needy. For a heartbeat there’s no difference.
My thighs shake. My fingers slip, half helpless, the knuckles flexing high. I bite so hard at my bottom lip that the copper taste flashes, lightning in my mouth.
My phone chimes. I snatch it up, pulse roaring in my ears.
Clay: Are you close?
Josie: Fuck yes
I almost laugh. It’s obscene, the sharpness of it, how easy he can make me say what I want. What I want is to fall straight through the couch, through the floor, into his hands on the other end of the phone.
Clay: Don’t come. Not yet.
It’s a command so abrupt, so pointed, that my entire body goes rigid. I slow down, muscles screaming, every nerve singing in the lengthening pause.
I hate him for it, this faceless control.
My hand goes slack, then I force it back to a slow grind, every inch of myself locked in burning stasis, all of me pulling against his word. I want to scream at him, make me, make me, make me, but it’ll always be me holding the phone, my own obedience. The tension grows violent, animal.
The typing bubble appears. Then disappears. It toys with me. My chest hammers.
Clay: Tell me how you’re touching yourself.
I don’t think about it; I just answer, a stripped confession:
Josie: Two fingers. Hard. I can’t stop.
He replies immediately.
Clay: Good girl.
My thighs lock, tremors running from the sockets of my hips to my toes. I dig into the upholstery with my free hand, praying the storm outside will drown out any noise I might make. The ache is savage. I’m hovering, orbiting the outer edge of release, not enough air to breathe or scream or plead.
Josie: I hate you so much right now
Clay: No you don’t.
He’s right, and that kills me. More than the ache in my hand, more than the spill and kick of my heart.
I don’t know if I’m angry or grateful, if this is punishment or gift, and it doesn’t matter because my body is one long, tight line, every bit of me strung up and vibrating. I can’t think. I don’t want to.
My hand circles faster, starved for friction, denying friction despite it. I breathe through my teeth, let the groan twist out of me because what else is there to do? I listen for the next order, my phone pressed flat to my sternum.
Clay: Beg for it.
The first sound is a hiss; the word “please” jams up behind my teeth, refusing to pass. I want to be hateful, to call him a fucking bastard, to break my own rules and flood the phone with all the ways he’s hurt and built me, but what comes out is a whimper, part plea, part warning.
My thumb stutters over the screen, damp and trembling.
Josie: Please Clay please I need it
Josie: I can’t wait
A long pause, the ellipsis blinking, receding. I slap my palm over my mouth, try to ride it out, but I’m losing, I’m coming apart. This shatter is different, not soft or sunlit, but a break like a bone, loud and necessary. I want to be raw for him. I want to show him everything.
Clay: Let go.
I arch, I sob. The heat is all the way through, slick between my thighs.
I hold the cry in my chest and let it rip through my core, a pain sweet pulse that leaves nothing untouched.
Everything spasms. I ride the waves until they dull, until what vibrates in me is only leftover static, a ghost of breath and aftershock and his name in my mouth, nearly silent.
I lie there, ruined. Wet palm pressed to my navel, the towel abandoned. The phone buzzes, a lone black beacon, his words waiting:
Clay: I wish I was there.
I smile, wicked and small, and thumb my answer:
Josie: Me too.
More than I want to admit.