17
As I left therapy, I got a text from an unknown number. It simply read: "Hey." I knew who it was right away. Still, I replied, "Hey, who is it?"
"Roman."
Fuck’s sake, it was happening. I climbed into John’s Land Rover and kept quiet about the text. After he finished ranting about Jen overflowing the toilet because she used unflushable makeup wipes, I replied to Rome.
"How are you?"
Rome: "Good. You?"
Rome: "I missed you."
My heart leapt. He’d doubled-messaged. Just like old times. Had he missed me already? From just last night? Something came unhinged. I was keyed up, ready to hurl. Bile percolating, beginning to climb.
At last, I replied: "Yeah, you too. It was really good seeing you again."
Rome: "Free tomorrow? Wanna catch up?"
He wasn't wasting any time. He must not have gotten word I’d agreed to meet. Still, I was glad he’d reached out directly. I now had his number and he had mine. No more intermediaries.
"Of course. Whatever you're up for. I’m down."
Rome: "Coffee?"
"Sounds good."
Rome: "Where?"
"Idk. You choose."
Rome: "Ok, I've got someplace in mind. Kind of private."
Rome: "Noon ok?"
"Perfect. Yep. I'll be there."
Rome: "Cool."
Rome: "I'll send over the address in a sec."
Rome: "See you tomorrow?"
Rome: "Ok??"
I smiled. I loved when he was so impatient he texted multiple times in a row. It took me right back to 2011.
"Ok, can't wait. Talk soon."
He sent a final thumbs up and that was it.
As John and I drove along the boulevard, my breath quickened, forcing me to gaze out the window so he couldn’t catch me smiling.
I pressed a fist to my contorting mouth.
Everything was suddenly awash with color, like treetops in autumn, or the blood returning to the cheeks after a pallid stretch of illness.
I was transported back to the beginning of everything, remembering the final day of Nirvana at my dad’s bungalow, which I had recounted for Naomi only moments ago.
She was now categorically aware that my 'she' was in fact a he.
***
Middleton, England
September 2011
I rolled over and he was already facing me, half asleep.
I watched his eyes struggle to stay open, lashes but dark fringes against hollowed cheeks.
The lips were slightly parted. His thumb lingered before his mouth, as though he bore an inclination to draw it inside.
I traced his eyebrows and nose with my fingertips, then finally the swollen lips.
They closed around my lead finger and he watched me groggily.
I was acutely aware of how exquisite he was; more than any girl I’d ever seen.
"I dreamt of you..." I uttered, toying with the silver crucifix around his neck. "Last night."
"Mm..." he sighed, vibrating the bed. “Keep talkin’.”
All the other boys said my tone was morbid and annoying, but he seemed to derive pleasure from the sound of my voice. Sometimes he ordered me to talk to him, directly in his ear, even when he didn’t feel up to responding.
“Mate…it was so vivid. You dream of me too?"
"'Course, babe.” The accent became a soft lilt whenever he was tired. "I always dream of ya…"
I lay back and watched the ceiling. "Feels like summertime."
"You warm?"
He pushed the covers off and fanned me a little. I was too bemused to tell him I was perfectly content. That I meant he felt like summer. When I brushed my toes against his, he shot up, scooting to the end of the bed and taking my foot into his hand.
"What?"
"So soft," he whispered, tracing a vein atop my foot. Then he kissed it. "You've got freckles here, y’know?" He lifted it and blew raspberries along the sole until I nearly pissed myself laughing.
As he lay beside me again, I tucked a hand beneath his shirt, settling into the warmth of his belly.
He began to doze. My fingers roved his stomach, noticing he wasn't particularly ticklish, but that he was highly sensitive around his lower abdomen leading into his groin.
It took him a while to grow accustomed to my touch there without flinching.
I bent and kissed his abdomen, then allowed my tongue to dip into his navel, prompting a laugh.
It seemed he would allow me to touch him in any way I pleased, at any time.
That kind of trust was hard-won. I savored the heat of his flesh and the steady rise and fall of his breath.
His skin was feather-soft, responding readily when I ghosted my lips closer to his hips.
To hear the unguarded sighs he emitted lent me mad confidence. I had reduced him to that.
When I went to pull down his briefs, he stopped me and said he needed to shower first. Problem was, I wanted it so badly I could already taste it.
I wanted—no, needed—to feel it in my hand.
In the days prior, I’d begun to grab at it in any given opportunity, and sometimes he had to deter me when we weren't alone.
There was a weird sort of solidarity I shared with it now, and I yearned to pull it between my lips—to let it slide down my throat, scraping past my teeth and pressuring the roof of my mouth.
I nearly salivated thinking of the way he bounced about liberally through his briefs in the early mornings and late evenings.
So much of him contained in that one space.
Such a secret and delicious part. I wanted to know the things it was capable of.
I wanted it inside of me, splitting me—wherever he chose.
"Hey..." he whispered, with a tentative smile, as if he could read my mind. Most times, he could. I must’ve been staring again, since he subconsciously covered his groin.
I bent and kissed his dick through the briefs, mouthing it and the textures of the fabric until his hips squirmed.
Soaking the material with my fat tongue.
I found the tip and stroked it lightly, torturing him with unhurried caresses like he always did me.
He put a pillow over his face then—halfway where I needed him to be, visibly filling his briefs more than a few moments ago.
I lifted him free of the wet material and he came alive in my hand, springy and swollen, pulsing down my palm like bone deep currents. Sweet fuck, this was too good. It was so virile and fleshly. So him. He groaned into the pillow. I had him now. He was powerless to stop me.
I ran my hand up and down his length, studying his complexion and how much deeper it was than mine—being slightly darker than the rest of him.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I followed my instinct, indulging the visceral urge to draw him into my mouth and savor all.
After the first contact with my tongue, he began writhing in silence.
I smelled him—every bit of him. I couldn't consume as much as I wanted, struggling with the mouthful I’d already managed, but always strove for more.
The act was far more difficult than it appeared, lending me a great deal of empathy for females who blew me in the past.
I breathed hard through my nose, thinking of my next move.
He was slightly salty; full of curious textures and elusive flavors that made my mind reel in an attempt to pinpoint them.
When I withdrew him, soaking wet, he moaned in protest, slinking down the bed.
I followed, brushing my tongue along the ridge—along the tip and its hole.
That made him sit up suddenly, unsure what to do with himself.
"Rafe, babe, stop..."
I tugged his shaft, eliciting a guttural sound from his throat, rotating my tongue around the tip until he came down my hand.
I studied him as he unloaded. His orgasm was violently sensual.
One of welcome anguish. Is that how I looked when I came?
Brow furrowed, mouth agape, clenching the sheets?
His eyes mere slits—totally white since the pupils had slipped into the back of his skull.
He looked like he was having an out-of-body experience.
When he descended, he fell back onto the mattress with a whimper.
"Babe...what the fuck are you even doin’ to me?" he panted, still ebbing from his climax.
I smiled and lay against his belly after cleaning my hand.
Utterly triumphant. It couldn't have been later than 5AM.
Dawn crept in, so the room was paled by the day's earliest light.
I smelled notes of the cologne he'd been wearing all week and whiffs of my own saliva.
This was paradise. Right here between his legs, nestled in the warmth of his privates.
Now the curtains had been drawn back on something sublime between us, and there was no way I would allow them to fall back into place.
It was our last day together of uninterrupted bliss, and even though I knew I’d be working with him closely each day going forward, the thought of us leaving our sanctuary felt like the onset of a bad dream.
Later I went to shower and brush my teeth, and he fell asleep again.
Relentless kisses became my priority until he awakened, and I didn't give a shit about his morning breath or the fact that the others could burst into the room any minute. Having coaxed me back beneath the sheets with him, he held me the remainder of the morning; the two of us pensive. This couldn’t be over.
I played with his fingers and the sensation resounded throughout my core, leaving me with an unadulterated impression of what it meant to be alive.
***
Throughout the day he couldn't stop watching me with a curious smile. Anytime the other boys wanted in on our private joke, he'd just duck his head and keep it to himself.