Tropesick

Chapter 61

Tyler

Katie crawled into my lap on the terrace and, with dew still clinging to the dining table, began to write. I pressed my nose

into the nape of her neck and watched her work her magic. Watched her loopy letters—in my dense black ink—show me all the

ways Willa wanted it.

And, mostly, Willa wanted it soft.

At least, she did at the very beginning.

She wanted it, at first, so soft she could barely feel it. So soft that Henry’s fingertips were but a whisper on her skin.

Slow, tentative. Hardly there. She liked the idea of him—the buildup. For years, she’d imagined him tugging things. Testing

things. And in her mind, it always began with nothing.

Began with a brush.

A graze.

A single, stifled gasp.

And so Henry had started slow. Had started with little more than his words and his widening eyes. With little more than the

mutter of her name, the thump of his heart, the rush of her breath. It had taken him hours just to kiss off her clothes, to

drag his nose down every inch of her bare and arching body, to learn the scent of it, the slick of it, the way it tautened

when he traced its curves with his tongue.

Henry, by now, was on his knees. They were in the outdoor shower, and I was hard and pressing up into the nothing hem of Katie’s tiny sundress, and Katie didn’t care, she just kept scribbling, kept moving herself against me, kept quietly finding ways to keep me centered between her legs, and Willa was bent over the bench, her fingers gripped onto the tile, water falling like hot rain, and Henry’s mouth was doing things to Willa’s body I did not know whether I’d survive.

And with every nip and lick and bite, Willa was right there, looking back at him, talking to him, touching her own lips and her own breasts and her own skin so there were four hands instead of two.

So that no part of her ever went unexplored. So that no inch of her ever grew dry.

And then, just as Katie shifted half an inch against me, just as Willa slid onto the shower floor and pulled Henry onto her

damp, desperate body and muttered that every time she touched herself, she’d wished that it was him, I clenched my fists and

closed my eyes.

“I need a minute,” I said.

Katie turned to me. My pen was still in her hand. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

“The sex scene? Yeah, I can see that.”

“No. This. Us. You and me. It’s going to be okay.”

I spun the dial on my watch twice. My mouth was heavy. “I don’t want to fuck this up. I don’t want anything to change. What

if this is just the way I’m built? What if . . .”

She lifted my chin. “You are not what you think you are, okay? You weren’t then, and you aren’t now.”

I frowned. She pushed the hair out of my eyes and took my hand.

“Do you trust me?” she said.

I nodded.

“Then come on. This ends now.”

The cottage door snicked shut. A few lazy beams of late morning spilled onto the tile floor. The ceiling fan whirred. Outside,

a couple of birds chirped. But otherwise, everything was still. Everything was quiet.

Katie walked to the foot of my bed and dropped her dress to the floor. Her lips were trembling but her voice was steady.

“Come here,” she said.

I took a few steps toward her and tried to speak, tried to say something, but all that came out was a stutter. My heart was

pounding, but my hand, somehow, was already floating forward, tracing the flimsy lavender lace that lined her hips. Her bra,

just as soft and sheer, was slipping off her sun-kissed shoulder. She took off my glasses.

“Can you see me all right?” she said. “Without them?”

I nodded. My shoulders were hunched, and my neck was bent. She put my palms in hers and led us two steps toward the bed so

the backs of her knees were flush against my mattress. She strained onto her toes and traced my jaw, then dropped her hands

to my shirt and slowly worked it off. The muscles in my stomach tangled under her touch.

“In my mind,” she said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed so my legs were between her knees. Her every inhale, visible.

She put her hand on the waistband of my shorts and inched them away. “There was everyone else, and then there was you.”

I nodded again. She drew my hips closer and began taking warm, wet sips of the sparking skin just beneath the elastic of my disappearing boxer briefs. She was kissing everything—muscle, ink, bone.

“Me too,” I said as she reached for me—as she ran a single finger up the length of me. My breath caught, and so did hers.

“There was everyone else. And then there was you.”

Her eyes were fixed on mine when I said it, and I was throbbing in the palms of her hands. She pulled me to her lips. Her

face blurred, and I groaned as my fists gripped her shoulders.

“Katie,” I said.

“Yeah?” she said, taking all of me. Using her mouth, her hands. Her hair was soft and wild, and landing in auburn waves just

below the lacework that barely covered her swelling breasts. My fingers peeled back the hem, careful and hungry and curious.

She stripped the rest of the gauze away and moaned as she filled my hands.

I cursed, then pulled myself back, fell to my knees, and kissed her. I kissed her neck, her collarbone, the hard, hot tips

of her nipples. I kissed every valley and curve and stretch and plain. The slopes of her stomach, the pinch of her waist,

the undersides of her smooth, damp wrists. She tasted like vanilla, and sweat, and a little bit like soap.

“When I close my eyes,” I said, “it has always been you. You and you and only you.”

She let out a sound, then dragged my hands down her hips. I curled two fingers beneath the frill that lay there. She sucked

in a breath and parted her lips—the space between them, practically an order. I put my mouth to the fabric, then used my teeth

to tug the lace to her flexing feet.

“My god, Katie. Look at you. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Tyler.” Her mouth was still wide open, and her skin was glistening. “Will you touch me? Please?”

I nodded. The tile was hard but forgotten under my knees. “How?”

She reached for my right hand and brought it to her face. She kissed my knuckles, then slid two of my still-shuddering fingers

between her open legs. She was dripping wet.

“Fuck,” I said. “You’re so perfect. You’re so absolutely fucking perfect. Show me what you want, okay? Show me what you need.”

She bit her bottom lip, then made two light but steady circles and said, “That.”

I inhaled, repeating the motion as she arched forward. She was still staring right at me. Still clutching my fingers, making

these high-pitched little sounds. She released my hand, and I kept going.

“That right?” I said.

Her hips bucked as her breath hitched. “Yes.”

“Do you want more? I’ll give you more. All you have to do is ask.”

She nodded, her answer coming out in a whimper. My nose was back on her knee, and my free hand was in her mouth. She was sucking

my fingers, and I was sinking my teeth into her skin.

“Will you lay down for me?” I said.

“I don’t want to move. I don’t want you to stop.”

“I won’t stop. Just lay down for me. Right here’s fine. Right on the edge of the bed. I promise, I’m not going to stop.”

She kissed my hand, then lowered herself onto the mattress.

Her head, propped on my pillow. Her legs, still dangling, and covered in sweat.

I licked a few beads away, and as she gasped, slipped a single finger inside of her.

She clutched her fists into my rumpled sheets and moaned.

I repeated the motion—the same one she’d shown me, but deeper, harder—over and over.

“Good?” I asked.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“More? Less?”

“This. Good. This. Yes.”

I laughed. I was still shaking. I was still shuddering. It did not matter. Time had stopped, and I had her. I had her, breath

shallow and skin deep. I had her, mouth open and eyes wide. I had her, whisper quiet and gasp loud.

“Katie,” I said.

“Yeah?”

I licked my lips and ran my nose up her tensing thigh. I took my time. I tested every inch of her slick, smooth skin. I muttered

her name while I did it. My hand, still repeating that same motion at the edge of her. Still learning what made her whimper

in and whine out.

“Can I kiss you?” I said.

She nodded. I drew in a breath, then rolled back my shoulders, hooked an arm around her tilted hips, and began to tease her—began

to barely taste her with the tip of my tongue.

“Oh—Oh my god.”

“Good?”

“Perfect,” she said. “Just like that.”

I drew her closer. Her legs were slung over my shoulders, and her hands were in my hair, tugging it but softly, and I was

kissing her just the same, kissing her like it was her mouth, kissing her like I couldn’t get enough, but softly. Licking,

learning, touching, sucking.

But softly.

Everything, softly.

“Tyler,” she said.

I did not answer her.

“Tyler,” she said again. Her voice, high-pitched and a plea. Her body, melting in my mouth, and so messy, and so sweet. She

sat up, wiping the sweat off my forehead with her fingertips. “Come here.”

I kissed her again, and then again, and then again.

“I need you inside of me,” she said. “I can’t wait any longer. I need all of you. Please.”

I kissed her one last time, then climbed on top of her, already hovering as we inched toward my headboard. She looked at me,

then my nightstand. With her legs braided into mine, I licked the last of her off my lips and reached for the drawer.

“Can I tell you something?” she said.

My heart beat out of my chest. “Yeah.”

“I always thought, my first time . . .” She peeled open the condom and slowly rolled it onto me. She kissed me while she did

it. “I always thought, somehow, it’d be you. I know it’s stupid, but it’s the truth.”

A single tear fell down her face. My mouth was on her mouth, and she was pulling me inside of her, inch by inch. Her jaw was

softening, and I could count the flecks of emerald in her welling, widening eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. I was kissing away her tears, and she was touching my face, moaning through the words as she took the

last of me. As the last piece of our puzzle clicked into place. “It’s okay.”

And then there was silence.

There was absolute silence.

I kissed her again and again and again. I was moving against her, touching her everywhere, charting every curve and edge and

angle, and her hands were gripped to me—to my back, my shoulders, my jaw. She pulled when I pushed. She took when I gave.

She gasped when I groaned.

“Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?” I said.

“I think so, yes,” she said, laughing. A few tears were still streaming down her cheek. I could not stop kissing her. I could

not stop touching her. Her face was in my hands, and her hands were on my face, and my whole world rearranged in the space

between us.

“I hate what I did to you. I hate who I was. If I could go back in time . . .”

“I know. I forgive you. You’re here now. You have me. I’m yours.”

I kissed her harder. I could not keep my lips off hers. I could not stop watching her—the way her inhales were changing, the

way her eyes were rolling, the way the muscles around her mouth were beginning to twist, tighten, and go taut.

“Are you close?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. I was still on top of her, shoulders hovering. My nose on her nose. My lips on her lips. Our bodies, stuck

to each other. Stuck to the sheets.

“Are you?” she said.

“Yes.”

She kissed me. “Nothing’s going to change, okay? It’s just me. It’s only me.”

“It’s only you,” I repeated as she pulled me into her a little deeper, a little harder. Her mouth was still glued to mine—and even closer now. Her skin was screaming hot, and she was clenched around me, wheezing, gasping, cupping my face. “There’s only you. There’s only you. There’s only you.”

“Tyler,” she said. “I need all of you. Now. Please.”

I inhaled, muttering as a flash of confusion—of desperation, of a thousand other things I could not describe—swept across

her perfect, slackening face. She nodded, kissing me, moaning my name, and I held her tight, and I forgot the rest, and I

let go. I fell apart, kissing her back, committing to memory the sound of her voice and the hum of her body and the hammer

of her heart as every inch of me warped and seized and shuddered. As everything I’d ever feared flew through my bloodstream

and left my body in a single, final sound.

Katie rolled us onto our sides and wrapped her arms around me. Everything was different. Everything was exactly the same.

“You’re still here,” she said.

Her heart was right there, hovering above her in the high noon light. I reached out to touch it.

“I’m still here.”