Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“Maybe that’s who he cheated on me with,” Lucy says, tilting the wine bottle into her glass. A little splashes on the counter, and she swipes a finger through it and sticks it in her mouth, because the three of us are very classy.
“He cheated on you?” Nora asks, politely enough, while I take another huge gulp.
“I don’t know. Probably,” Lucy says. “He wouldn’t admit it, but before he dumped me he started acting weird.”
I drink more because I have no idea what to say to this. Nora looks into her glass—technically it’s a tumbler, not a wine glass, but any glass is a wine glass when there’s wine in it—like she’s giving this new information careful consideration before speaking.
“Have you ever considered therapy?” she finally asks Lucy.
“For having dated an asshole?”
“You’ve been through a lot in the past year,” Nora says, neatly avoiding that particular question. Admirable, truly. “It might help you to process all of it.”
“I love therapy,” I offer, only slightly wine-drunk.
“You go and tell someone all your weird thoughts and feelings and they tell you that actually, your weird thoughts are totally normal but also help you deal with them so your weird thoughts and feelings start feeling a little better and maybe not so weird.”
I take another sip to congratulate myself on my very good summary of therapy.
“I don’t think my thoughts and feelings are weird,” Lucy says, because of course she does. “I think they’re perfectly justified for someone who got cheated on and then dumped.”
“You didn’t get—”
“There’s also your grandmother’s death, and Miranda fucking you over, and your job situation,” Nora points out, ever the adult in the room. “Therapy might help with all those things.”
Lucy just snorts.
“I’m not going to therapy,” she says, and changes the subject. “Are we supposed to be crafting?”
We’re all standing in the kitchen of mine and Nora’s apartment, where we meant to watch some YouTube tutorials and then craft paper flower garlands for another friend’s upcoming bridal shower.
So far we’ve watched one tutorial and gotten wine-drunk when Lucy mentioned that a few nights ago she’d gone out to dinner with her brother and they saw Ash eating with some girl, and the vibe in my kitchen got real weird.
“What if we made her a garland of wine corks instead?” I ask. “Does that also have a classy ‘lovetime in the spring’ vibe, or…”
“I vote we buy some online, make them look a little scruffy, and say we made them,” Nora says. “Gwen’s not going to care, this is all her mom’s idea. And we don’t answer to Gwen’s mom, at least not after this bridal shower.”
“Done. Cheers,” I say, and Lucy says, “Hell yes,” and we all clink our glasses together and thankfully talk about something besides Ash.
* * *
“I want a plan,” Nora says later, after Lucy ubers home.
“Leave the dishes for tomorrow, brush my teeth, and go to bed,” I say.
Nora sighs a dramatic, long-suffering sigh and gives me a very grownup look, so I stick my tongue out at her. Like a grownup would.
“You need to tell her,” she says.
“I know.”
“If she ever asks me I’m not going to lie,” Nora goes on. This is a discussion we’ve had before. “And lying to Lucy by omission is getting very old.”
Ash and I have been regularly hooking up for close to six months, and somehow, an answer to our issues hasn’t presented itself.
When we first started, about a year after they broke up, I assumed it would fizzle out or he’d start dating someone or I would, but it hasn’t fizzled and I have, for no reason, not been interested in dating.
I guess that feeling isn’t mutual, if Lucy saw him on a date with someone, which is something I will not be thinking about tonight. Not that it bothers me because obviously, this is just a casual sex thing that’s only about hooking up and nothing else.
“We’re not even dating,” I tell Nora, as if that’s what we’re discussing here. “We’re just hooking up sometimes. It’s just a casual sex thing. He’s not my boyfriend. There’s not, like, romance.”
“You spent the night at his place twice last week,” she points out.
“I was tired! Sex is hard work.”
That gets a skeptical look. The skeptical look isn’t exactly wrong, because while we did try out a new vibrator, we also hung out on his couch afterward and watched three episodes of Nailed It!
while arguing about which reality competition TV show we thought we could win.
Then, of course, it was pretty late and I didn’t want to chance waking Nora up, so I slept over for purely practical reasons.
I tell Nora as much, but she doesn’t buy it.
* * *
I swear I mean to ask Ash about the girl Lucy saw him with the next time we see each other.
I know I should ask, but also, I’m not sure I want to know.
It feels oddly outside the purview of our very-clearly-sex-and-only-sex relationship, and also, whatever Lucy says, I don’t think Ash is actually a cheater.
He didn’t cheat on her and I don’t think he’d cheat on Other Mystery Girl.
Also, when I get to his place, he’s so excited to show me the huge new full-length mirror that he bought for his bedroom that there’s no time for boring questions because before I know it, my clothes are off and his face is between my thighs, his big hands holding me open, as I watch.
It’s mostly the back of his head, but I can see all of myself, and it’s—yeah. It’s really hot, it turns out.
I come twice before he relents. There are probably bite marks on the insides of my thighs and I feel all floppy and boneless, but I manage to grab his cock through his pants when he finally makes his way to my face to kiss me.
“Good?” he asks, smug as anything. He knows it was good.
“Terrible,” I murmur. “Better try again.”
“You liked watching, huh,” he says, and his eyes are going half-mast and he’s grinding his dick against my hand, denim still separating us. “I think I might need a whole system of mirrors, because it turns out the fatal flaw in this one is that I can’t see you when I eat you out.”
“Dork,” I say, and squeeze his dick again. “Bring that up here.” I lick my lips just to make sure he knows exactly what I’m telling him to do, and he groans, dropping his head into the crook of my neck.
“I have a better idea,” he says, and levers himself off me.
“A better idea than a blowjob?”
“It’s a really good idea,” he says, and gives one nipple a parting lick as he gets up.
The idea is that we fuck in a chair in front of the mirror. It’s not rocket science. I kiss him as he rolls a condom on, tugging at his shirt so he takes it off, but he holds the hem down.
“Don’t tell me you just got modest,” I say, glancing over at the mirror where we’re reflected: me fully naked, red marks on my thighs where his fingers were.
Ash spins me around so I’m facing the mirror and he’s behind me.
“Nope,” he says, and kisses the side of my neck, slides a hand up my torso to play with one nipple. “This is just hot. Makes me feel like you’re my plaything or something. Like—”
He stops, kisses my neck again, teeth scraping along my skin. I arch my back and watch us in the mirror, choosing not to examine the bolt of arousal that shot through me at plaything.
“Every inch of you is so fucking glorious, and having you naked and pliable like this, knowing I get to touch you, get to fuck you, get to make you come, is just—I feel like a fucking king.”
He pushes a hand between my legs, already slick with my wetness and his spit, and when he drags a finger over my clit I jolt, my head rolling back on his shoulder.
“Come on,” I whisper, because he’s not the only one who’s very into this.
The setup takes a minute—angles and lighting and whatnot—but then he’s seated on a chair and I’m straddling him, his hands holding tight to my hips, sliding down onto his cock and watching us in the mirror.
“Oh,” I say, a little surprised. “Fuck.”
“Look at you,” he whispers.
As if I have much choice. I’m right there in semi-pornographic detail, naked and watching myself take Ash’s cock all the way until I’m sitting on him, the zipper of his shorts biting into the backs of my thighs.
We’re at an angle to the mirror so I can see him too, mostly, which means I can see the dark-eyed, lust-filled way he looks at me while he slides his hands up me like he’s trying to touch every inch.
“How,” he asks, strangled. “Have we never done this before?”
I give a breathy-half laugh and lean back a little. He shifts inside me and we both gasp softly, his hands coming to my hips.
“So you like it,” I manage, and he leans in to bite the spot where my neck meets my shoulder, just a little too hard. I make a weird noise and tilt my head away, just in case he wants to do it again. He does, and his fingers dig into my hips and we start moving together.
It’s a little awkward, at first: IKEA kitchen chairs were not crafted with seated reverse cowgirl in mind, so it takes a bit to get the angles right, but then we do and holy shit.
It’s a slow, aching grind, Ash’s cock dragging over every single over-sensitive nerve ending until I can’t decide whether I’m going to come again or maybe just die.
He’s leaned back a little in the chair, watching, his fingers sunk into my hips, the bite of his blunt nails a sharp counterpoint to the slow, fuzzy build inside me.
His arms flex with every slow, careful thrust, biceps straining at the shirt that he’s still wearing.
The hem’s ridden up a little on his belly and he’s got a blissed-out, glazed look on his face as he keeps murmuring things I can only half-hear over my own choked-off moans and the way this chair is creaking.
“Can you come again?” he asks, and I just nod.
In the mirror I’m bright pink, flushed down to my nipples, dazed and unfocused.
Somewhere in the back of mind I think that this looks nothing at all like porn; if I look like anything I look like a Renaissance painting of a saint who’s just seen the face of God.
Then Ash moves his right hand to my clit and I stop thinking about art history.
I stop thinking completely and just manage to keep my eyes open enough to watch as I come in long, shuddering waves, head back, chest heaving.
Ash fucks me through it softly but firmly in that way he has that’s gentle and hard all at once, murmuring God yes Bridge let me feel it.
I’m still riding it out when he grabs me even harder and groans, every muscle in his body flexing at once as his cock pulses.
Afterward, I get up and flop on his bed and he flops next to me, both of us facedown and still breathing hard, staring at each other from six inches away.
“Different chair, I think,” he finally says, and all I can do is nod.
“That one’s gonna break by next week,” I say, and Ash grins.
“Next week, huh?”
“If you play your cards right.”
He rolls onto his side and flops an arm over his forehead, and I rub my knuckles along his side. It’s still summer in the South and way too hot for actual cuddling, but this is a tolerable substitute.
“I should deal with—” he gestures at the condom on his dick, still sticking out of the fly of his shorts.
“Go,” I tell him, with a slight push, but he hesitates. Looks over at me, lashes shading over his pretty blue eyes, one light brown curl stuck to his forehead with sweat.
“What are you doing Friday?” he asks, and I blink. We’ve never exactly made plans before. Our …thing… is more of a hey, what are you doing, want to come over kind of thing.
“I think I’m going to the Summer Nights thing they do downtown with Nora and Lucy,” I answer, too surprised to say something better like I don’t know do you have any ideas?
But all he says is, “Oh, those are really fun. Maybe I’ll see you there,” and I want to know what he was about to ask, but then I chicken out, because so far I’ve managed to keep this very fun part of my life blessedly separate from the rest, and I know that when the two meet there’s going to be consequences of one kind or another.
If they even ever do meet, because maybe Ash is just going to keep this up until he actually starts dating someone, like the girl he was apparently having dinner with and oh, God, I should have asked about that before he made me come three times.
Hell, I should ask now, probably. Just to know.
I don’t.
“Go,” I say, poking him gently, again. “Then we have to watch another episode of Breaking Bad because otherwise I’m gonna start watching it by myself and you’d be mad.”
That gets another slanted look and a slight smile on his mouth.
“You wouldn’t cheat on me like that,” he says, and for a second, my stomach clenches, because what a phrase to use.
“You don’t know what I would and wouldn’t do,” I tell him.
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Go or I’ll look it up on Wikipedia and read you spoilers.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, and sits up, grinning. When he stands from the bed he pulls his shirt off and lets his shorts fall to the floor, which is always a nice view. “That would be cruel and unusual, Bridget.”
When he’s gone, I scrub my hands over my face because, seriously, what the hell am I doing?
I’m lying to my best friend and avoiding very pertinent questions and, overall, just refusing to get my head out of the sand about this whole situation, but also this whole situation is mind-blowing sex and then Breaking Bad and then, yeah, probably sleeping over and waking up with Ash’s arm possessively thrown across me, and I can’t stand to fuck that up just yet.