20
Andy
If anyone asked me what happened after Sophie’s gala, I would say I barely remember. We got home tipsy, everything was a blur, then we fell asleep.
But that’s not true. I’ll remember every moment of it until I die.
It took Sophie a full minute to get the apartment door unlocked, due to the combination of three glasses of champagne and sheer giddiness. Watching her struggle with the key, I realized she’d barely eaten anything at the event.
“Do you want food, Soph?” I suggested as the door finally opened. “It didn’t seem like you had anything earlier.”
“Oh my god, do you know what I want so bad?” Sophie asked, rhetorically of course, because she was about to tell me. “Bread.”
“What kind of bread? We’ve got rye and I think some bagels, though they might be stale.”
I was heading towards the fridge when Sophie said, “No! You know what I really want?”
I looked back at her indulgently. “What?”
“Scallion. Pancakes.” She punctuated each word. “Please, Andy! If you love me at all please, please make me scallion pancakes.”
“Do we have scallions?”
“Yes, but they’re not in the fridge. I put them in a cup of water on the window.”
I looked to where she was giddily pointing. “So you did. Alright then, as you wish.”
Sophie squealed. “You are perfect! I’m going to put on pajamas while you cook, and then I’ll eat, and then I’m planning to pass out very full and very happy.”
She skipped into her room to change, leaving me to work. I started by chopping up the scallions, then put the water on the stove to boil before measuring out the flour. I pulled out my phone to Google which steps of the recipe I could plausibly skip to save time and get us both some carbs ASAP.
Minutes ticked by, and I was just placing the first pancake onto the pan when I heard a plaintive voice from the next room call, “Andy?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I need your help with this.”
“With what?” I turned the stove to its lowest setting and went to open Sophie’s door. Inside, she had taken off her shoes and tights but was still in her formal black dress. The zipper under one arm was undone, though it revealed nothing more than a tame sliver of skin.
“Okay, it’s not because I’m drunk, because I’m not that drunk, but I literally cannot get this dress off. It’s—” She fell into giggles as she tried to explain.
“It’s super tight around the shoulders, and I can barely raise my arms in it, which would be fine except for I have to get it up over my head in order to take it off. And I still have the bandage on. And I can’t even, like, cross my…”
She tried to pantomime crossing her arms to lift a garment over her head, but she gave up and fell further into hysterics.
“Whatever, you get the point, I can’t get this off over my head by myself. It’s just too hard with an injured arm and a dress that’s too tight and okay, yes, I’m a little drunk! Sue me!”
At first, I was so entertained by her ranting and miming that I didn’t get it. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Can you please help me get this dress off? I literally can’t do it.”
Can you please help me get this dress off.
Help me get this dress off.
Dress off.
“Hello? Earth to Andy…” She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Come on, slowpoke. It doesn’t have to be weird. You just have to lift from the bottom hem, and I can’t do it by myself.”
“Um. Alright. Yeah. Okay.”
I reached for the bottom of the dress, figuring I could get it over with quickly and then it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I mean, we’d certainly been to the beach together before, and underwear was basically a bathing suit.
Just a private bathing suit. A private, personal bathing suit that other people weren’t meant to see but I was about to see on her because she asked me to, and—
“Wait, hang on. I have to turn around first.” She rotated to give me her back.
“Does that… make it easier to… remove?” I asked articulately.
“Not really, I’m just not wearing a bra.”
I’m just not wearing a bra.
Not wearing a bra.
No bra.
“Okay, ready when you are,” she chirped.
“This is as high as I can raise my arms so it’ll have to do.”
The arms in question were barely three inches away from her ribcage, but I didn’t give a shit about that at a time like this.
I funneled all of my focus into two things: keeping my breathing slow and calm, and keeping my dick under control.
I reached for the knee-length hem of Sophie’s dress, telling myself it really didn’t have to be a big deal. I really had been to the beach with her before. And it really was just a body. I’d seen women’s bodies. Several. Many, even. So this would all be fine. Nothing new.
Sophie, meanwhile, didn’t seem nearly as concerned. If anything, she was in a rush to get it over with.
“You can move faster. You’ve got to get it up to my shoulders before we even get to the hard part so just go for it.”
I told myself: yeah, this will be fine.
Then I calmly lifted the hem of her dress up, reaching the height of her chest before things started getting tricky.
“Hang on here,” Sophie said. “It’s like… caught on my boobs I think? I think I can just…”
She started adjusting the material at the bust of her dress to inch it up.
Standing behind her, there was nothing I could do to help.
So I waited, holding her dress up and exposing her underwear and lower body which I was definitely not going to look at. Not. Even. A little.
“Is it caught on itself back there? Can you see if you can scootch it up?”
She wanted me to look. I had to look. I had to look down and see if it was caught on something. But that would be fine. Just a body. Just a body.
I looked down through the scant inches of space between us, to the dress rolled and scrunched at her ribcage. Then lower, to her underwear—light pink, with lace along the top and bottom edges.
And fuck me, I’m not a saint, alright? I gave in and enjoyed the view.
Sophie’s body curved in all the right places. The generous swell of her ass, the smooth skin of her back, the softness of her thighs. I had a desperate, virulent impulse to sink my teeth into each of those places and watch her body respond.
“Andy?”
“Ah! I mean… uh, yeah. I mean no! No. No, it’s not caught on anything, I think I just have to um… pull it harder.”
“Alright but please go slow now because I’m nervous about my arm.”
“Okay,” I exhaled. Determined to keep my hands steady, I changed my grip from the bottom hem of the dress to the fabric at her ribs, which snagged just under her breasts and around her shoulders.
Gently, I urged it upwards until her chest was free and only her shoulders remained confined.
I slowly brought the dress up her arms, listening and watching for any sign of pain.
When it finally slipped off over her hands, I tossed it aside onto the bed.
The dress was off.
I could have moved, but I didn’t.
Instead, we stayed frozen in place. Me, fully clothed. Her, in almost nothing. I wasn’t even touching her—was barely allowing myself to look at her—and yet my whole body felt alert. Mere inches apart, her back to my front, our breaths shallow.
I reached for my self-restraint, and found the well completely dry.
Slowly, I placed a hand on her bare waist.
She took in a shaky breath, and I felt the rise and fall of it in her abdomen.
I wished I could see her face. Wished more than anything that I could hear her thoughts. Did she want this? Did she want this the way I wanted it, with every molecule of myself for as long as I could remember?
I had to know.
“Sophie?” I asked from behind her back, frozen still.
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah,” she said, quieter this time.
I knew this was my chance to get the truth out. It had to be now, before I left her room and my courage behind. So I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and said, “I don’t think that kiss was a mistake.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think it was the best thing I’ve done in a long time.”
My voice was a low scrape, the words barely daring to cross the threshold of my lips.
“And then tonight, at the gala, you were so… so beautiful and so smart and now you’re here and…”
The fingertips of my free hand trailed up her side.
She shivered in response, and it felt like victory and possibility.
“...and I want to do a lot more than kiss you.”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Then why don’t you.”
It was not a question. It was a request.
Slowly, I placed both hands on her waist, letting my thumbs trace a sloping path across her ribs. My blood was thrumming in my ears, part of me eager to rush, to take and to have, another part wanting to discover her slowly, take her apart piece by piece.
That had to be the way. Slow and steady. I wouldn’t mess this up again.
I traced a freckle on her side, noting its exact location, right where her hip began to bloom. The space between our bodies was a whisper, faint and fading, but still there. My fingers pressed deeper into her soft flesh, and the only thought in my head was: This is Sophie.
With everything else in life, I’d learned how to rein myself in.
No laundry unfolded, no run skipped, no comma misplaced, no temptation insurmountable—except her.
She was a temptation made just for me. She was safe and she was terrifying.
She was all of my wildest impulses. And most days I thought I knew her better than I knew myself—except in this.
Her body. Where she liked to be touched.
How soft, how slow, how she would respond to me, the sounds she would make, the way she would move. In this, I didn’t know her at all. Yet.
Damned if I didn’t want to learn every last thing.
This was the thought that had my hands starting to trail over all the parts of her I’d never touched before.
Her stomach, her spine, her hipbones. I skimmed over the top edge of her underwear, reminding myself to take it slow—not yet.
Every move felt reverent. She was the sweetest wine and I was drunk on the closeness of her.
“I don’t know what to do with you, Soph,” I admitted, placing a kiss against the side of her neck, tender and testing, all instinct, no plan. “Is this okay?”
“Andy, I…” My knuckles brushed beneath her breast and her speech stammered. “Y—yes.”