Chapter 22 I Only Play it For the Articles
twenty-two
i only play it for the articles
What are you up to right now?
SconesOfAyor:
Just playing VH:E
I don’t know what that is…
SconesOfAyor:
Vital Heat: Encore
Oh
You mean that post-apocalyptic JRPG that guys like to play because the protagonist has really big boobs and impractically skimpy outfits?
SconesOfAyor:
That’s the one
Though I only play it for the articles
Hah
SconesOfAyor:
What are you up to?
I was hoping we could talk for real
SconesOfAyor:
You wanna switch to voice chat?
I meant on the phone
SconesOfAyor:
Is everything okay?
Yeah, I just thought it might be nice to talk away from our computers
SconesOfAyor:
Like where?
I dunno…
Our beds, maybe…
That was stupid. I shouldn’t have said that. I can feel the seconds tick away before he responds: ten, twenty, thirty, forty-seven—
SconesOfAyor:
Ok
Give me a sec
Call me when you’re ready
Ready to talk I mean
On the phone with me
With mouth-words
Or we don’t have to
My phone starts ringing on the desk in front of me and I grab it quickly, my heart rate spiking to panic levels. “Hello?” I say when I answer the call, as if I can’t see his name right there.
“Hey,” he says, and I hear the sound of a door softly closing in the background.
I think he went into his bedroom. I’ve never seen inside his bedroom, but he’s told me it’s full of Malcolm’s sewing stuff—bolts of fabric and half-finished costumes lying around, a desk with a sewing machine, a rickety ironing board in the middle of the room that Damien trips over every morning.
He mutters a couple of choice words under his breath, and I think he’s just tripped on it now. Like he didn’t turn the light on when he came in.
Oh my god.
“Hey,” I echo quietly, though I stay frozen in my desk chair. This was a terrible idea.
“What did you want to talk about?” There’s a creak of a mattress, like he’s just sat down, and the rustle of clothing on sheets.
“Oh, uh—” I have to clear my throat. “I didn’t have anything in particular in mind.”
“No?” His smirk is apparent in his voice.
“H-How are you?” I start picking at some of the peeling laminate on the edge of my desk.
“I’m good.” More creaking and rustling. Is he lying down? “Great, actually. How are you?”
“I’m good…” I reply uncertainly.
“Maybe we should talk about last night,” he adds, and my hand freezes mid-pick.
“Okay…”
“I realize I did the thing you were afraid I would do,” he says, and I nod even though he can’t see me. “But you seemed really nervous, and I just—It was late, and I was worried you’d think we had to rush something even though we don’t—”
“It’s okay, I get it,” I tell him. And I do. “Looking back now, it was probably the right choice. But it felt awful at the time.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I just never thought I’d be in a relationship where I was the one who wanted it more,” I say with a small, nervous laugh.
“Trust me, you don’t.” He laughs as well. “I’m just terrible at…all of this.”
“All of what?”
“Relationships. Communicating. Sexy stuff, as you would say.”
“Oh my god.” I cover my face in embarrassment, though hiding like that doesn’t help over the phone. “Also, are you telling me you’re bad at…that stuff?”
“Not, like, the mechanics of it,” he says, and somehow the word mechanics is making my face flush even harder, “but the social part. Again, I need BioWare-style dialogue options.”
I snort a laugh at that. “Yesterday I was thinking that I wish I could use console commands to just move the romance quest forward.”
He laughs at that as well. “Yeah, but the awkward fumbling is part of the fun, isn’t it? Fumbling through life, I mean.”
“Oh, I thought you meant the other kind of awkward fumbling,” I say jokingly. Well, half-jokingly.
“That, too.” His laugh this time is barely more than an exhale. “Can we just…agree that either of us can say whatever we’re thinking, without judgment? Instead of worrying about saying the wrong thing all the time.”
“You worry about that?”
“Constantly.”
“Okay. Yeah. That sounds good.”
“Cool. You go first,” he says. “Tell me why you wanted to talk on the phone tonight.”
“I…wanted to talk about last night,” I tell him, which is part of the truth. “And we cleared that up, so I’m fine now.”
“Okay…” He sounds unconvinced. “So why did you suggest we should talk in our beds?” The covers are rustling again.
“Um.” I pick harder at the edge of the desk. “I thought this would be…cozy.”
A derisive snort. “I can tell you’re still at your desk because I can hear you picking the laminate like you do when you’re nervous.”
“Okay, well, I’m scared,” I admit.
“Of being cozy?”
“Yes,” I say stiffly. “I’ve never…gotten cozy with another person present, in person or otherwise.”
“I see.”
“I mean—” I pinch the bridge of my nose with a sigh. “I’ve had sex,” I say flatly, already tired of euphemisms. “I just haven’t personally…gotten off when I’m with someone.”
“We don’t have to,” he replies, and he doesn’t sound put out or annoyed. “We can just talk. I like talking to you.”
“I… Can I tell you something?” I say, lowering my voice even though there’s no one else around to hear me.
“Anything.”
“I got turned on when you said you were good at the mechanics of…that stuff.”
“I think I just said I’m not bad—”
“Still, it’s such a nerdy thing to get turned on by.”
“I’m cool with that,” he says, and I laugh, momentarily forgetting that this conversation is mortifying.
“Honestly, the thing that freaks me out the most is that I don’t know what’s gonna do it for me,” I tell him. “I don’t know until it happens. Because, before now, nothing did.”
“That’s okay. We can just…figure it out together, right?”
“What if it takes a long time?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No—I don’t mean tonight, I mean ever.”
“So do I.”
It took three days of late-night phone calls, but I’m finally in my bed this time.
It was kind of nice, actually, not worrying about performing and instead just talking openly about whatever. Even if it meant I had to sort myself out afterwards—though apparently so did he, so I feel less embarrassed about that. But we haven’t yet stayed on the phone while we do.
I’ve cocooned myself in all the blankets I own, with all lights out in my bedroom and the curtains drawn shut to block out any streetlights, because I figure this will be a lot easier if I can just forget that I actually exist. That’s the plan, anyway.
“Have you…started?” I ask, even though it doesn’t sound like he’s moved a muscle in several minutes. I feel like we’re running out of time, since Malcolm will be back from his date at some point tonight.
“No.”
“Oh. Are you not…?”
He snorts. “No, I definitely am,” he says. “But I’m waiting for you.”
“I…don’t know how to do this,” I say stupidly.
“Which part?”
“The talking part.”
“You could say literally anything, at this point,” he says with a laugh.
“Okay, well—” I swallow and steady my nerves. “I was just thinking about this, um, dream I had. A while ago.”
“Oh?”
“It was after you came over to watch a movie,” I tell him hesitantly. “I think that’s… That’s when I realized that I…liked you in this way. And that night I dreamed that you—”
“This dream was about me?”
“Um. Yes.”
There’s a pause and it sounds like he’s shifting around, but then it goes silent again. “Go on.”
“Well, I dreamed that you—Or, that we—Um. We were here, in my bed.”
“Right.”
“And, uh, you were sort of…using your mouth…on me.”
“Like the left boob thing?” he asks, and I can hear the hint of amusement in his voice.
“No…” I’m starting to burn up under all these blankets. “Lower.”
“Hot damn,” he says jokingly.
I actually laugh, because somehow he can be silly through all of this, and I’m still into him. “But I’ve never—I don’t actually know what that’s like, I’ve just read…books and stuff. It was all made up.”
“Did you like it, though?” More sound of movement, but I’m not sure if he’s actually doing anything yet.
“Uh, well, I sort of woke up because I was…you know.” I scrunch my face up in embarrassment as I say it.
“Whoa.” The word is just a deep whoosh of breath. “Did you have to touch yourself?”
I push off some of my blankets and squirm uncomfortably. How can he just say words like that, so casually? “I was already…far enough, but then, yeah. I was able to keep it going until I…”
“Again?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, Audrey. You’re killing me, here.” He doesn’t sound quite so casual now. “At this rate I’m gonna be done in two strokes.”
If the heavy pulse between my legs is any indication, then so am I. “Do you, um…” I squirm again, but I keep my empty hand clenched on my remaining blanket. “Would you ever…want to do that? To me? The…dream thing.”
“Five thousand percent, yes.”
“And do you think…I’ll like it?”
“If you don’t, we can keep trying stuff until we find something that you do,” he says.
“I think… I think I’ll like it if it’s you,” I tell him. “I like everything you do to me.”
“I like everything you do to me, too,” he replies, and I can hear him smiling. “Even this absolute torture.”
I can’t help but smile at that. “Okay,” I say, tucking my arm under the blanket and slipping my hand down the front of my underwear. “Let’s do this.”