Chapter 3
3
I gulped in air as whatever was happening between us suddenly thickened and made me feel so shaky in my own skin. I was also so turned on that my body hurt.
“I mean, yeah,” I said shakily. “We’re friends…” My voice trailed off as Remi lifted up his head to look at me.
“My dad drilled into me that believing in God was literally the only way to live. Men of the church don’t drink…” He snorted at that and made a “cheers” gesture in the air with his seventh can. “I haven’t drunk a lot of alcohol until now because I was told for years what a sin it was, and old habits die hard, ya know?” He locked eyes with me then, and I had to stop myself from reaching out to pat his cheek.
“He told me that I had to remain pure till marriage. That the evil people go to hell unless they’re saved, and that’s how we have entry to heaven…” He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. “Not only did he threaten me with hell and fiery brimstone if I had premarital sex…”
I sucked in a breath when he said sex.
“But also, a godly man doesn’t masturbate.”
My whole body went cold and felt like it had been lit on fire at the same time.
Remi looked at me with sad eyes. He didn’t seem embarrassed, but I figured maybe he was too many Trulys in to notice what he had just said until he continued talking.
“For years, I would ignore the urges. I felt so ashamed when I would get hard, and of course, I never did anything about it because I wanted to please God. I would end up just coming in my sleep, and I was so horrified at not being able to control this sin.” His voice trailed off, and I thought he had fallen asleep, but then he started his story back up again.
“Last year, I was going through some documents to find my social security card to apply for a summer job as a lifeguard at church camp, and I found something that I’ll never be able to unsee, and it changed my whole life.”
He let out a pained half breath, half sob. At this point, I finally reached out, and instead of rubbing his face like a weirdo, I took his hand. His huge hand engulfed my tiny one, and he squeezed it gently while I waited for him to keep talking.
“I found a letter from a woman, a girl really, telling my father that she had given birth to his baby instead of aborting it like he had told her to. She had a baby two months after I was born, but the kicker is that in the letter, she said she was just a teenager. When I was born, my dad was twenty-six.” He whispered that last part, and I could see the pain in his eyes when he remembered becoming aware that everything he thought was true was actually a lie.
Remi covered his face with his other hand for a second, and when he removed it, I could see the tears in his eyes. As someone who shoved all tears and feelings back to where they came from, I was shocked at how vulnerable he was being with me.
“I gave it all up in that moment. How can God be real if the pastor, who all of these people are coming to listen to in order to get closer to God, had sex with a teenager while his wife was pregnant and then told her to go get an abortion? An abortion that I have heard him preach about, saying how terrible they are! I’m not allowed to jerk off, but he’s off fucking teenagers?”
I had never seen Remi so angry. I took my other hand and ran it through his hair. He stilled and leaned his head back into my palm. I still said nothing.
“When I confronted him, he got so angry and told me to strengthen my relationship with the Lord, and how dare I question him? So I secretly did a DNA test on that anonymous website that does the DNA match thing…” His voice trailed off again, and his eyes closed. I waited with bated breath.
“But no matches came up. I don’t know where my sister or brother is, but they’re out there somewhere, and my dad abandoned them and their mom.” His shoulders shuddered. “I haven’t told anyone any of this. Just you, Shaen. Last year, when school was over, I just packed up my shit and told my parents that I wanted to go live with my mom’s sister, who is Liam’s mom.” His words were starting to slur, and yet I felt so honored to know that I was the only one in the world whom he had trusted with his secret. ?“So here I am. I’m furious at my dad. I don’t know what I believe anymore, and I’m horny as fuck because every time I try to jerk off, I can’t finish because I keep hearing my dad’s voice telling me to be pure and God-like, but I don’t want to be pure anymore, especially when every day I see you…”
Remi’s head fell to my leg, and he seemed to be fully asleep at this point. However, I was completely frozen after hearing what he had just said.
“I don’t want to be pure when every day I see you…” What did that mean? I realized I had continued to absentmindedly run my fingers through his thick, wavy hair, so I stilled my hand and looked around at the mess in my living room, trying to figure out how I was going to clean it up and get this massive man-boy into bed. And into what bed?
Suddenly, I heard Remi say, “Don’t stop, that feels good.”
I was confused for a second, and then it occurred to me that he was talking about my hand in his hair.
“Remi…” I whispered. “I need to clean up, and I think you should go to bed.” I knew I hadn’t acknowledged everything he had just confessed to me, but I needed time to process it, plus I wasn’t even sure if he was fully aware of what he had just said.
He sat up, seeming unsteady.
“Can I shower first?” he asked, as if just realizing that he was still in his sweat-soaked shirt from earlier today.
I cringed as I thought about a big, muscular Remi in my small bathroom with the pink shower curtain, low water pressure, and my mother’s lover’s cum-filled condoms in the small garbage can. Despite that, I nodded and stood up. So did Remi. He towered over me and reached out to take my hand. I had gone so long without affectionate touch that; for a moment, I felt like my nervous system had short-circuited. I regained my composure and took him to the one bathroom in my apartment. I handed him a towel, which would definitely be too small, as he said, “I have a pair of sweatpants in my bag. Do you mind getting them for me?”
Wordlessly, I went back to the living room, rummaged through his gym bag, and found the pair of gray sweatpants he was referring to. I brought them back to the bathroom and pushed the door open. As expected, Remi had turned the water on, but what I did not expect was to see him fully naked, his cock jutting out from his body, looking angry and redder than I imagined a penis would be. But what was worse was he was staring wordlessly at the garbage, and at that moment, I realized he was looking at the condoms. Despite him being naked, I rushed into the bathroom, covering my eyes with his sweatpants, saying desperately, “Those are not mine!”
I peeked over the sweatpants to find him standing unsteadily, looking at me. His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was a complete mess from my fingers. And the hair on his face was gradually going from a forgot-to-shave look to a full-on shadow of a beard. Yet he had never looked more beautiful to me than he did right now.
“Whose are they?” he asked, looking back at those disgusting condoms.
“My mom’s,” I answered. Remi seemed taken aback for a second.
“Oh,” was all he responded at first. “Well, that’s good,” he added. “I wouldn’t want to wake up to your angry boyfriend.”
“You know I don’t have a boyfriend.” I scoffed and turned to leave the bathroom, holding out his sweatpants as I looked away from him. Remi took the sweatpants from me with one hand and turned me back around with his other hand. I stood there making eye contact with his chest because of his sheer height until he tilted my chin up with his fingers so I would look at his eyes instead. His chest was lightly coated with dark hair that then led to a happy trail that then led to, gulp… his hand was now on his big cock. I had never seen a penis in real life before, given my strict no penis near me rule, but I imagined his was bigger than the usual. He tugged at the head of his dick, and a bead of liquid dripped out. My eyes widened.
“I would be way too afraid to ask you this sober. And I’ll be honest, I’m shocked it only took me seven girly drinks to take me down in my first time really drinking, but I’ve been hard for you all year, Shaen. Like every time I see you or sit near you or hear your cute little laugh, I’m in pain, Shaen. I want to come for you so bad, but the messed up devil bullshit my dad put into my head won’t let me. Can you help me, Shaen?”
He all but begged; his eyes were slightly glazed over, but he still seemed to know where he was and what he was asking of me.
I couldn’t breathe. Between the bathroom getting all hazy and humid from the steam filling the room and this beautiful, drunk, sad, messed-up man in my bathroom asking me to help him masturbate for the first time, I was a mess. My legs were jello, my heart was racing, and I was soaking between my legs.
“I’m sorry, Shaen, I don’t know what came over me. I should have never…” Remi was starting to backtrack in his confidence. To which I absolutely shocked myself by blurting, “Like just my hand, right? Not my mouth or…?”
Did I just insinuate giving a blow job to Remiel Taylor?
I must have because his eyes darkened as he stared at me.
“I mean, for now, I’m just referring to your hand, baby,” he confirmed.
He called me baby. I’m going to die, I thought. I’m going to pass out. What in the fuck is happening?
“Remi, I have to tell you something.” I took a step closer, and he leaned down. “I’m a virgin.”
His eyes flared with an emotion I couldn’t decipher.
“My mom had me very young, and I put a no-sex ban on myself. I don’t believe in God. This is not a religious thing for me, it’s a safety thing. I need to get myself on my feet. With a job and my own place. I can’t be worrying about when I’m ovulating and your sperm going places it shouldn’t…”
I just said sperm to Remi Taylor. Motherfucker. I tried to turn my face away as my babbling got the best of me, but to my surprise, Remi didn’t laugh. Instead, he kneeled down in front of me, took my face in his big, rough hands, and said, “You astonish me, Shaen Collins. And I respect your rules. Honestly, sex is the furthest thing on my mind when I can’t even use my own hand to make myself come.” He seemed embarrassed now. “But if it’s too much to ask of you, I completely understand, and I’ll even walk home.”
I snickered at that because there was no way he could make it home in his current state, but I loved that he offered in an attempt to make me feel safe.
“I don’t want to scare you. I just think you’re so sweet and so beautiful, and I…” His voice trailed off again, my face still in his hands. He took his thumb and rubbed it gently over my lips. As he did this, my jumbled thoughts concluded that I couldn’t get pregnant from kissing or having a man come in my hand, so I changed my rule to no sex, but other stuff was okay.
“I’ve only kissed a few people,” Remi whispered, his face getting closer to mine. “So I might not be very good at it yet.”
“I actually never let anyone kiss me at all,” I admitted. He looked so shocked.
“I don’t know how that’s possible. You are so beautiful and sweet, baby.”
There was that word again. For a pretty inexperienced virgin, he certainly knew how to get the blood thrumming through my veins.
“Can I kiss you now, Shaen?”
I nodded wordlessly. I was kind of enthralled that only this morning, I was bemoaning my fate looking at the two used condoms in the garbage, and now I was standing here in the same spot, nipples hard, hair wet from the steam, clit aching, being touched by a very naked and very hard Remi Taylor. I could not have made up this turn of events if I had tried.
He leaned in, closing the space between us, took my face in his hands again, and put his lips on mine. His first attempt was chaste. Dry. Just a peck from him to me. Then he came back for more. And this time, he blew my mind as he angled his mouth and ran his tongue over my lips. I shocked myself by sucking his tongue into my mouth. We completely lost ourselves in each other as we nibbled, sucked, and licked our way into each other’s mouths. At one point, our teeth hit, but he just laughed and dove back in. His hands were in my hair, pulling on the brink of beautiful pain and pleasure. I could feel myself dripping down my legs, and I could feel his dick poking me in the stomach. We both came up for air, and I rested one hand on his chest and slowly brought the other hand down to meet where his hand was tugging at his dick. The moan that left this man’s chest when my small hand touched the head of his cock went straight between my legs.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted over the sound of the shower.
“Fuck, honestly, I don’t either,” Remi told me against my mouth, and we both started laughing at how ludicrous all of this was.
“I mean, I’ve jerked it plenty,” Remi divulged. “I just get soft before I can come because all I can hear in my head is my dad telling me how mad God will be at me and how I will burn in hell for all eternity. I don’t even believe in any of that stuff anymore, but it’s somehow keeping a hold on me, and I know if I can break out of it once, I’ll be free of it.”
“Yeah, your dad does not sound like the best turn-on,” I laughed. Remi half laughed, half groaned.
“That he is not,” he agreed. His eyes were half-mast, and in the shitty lighting of my bathroom, his long lashes cast shadows on his cheeks. He looked up to find me watching him, and he smiled slightly.
“Do you like what you see, little Shaen?” His voice was deeper than usual, and I literally shivered. I was turning into a clichéd mess. I bit my lip, and his eyes stalked the movement.
“I always have.” I paused, then revealed, “I really like the way you smell.”
He faltered at that. His body shifted away from me slightly, and the hand on his dick stopped moving.
“The way I smell?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know what cologne you wear, but every ride to school is torture.” I let out a shy laugh, bringing my hand up to cover my mouth as the embarrassment of my confession got the best of me.
“And here I thought you couldn’t stand me.” Remi ran a large hand over his face, suddenly looking exhausted.
“Couldn’t stand you?” I repeated. “Why?”
“Have you seen how close you sit to the door in the car? It’s like you want to be as far away from me as possible.” His eyes showed me a glimpse of pain, and I felt guilty as it seemed I was responsible for putting it there. I moved closer to him and looked up.
“I’m sorry it came across that way. It wasn’t like that at all. It’s because you make my no-sex ban very hard to follow. If I didn’t plaster myself to the car door, I would have been climbing up your very big…” I ran my hands over his sweaty arms. “Very hot…” Now, my fingers were coming down his chest. “Very sexy body.” I encircled his dick with both of my hands and began to move them up and down in unison. I may not have ever physically done this before, but between hearing my friends talk and all of the smut I read, I was far from prude. He groaned and leaned his head forward till it rested on the top of mine.
His cock was super hot in my hands, and as hard and stiff as it was, the skin around it was also velvety soft. I had no idea if I was doing this right because Remi had both his hands on my shoulders, squeezing really tight. His eyes were closed, his mouth hung open slightly, and he was barely making a sound. I ran my hand down the shaft and used my fingers to squeeze gently around the head that was leaking what I assumed was pre-cum. I had read about it plenty in my smutty books, but I had never come up close and personal with it until tonight. I used my thumb to gather up some of the wetness and then ran it over the slit.
“Fuuuuuck, Shaen.” His voice sounded strained.
“Good?” I asked innocently.
“Are you kidding? I’m doing math problems in my head right now because otherwise, I’m going to embarrass myself.” He opened his eyes and grinned at me sheepishly.
“Go ahead and embarrass yourself. I want to help you. I don’t want you to stop it,” I told him. He hesitated.
“What?” My hand slowed, but I kept my fingers wrapped around him.
“I kind of want to make it last because I don’t know when I’ll ever get to experience this again,” he confessed. He was back to making eye contact with me in a way that had me saying stupid things. Like inviting him up to my house in the first place. Like letting him drink so much. Like ending up in the bathroom with all of my clothes still on, him stark naked, and his big hard penis in my hand.
“Do you plan on this being a one-and-done thing?” I teased. I laughed at myself in my head because as confident and as chill as I was pretending to be with my funny one-liners, I was actually freaking the fuck out. Remi had only been in my apartment for a few hours. He was drunk and frankly going through some shit with his dad right now. I couldn’t quite explain how we had ended up here doing what we were doing, but my abandonment fears began to rise as my mind began to race. Maybe he wasn’t into me the way I was into him. Maybe he just saw me as a quick opportunity for a hand job. Maybe the way his eyes looked at me, like they could see my every secret, was simply just how he looked at people. Maybe this was really just a way for him to see if he could finally come without all of his hang-ups stopping him. I began to move my hand away from his body, but he reached down, closing his own hand around mine, and held it there.
“What just happened, Shaen?” he asked softly. I tried to respond, but it felt like all of my breath was stuck in my chest, and I realized that I was beginning to have a panic attack. I used to get them a lot in middle school when my mom was never home; we lived in a worse neighborhood, and every little noise kept me up all night. Between the lack of sleep, my hormones running amok because I was beginning to go through puberty, and my developing awareness that not all was right with the world when it came to my life, I began experiencing what I had later self-diagnosed as a panic attack. I would get dizzy and would feel like I couldn’t get a breath in or out of my lungs. My body would get all tight, and all I could do was wait it out until the moment would pass, and I could take a deep breath again. They had stopped coming so frequently when I got a phone in ninth grade and was able to search up panic attacks online. I learned a lot about the nervous system, mental health, and ways to support myself with things like meditation, yoga, and deep breathing. And in the event that I felt a panic attack coming on, if I could, I would put ice on my vagus nerve to help regulate myself through it. I was so mortified that this was going to happen in front of my crush thirty days before I would finally be done with the charade of having to pretend I was okay every day. I had managed to hide this side of my mental health for so long. Why was my body failing me now? And why did it have to be in front of him and his very naked body? I could feel tears prick up in my eyes, and I was horrified at the full-on breakdown my system was having. I slowly slid down the vanity until I sat on the tiles of the bathroom floor and put my head between my legs as I begged my body to let me take a full breath in. All I could manage now was a bunch of short breaths, which I knew were not helping the situation.
“Fuck,” I panted out. “I’m so sorry,” I managed in between breaths, angrily wiping away the tears that were forcing their way through my closed eyelids. I felt the air shift as Remi sat down in front of me, his big body crowding me in and surrounding me. His hands were on my arms, and his voice was soft in my ear.
“Tell me what to do to help you, Shaen. Do you have panic attacks often? That is what’s happening, right?”
I nodded, unable to get another word out, as my brain tried to force my body to breathe, and my body refused to cooperate. Remi tilted my head up, and my arms came around my legs, under my knees in a way that looked like I was hugging myself, mainly to support my body but also to self-soothe. I tried to bend my head back down, but Remi held my chin steady in his strong hands.
“I want you to mimic my breath, baby. Can you do that for me?”
There was that word again. My heart skipped a beat, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the lack of oxygen or because his words and his trying to help me affected me so much. I nodded. He began to take in long, deep breaths through his nose and then would push them out through his mouth in successions of three. At first, I couldn’t get into rhythm with him, but after a minute or two, my body relaxed, and I began to copy his breathing pattern. After another minute or so, I felt the tension of the panic attack completely release, and I was able to take an even deeper breath in. My body and mind felt so tired that I just wanted to curl up on the floor and sleep. Between the embarrassment of the moment and the shame I felt that Remi just wasn’t that into me, I could barely look at him.
“Don’t do that,” I heard him say from above me. I hid my face behind my hair and stared at my chipped nail polish.
“I can’t believe you saw that,” I managed.
“Shaen. Look at me.” He was starting to sound more sober at this point, and his tone was so commanding that I looked up.
“Do not hide from me. What happened is not okay, but you are okay now, and I’m happy I was here to help. We are definitely going to talk about that later, but right now, I want to know what brought it on. Was it something I did? Did we move too fast? I don’t want to scare you.” He looked genuinely concerned.
“It’s nothing you did,” I told him. “I just… I just think I like you more than you like me, and I have very little, actually, I have zero experience managing this kind of dynamic.” I gestured between my fully clothed body and his very naked one. “And it just overwhelmed my system. I’ll be fine though. Don’t worry about me.” I gave him a forced smile and fought the desire to just run away to my room and wait for him to leave. Maybe I could skip the rest of school and avoid seeing him ever again. Yes, the avoidant side of my brain loved that idea. Before my thoughts could take over again, Remi laughed. I looked up at him, confused and starting to feel a little annoyed at his reaction.
“You think you like me more than I like you?” he said in between laughter. “I literally just told you that I’m afraid this will only happen one time. I’m scared I’ll get to experience something amazing with you, and you won’t want to do it again. I have no idea what I’m doing here, Shaen, but all I do know is tonight, when you ordered me pizza and sat by me when my dad was being an ass and told Liam not to pick me up… I’ve never felt more comfortable being myself in front of someone than I did tonight. I’ve never told anyone what my dad did or why I moved away. I’ve never trusted anyone with…” He gestured to his body. “I’m scared you’re going to reject me, but on the off chance that you don’t, I want you to know that I like you. I like you a lot, and I’m sorry that I waited till the end of the school year to tell you, but… Fuck, I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?” His voice faltered, and he anxiously ran his hands through his hair, making it even messier than it had been before.
I had never heard so many words come out of Remi’s mouth all at once. I had also never felt so seen by someone, cared for even. My brain did not know what to make of the situation, but my body decided for us. I got up, still feeling weak from my episode, and sat myself down in Remi’s lap.
“You’re not fucking this up,” I told him, and then I leaned my head down and kissed him with everything I had.
“Oh fuck,” he moaned, running his hands up my legs, my ass, and then gripping my waist. “I was so worried I scared you away,” he admitted into my mouth. I kissed him into silence, and we sat there entangled in each other’s arms, making out until the water of the shower ran cold.
When I noticed that the air was cooling, I sat up in Remi’s arms and held myself up with my hands on his chest. The V of my legs was directly lined up with his groin, and the only thing separating us was my thin leggings and underwear. I swallowed thickly and said, “Why don’t you take that shower, and we can move this to somewhere more comfortable?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “And where would that be?”
“Uh… my b-bed,” I stuttered out. Remi laughed and messed up my hair with his hand.
“Your bed sounds perfect.” He reached a hand behind the shower curtain. “And a cold shower is just what I need right now,” he added sarcastically. I snickered as I refolded the towel I had brought in for him and placed it on the back of the toilet.
“Well, whose fault is it that the water is cold?” I asked jokingly. He pretended to look hurt as he got into the shower and closed the curtain behind him.
“That would be your ass,” he told me as I made my way out of the bathroom. “And your sexy mouth,” he called after me. I shut the door behind me and made my way to my room. What the hell was going on? I needed time to process what was happening. I had spent so many years alone, and as much as I adored my friends, I still kept a lot of people at arm’s length, so this entire experience was short-circuiting my brain. Did Remi Taylor say he likes me?