Options Trading #6
she feels full in her own body. She’s had good sex before him; theoretically, she’ll have good sex after him. But this is
something else—this doesn’t feel like the type of sex she can forget; the type of escape she can go without—this feels like
a before, and an after—
No.
Scrambling for a retort, she tries to bring back the casual fight of it. “You’re getting close to being the best sex I’ve
ever had,” she gasps, “but not quite—”
Just as she starts to see that luminous edge come into focus, the transcendent weight of it on her tongue, the promise of
tension lifted, he stops moving.
“What—Aleksandr, what—”
He presses his palm against her stomach, hard. It makes the fit even tighter, him inside of her. Lili’s vision trips, stutters,
the reel of it shorting.
“Can you feel me, sweetheart? Deeper than anyone else could go?”
She nods, frantic. Sweat slides down her spine; she’s near shaking with the tense ache of him inside her, the size of him.
On her tiptoes, her body strains to find more room—for the things he demands of her, the things she grasps from him.
It’s unendurable, how hard he is. Bearing down on her, keeping her on that edge, light threatening to fade, this is what insanity
feels like. The window is dirty with her sweat, and her breath keeps running short; she feels herself veering dangerously
away from the loss she wants.
Squeezing her thighs together, Lili tries to force little shifts of her hips. There’s a shard of pleasure, as she finds just
enough space between the glass and him to build friction. “Come on,” she whimpers, near angry. “I want to come—”
“Then come,” he says. He leans off her, lifting a fraction of his weight away. “Fuck yourself on me, Lili.”
With more space, Lili keeps moving, indecent and desperate.
She doesn’t care. She wants this; she wants this so badly, with a single-minded focus that makes everything else—air, water, everything—seem secondary, stupid inconveniences, valuable only for how they allow her to keep doing this: falling apart under him, reduced to her body and then reduced to nothing, thoughts snuffed out like some guttering candle.
“It’s shameless,” he breathes against her ear, leaning down. “How much you want it . . . there you go, keep going—”
“I can’t,” she gasps out, frustrated and exhausted. “I can’t, I need you to—need you to . . .”
“What do you need, Lili? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
“You,” she breathes, gritted teeth. “You—just fuck me, please—”
The naturalness of it—how his hands wrap around her waist, spanning her back, as he takes over and takes back control—makes
exhausting amounts of tension release from her, as he finally starts fucking her again—fucking her as hard as she wants: harsh,
unrestrained, pushing away her capacity to protest or resist, her responsibility to do anything but let that intense sliver
of pleasure sharpen, the frustrated weight of climax reached for again and again, a devastated place where she won’t have
a name, a voice—
When she comes, it tears inside of her: the sense of her self ripped from her body.
A separation that gives her space.
Breathing room.
Silence.
“Are you sleeping with anyone else?” Lili asks, pulling her shirt back on.
Aleksandr gives a hard, short laugh, looking up from checking email on his phone. “How much time do you think I have in a
day?”
She folds her arms. “That’s not an answer.” She tries to push back the irrational, bitter surge of jealousy that makes her
want to tear out the hair of nameless women.
“I am not seeing other people,” Aleksandr says, enunciating clearly. He leans against his desk, pulling her between his legs.
With one hand, he brushes her hair over one shoulder, letting it fall down her back. “Are you?”
His tone hasn’t discernibly changed, but he’s not smiling.
Lili lifts her chin, mischievous. “Does it matter?”
Suddenly, the humor she thought she’d mustered is gone. The air between them loses its lightness.
“I do not share, Lili.” Nothing resembles humor—a joke, levity—in his demeanor. “I won’t ask again. Are you fucking other
people?”
For a moment, she thinks about teasing him.
“No,” she finally says.
“Good.”
“Good,” she grits back, unwilling to let him have the last word.
He raises an eyebrow, letting the moment stretch. It makes her feel like a child.
She scowls at him. He grins, and draws her closer against him.
“What are your plans for the weekend?” he asks.
“Mostly working—” Her phone starts buzzing. Lili sighs, leaning out of his arms to grab it from her tote slumped on the ground:
a deluge of texts in their undergrad friend group chat, a few missed calls from Jackie and Amina.
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters. Scanning the chat—(9:45 p.m.) bring more mezcal, we ran out!!!!—she feels unwarranted irritation rising. She still has work to do tonight.
“Alright?” Aleksandr asks.
“Just my friends,” she says, stepping away, pulling her tote over her shoulder. “They’re pregaming at my place, it’s turning
into a party.”
“You look ecstatic.”
She sighs. “It’s fine, I just—I need to work. I got thesis edits back from my adviser today, and a huge deadline in a couple
weeks, and a ton of farm shifts I need to find someone to cover.”
He frowns. “Farm?”
“Yeah, my job.”
“You work on a farm?” he repeats.
“An urban farm,” she explains. “We revitalize underused urban spaces—empty lots, rooftops. There’re elements of vertical farming,
aquaponics, education, local economic empowerment. I help manage our ops, fundraising, and expansion strategy.”
“Aren’t you in grad school?”
“Capitalism demands we must labor in order to survive,” she quips. “I do it part time, and I’m a teaching assistant during the school year when the growing season subsides, it all evens out.”
“So, you—farm?” He sounds more confused than disapproving, but Lili feels a familiar defensiveness rise on her part.
“Food insecurity is actually a major issue,” she asserts. “It’s going to be one of the foremost issues of our time. It’s all
about future-proofing agriculture for, like, the inevitable collapse of global supply chains due to the climate crisis—local
food can’t just be yuppie fodder, all expensive artisanal boxed salad mixes at Whole Foods. There needs to be real resilience,
grounded in stronger local food systems, in our communities. That’s economic security. There’s a huge amount of potential, at this intersection of commercial viability, partnership with the
city, and the right type of investment, if you can scale the model right. We actually have some incredibly exciting work coming
down the pipeline on this.”
He stares at her. “You do all that while working on a master’s degree?”
“I like it. An econ master’s opens a lot of doors, I just have to graduate first. This holds me over until then.” Her phone
buzzes again. She exhales with frustration, scanning the new texts: more friends coming over, (9:49 p.m.) and ice, bring ice, too!!
“Do you get any work done at home?” Aleksandr asks. He sounds skeptical.
Lili shrugs. “It’s fine. I usually go up to campus.”
“Why don’t you live uptown?”
“Uptown?”
“You’d be closer to school.”
“Oh. I’d rather be near my friends.”
I don’t do well alone.
Aleksandr glances at his watch. “You can work here tonight, if you’d like. I’m here for a few more hours, before I head to
the airport.”
Lili blinks, taken aback. “Where are you going?”
“Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Rome, then London. Work. Maybe Washington, we’ll see.”
She snorts a laugh; when he merely looks at her, she pales. “Oh, Jesus—you’re serious,” she realizes. “For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
“Oh. Right, okay . . . I mean—”
Aleksandr grins at her flustered, stumbling. “I can see you that Sunday when I’m back.”
Right. Casual. A matter of schedules, convenience. Nothing more.
Lili nods. “Sunday.”
On the train home—declining his offer to work at the office—she’s rummaging through her tote for her headphones, when a metallic
gleam catches her eye.
Black leather key tab, slim silver key.
She frowns.
(10:15 p.m.) are these your keys?
(10:19 p.m.) No, those are for you.
(10:19 p.m.) what?
(10:21 p.m.) You can’t actually be able to get work done at home.
(10:21 p.m.) i told you, i just go to campus
(10:23 p.m.) My apartment is closer.
(10:24 p.m.) this is ridiculous
(10:24 p.m.) you can’t just give me your keys
(10:25 p.m.) Use it, or don’t. I don’t care. I’m gone for two weeks. Finish your thesis.
(10:26 p.m.) whatever
Lili balances the keys in her palm for a moment, then throws them back into her tote. She shoves her earphones in and watches
the bright city at night across the water, as the train heads over the Williamsburg Bridge.
Casual. It’s casual.