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I seem to be breathing hard. He’s breathing hard. It’s fair to say that I launch myself at him, fiercely enough to knock him back against the couch. I straddle him the way I imagine maniacs straddle, with one knee almost up to his armpit and my crotch pressed to his … belly somewhere. It’s not hard to imagine that I look like a giant spider.

And I kiss him hard enough to force this noise out of him:
mmph
.

He kisses me back. Of course he does. Prior to me he only ever kissed his sister-cousin. Though I’ll admit, it doesn’t seem that way. Sometimes his mouth starts off clumsy, but then he’ll get into this rhythm and his tongue will flicker in this tentative-but-hot way in and out of my mouth, like he’s fucking me even though he’s not all that sure he should be doing it.

It’s difficult to pull away. He’s hypnotising me with his lips.

‘Maddie,’ he says, between kisses. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever liked anyone calling me that. ‘Maddie, wait.’

But I don’t want to wait. If I wait, I’ll have to tell him what I did and then he’ll probably never kiss me again. I don’t deserve kisses, cheating whore that I am.

‘Maddie, come on!’ he says, through laughter. I’m glad he can laugh. I’m also glad that he can get an erection – I can feel it pressing against my thigh and God it makes me want to rub myself over it.

I pull away, when he pushes. He asks if he can make love to me, and then I pull away even further.

‘You don’t have to … want to,’ he starts. He’s half-frowning and flushed – as usual – clearly confused but Lord I don’t want to take away that confusion. Let it stay all over him for ever, for all I care.

I do care. I do.

‘I mean, maybe you don’t ever want to do that with –’

‘I fucked Andy. Yesterday. I fucked him.’

I blurt it out, just like that! Right in the middle of whatever nice thing he was going to say. Or awful thing, depending on your point of view. Because I do want to do it with him. I do, so badly. I can almost
taste
what it would be like.

I don’t want to meet his eyes. If I meet them, then I’ll have to go back to the way things were before I knew him – I won’t have an assistant, suddenly, or a man I almost want to call my boyfriend. My lover. My whatever you’re supposed to call it, when you’re too old for teenage things like going steady.

I can just see his hands, each one curled on their respective thighs. They don’t start fidgeting, and they don’t clench into fists – though granted, he might not be showing his emotions through the medium of fingers. Perhaps it’s all in his chest or his shoulders – though when I creep my gaze up a little, they don’t look tense/angry/upset, either.

But I can only bring myself to look at his face, when he says:

‘And then what?’

Mainly because it seems like an odd thing to say, at best. I need to see what expression goes with
and then what
.

Apparently it’s
expectant
.

‘I … what?’

‘Then what did you do, after you fucked him? Did you … are you in love with him?’

He swallows, directly after the word
love
.

‘Because if you are, that’s OK – I mean, he’s strong and handsome and … other things. I wouldn’t expect you to … I don’t know. Why are you telling me this, again?’

I honestly have no idea. I look back on those cheating whore thoughts and find them faintly ridiculous, now. What claim did Gabe really have on me, after all – beyond the one I made for myself?

‘I don’t love Andy,’ I say, because that’s the most explainable part of all of this. Why does he look so … bemused? And somewhat relieved, after the whole
don’t love
part.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Good.’

And though he says it fiercely – for a moment, his eyes flash bright and dark, all at the same time – he doesn’t linger on that feeling for long. Instead, quite suddenly – and sort of breathlessly, I have to say – he spits out:

‘What was it like?’

Oh Lord. Not this.

‘It was … it was nothing! Just nothing. I did it because I – because I think I have feelings –’

‘Tell me what he did. Did he do it hard?’

‘Gabe –’ I try, but he ploughs on. Eyes suddenly distant and to one side, chest rising and falling rapidly.

‘Where did he do it to you? Downstairs, in the kitchen? I know you did things in the shop, once, because I could see the print you left on the desk … God that print. I had to polish it away but even after I did I kept thinking about it and thinking about it. I still do, sometimes.’

At which point, understanding begins to dawn. What an idiot I am!

‘It was in the kitchen.’

‘Did he … from behind? Or were you sat on the table?’ he asks, and actually licks his lips. He’s leaning forward, now, and I lean forward right back at him. I should have known, I should have known. What does he like better than anything else?

Humiliation.

I think about Connie, in
Behind The Bedroom Door
, telling Peter all about the escapades she’d just been on. Gabe had circled the scene where she tells him about the two guys, filling both her holes, I remember. Though I don’t have anything as good as that, to tell him.

I only have this, ‘He was so good. He pounded me so hard, I thought I’d die.’

Though it seems to have the desired effect. He’s leaning over, but I can see his hand sliding between his legs. I can see the back of it, as it flexes – as though he’s squeezing something, hard.

‘Like when I saw you? Like when I saw you, with him?’

‘Yes – exactly like that. He got hold of my hips, and yanked me back on his thick cock.’

And then he does the most extraordinary thing – or at least, extraordinary for him. He leans right back into the couch, and starts unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers, with fumbling, unsteady hands.

The thought:
he’s going to masturbate right in front of me, while I talk about this
rolls up behind my eyes, sudden and so thrilling that my entire sex contracts and swells. I feel my nipples stiffen, underneath layers of shirt and duvet.

‘Keep talking,’ he pants, and I have to stop, and gather myself. I’m just not sure what I expected, but it absolutely wasn’t this. I’m a fool, and apparently a weirdly conservative one.

‘Gabe – wait,’ I say, and he immediately stops with his zipper halfway down and one hand already inside his trousers. It makes me wish I had a camera, to take a picture of him being a loose little slut.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asks. He definitely, definitely knows what presses my buttons. And all along I thought I was the one doing the leading, setting the rules, laying the groundwork.

Now I’m not so sure.

When I speak, my voice comes out hoarse.

‘I want you to … follow me into my bedroom. OK? I want to go to my bedroom.’

A smile pulls at his mouth, but it’s a nervous sort of thing. And when I get up and turn around, I can hear him behind me, blundering into the coffee table. Knocking things over. I wonder if he knows that my heart’s pounding, too.

I
KEEP THE LIGHTS
off, and get him to close the door. My bedroom curtains are always closed, so it’s very dim and quiet, once we’re inside. He trails his eyes over everything – the bed, covered only in a crisp white sheet. The books I have haphazardly stacked on the bedside chest of drawers, the small desk in the corner, the top of the wardrobe, the floor. It’s a jungle of books in here, I know.

Not much else, by way of decoration.

‘It’s lovely, in here,’ he says, because he’s clearly mad. ‘I can smell your perfume.’

‘Take your clothes off,’ I say, in reply.

His eyes flick back to me, suddenly stormy. I can see what the words do to him, even through the faint darkness. It’s been clear all along that he doesn’t like to be naked, but this is intense. I actually think he might refuse.

But in the end, he just goes with, ‘Will you take off yours, too?’

Before he starts peeling off his tank top. I watch it go over his head, glasses still on – of course! It almost makes me laugh, but I catch myself just in time. I don’t want him to feel any more awkward than he already clearly does.

I start unbuttoning my shirt, in sync with him. However, unlike me, he hesitates halfway down. His words come out ever so slightly unsteady.

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him and he grimaces, but continues unbuttoning his shirt. When he starts tugging it off his shoulders, the urge to ask him what, exactly, the hang-up is rings out strongly, inside me.

There’s nothing wrong with him, at all. His skin is gorgeous – I can tell, even in the low light. That same liquid paleness, everywhere, and then the sharp contrast of the dark hair all over him. It’s thick over his chest – much thicker than you’d suspect, when thinking about his passive demeanour – before trailing down in a thin line over his taut belly – so much like an arrow that I want to lick it, immediately.

But it’s clear that he doesn’t appreciate it as much as I do. He murmurs something about Andy’s relative smoothness, though I’ve no idea how he knows that. Was he checking him out, when Andy lifted his shirt? Specifically measuring the ratio of his hairiness to another man’s?

It makes me restless and agitated, to think that he doesn’t understand his own attractiveness. So I step forward, and touch him. He should be touched – it’s a crime that he hasn’t been. Or at least, I think he hasn’t been. He certainly shivers, when I run my hands over the rough fur all over his chest, and then up, to the strong shape of his shoulders.

When I get close to that curve of his lower back, he
almost
flinches away. But I insist, and smooth my hand over and around and down, to that sweet hollow just above his arse.

‘Madison,’ he moans, though I can’t tell if it’s a request for me to stop, or a need for more, or anything at all, really.

But he does start unbuckling his belt with fumbling fingers, without me having to ask. And when I find his stiff little nipples, and pinch, he fumbles faster. Draws it from its loops, slow, slow, while behind my eyes I see that leather, looped around my fist.

I think he sees the same thing, too, because when I step back a little and watch it come free, he pulls slower yet. Almost like a nervous striptease, begging me to think about certain slutty things.

And I do, I do.

‘Touch yourself,’ I say, so close to him suddenly that he must be able to feel my breath against his lips. So close that he finds it a struggle, to slip his hand between our bodies, and stroke all over the places I tell him to.

He toes off his shoes and socks, first – and I let him, because that’s a nice easy start. Before I progress into making him unbutton and unzip his trousers, and shove down the too-tight underpants he seems to be wearing. They’re not quite as bad as the ones I requested he wear, but they’re not far off, either. As clingy and bright as men’s underwear probably gets, and he seems to know it too. He tries to kick them away before I’ve seen, and as a punishment I make him run his hands over his own arse.

That seems to get him into stuttering, red-faced mode. Though shortly after fondling himself like a little trollop, he licks his top lip in this greedy sort of fashion, and the hand that’s trying to pretend it doesn’t want to run through his chest hair finds a nipple, and pinches it in much the same way I did.

Harder, in fact. He pinches it really hard, and then makes a sound halfway between a groan and gasp.

‘That good?’ I say, at which point he notices that I’m still in the room. His eyes flick back to mine, too dark and greedy-looking. He licks his upper lip, again, but this time I catch it coming. I swipe my own over his, just as he’s reaching that firm bow in the middle – in a teasing way, I suppose.

He certainly seems teased, after I’ve done it. He jerks as though startled, then presses himself against me, quite suddenly, pushing for a kiss before I’m sure I’ve had my fill of him discovering himself for my pleasure.

Or his pleasure, depending on how you want to look at it. He certainly seems steeped in eager excitement, when he kisses me – it’s far from closed and tight-lipped. His tongue flickers quick and urgent over mine, and when he can’t get close enough he actually pulls back, and takes off his glasses.

So that he can really get at me, you know.

I try to tell him to slow down, but I’ve got my hand pressed to the nape of his neck at the same time – so what sort of reliable narrator am I? All of this is heady and delicious, and even more so when I realise that he’s rocking his hips. He’s rutting his prick against my skirt, my belly, and when I go to pull away he actually grasps at my arse, so that he can press more firmly into me.

He’s probably leaving sticky trails, all over the material. He’s probably going to come, all over one of my nicest skirts. Certainly, he’s shaking enough – and he shakes even harder, when my wandering hands find the cleft between his arse-cheeks.

But of course he doesn’t go over – not even when we tangle briefly on the bed, or when I curl down and find the slick, swollen head of his prick, with my mouth.

That sharp pine scent fills me up, and I suck hard as he tries to push himself up or back or anywhere, on to the bed. I feel his hand, briefly, in my hair, but it moves away almost as soon as it gets there, and then it’s just his moans, his bucking hips, his wavering voice telling me I don’t have to.

I think about Andy, “making” me. It makes him nervous, I think – that idea of forcing me. Though he doesn’t seem to mind being forced to do anything at all. When I push him down – one hand spread over his chest – he goes easily enough. When I stroke a firm finger over his perineum, he squirms but doesn’t stop me.

He doesn’t stop me when I drag just the bluntest edge of my teeth the length of his cock, either. Instead he whispers
go on, go on
, and bucks up at me.

I don’t start out wanting to make him come in my mouth, but it’s hard to stop once I’ve begun. He tastes so good – salt-sweet and immaculately clean, naturally – and the little fluttery noises he makes, the way he jerks forward then holds back, and oh God, his thigh muscles jumping against my chest and stomach … it’s all good. It’s so good that I think I’ve soaked through my knickers, before he’s even had a chance to have a go at me.

I’m still almost fully dressed, though he seems to be trying to rectify that. My body’s half across his, so it’s not hard for him to get at my skirt – though it’s definitely surprising when I feel him push his hand inside, rather than trying to remove it.

When he gets to my inner thighs – eagerly spread for him – he slides his fingers between, stroking the soft skin there first before progressing to the material that’s pulled taut over my plump sex.

I think it’s the feel of it – material probably sodden and my cunt so hot and ready – that makes him go rigid. His voice comes out panicky and breathless, and with his free hand he tries to pull me away from his cock.

‘No, Maddie – stop. Stop. I don’t want to come in your mouth.’

The implication of which I find even more exciting than if he actually had – just sudden, a flood of hot liquid. God, I’m sure I get wetter, under the pressure of such thoughts. I certainly get wetter, thinking about what he means by
not in your mouth
.

It’s pretty close to him asking me for a fuck, I reckon.

‘Maddie, I’m almost there, come on. Please.’

I pull away with largely feigned reluctance, and for a second am startled by the look of him. He’s almost weirdly different without his glasses – features suddenly too big for his face without something else there, to offset them. But there’s still that odd attractiveness there, something fierce and dark and matched by his sinewy, oh-so-masculine body.

His legs seem to go on for ever – right off the end of my bed – which probably should seem girlish, but doesn’t. He’s just so
hairy
. And his prick juts up like a fist, between solid thighs and a belly you could actually bounce pennies off of, as I had suspected.

Suddenly I’m imagining frantic stomach-crunch sessions, while he tries to drill non-sex thoughts into his smut-addled brain.

He has a tight little line between his brows, when I finally work my way back up to his face. Then he swallows – both visibly and audibly – as though someone staring at his naked body is a hard thing to get down.

But he stays quite still for me, all the same.

‘Good boy,’ I say, and quite delightfully the frown melts, a little. His mouth quirks into that almost smile of his, and it grows wider when I start sliding my shirt off my shoulders.

‘Do I get to examine you, now?’ he says – jokingly, I think. Though he still circles his cock and squeezes, briefly, once the idea is out there. And he does it again, when I peel off my bra, and unzip my skirt, until I’m almost naked and only watching his prick.

I’m watching it so much that I accidentally blurt out, ‘God, I love how big and slippery you get.’

Which sounds so ridiculous and rude all at the same time that I think I flush. I know my cunt does. And that same bright spread of pleasure goes through me, when he sort of glances down at himself as though to check if I’m right, before giving in to that bristling embarrassment he so often wears all over him.

‘Oh …’ he says. ‘Well …’

As though it’s something to be ashamed of, to be so completely turned-on. I wish I could explain to him how much I enjoy that – such a sweet guy, being a complete slave to his desires and his hormones.

But instead I just have to go with, ‘Get the condoms out of the drawer next to you.’

That pulls his attention back. Enough to say the hottest words ever invented, at least.

‘Don’t you want me to lick you, first?’

Ah, Gabe.

‘I want you to be really wet.’

Lord, Gabe.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

With your gigantic glorious cock, Gabe.

‘I think I’m good to go,’ I say, though he still looks unsure, as he fumbles for the rubbers. And then less so, when I wriggle my knickers down my legs. He watches me spread out beside him, while I watch him. Of course he knows what he’s doing, but it’s still a tense fight between rubber and dick.
I don’t think these were made for me
, he says, but I think he seems just a little bit smug, too.

And then he turns, and leans down, and kisses me – obviously hungry, but strangely chaste, at the same time.

Oddly, I think of my first boyfriend. Lying like a starfish on his single bed, waiting for him to do it to me. I don’t know what it is about this that reminds me of that, but it seems to be a recurring theme in my head, just the same. Fumblings on narrow mattresses and in the backseats of cars. All of that excitement gone so quickly, and replaced with the dull greyness of reality.

I don’t know what kind of reality this is. I’m breathing hard, and he’s barely touching me. He asks me how I want it, and I can’t say anything. I’m not sure. I think about telling him I want it with him lying face down, but God knows what response that will get.

Instead I spread my legs and he slides over me, slick with perspiration and tense as anything. I think his teeth might be chattering, just a little bit. And when his cock slides through my soaking wet folds – unintentionally, I think – his eyes widen and he jerks back.

‘I should probably make myself come, first, and then …’ he says, but it’s OK because I think
I
almost come, hearing him say that. I definitely moan aloud when he follows it with a quick hand between my legs, and a moan of his own.

He sounds despairing – he
looks
despairing. His face goes slack and lust glazed when his fingers get lost in my completely over-excited pussy.

‘You’re so wet,’ he murmurs. ‘You’re so wet and burning hot, God.’

I can’t stop myself bucking up into his probing fingers. Especially when he puts two fingers together, and swipes down over my clit – just once, but once is almost enough. I nearly ask him not to stop, but then I think about his cock sliding back and forth in me, while those same fingers play right where they are now.

I just have to put a hand to the small of his back, and urge him forward.

‘Let me make you come, first,’ he says, so I kiss him to keep him quiet. I don’t think I can stand to hear him say anything else. I just want his mouth on mine and his cock pressing into me and oh holy mother of … I don’t think I’m going to survive this. Not on any level.

He slides just a little way in, and that’s too much. I think he knows it is, too, because he stops being able to kiss me properly, and turns his face to one side. His damp cheek presses against mine, fitfully, and I’m sure I hear him tell me to
relax, please relax
.

But I don’t need to, I really don’t. He feels big, but not impossible. I guess it only seems impossible to him, because he gasps out, ‘You’re too –’

Then can’t seem to remember what other words he was going to say. Mainly because he sinks all the way in, sudden and lo-o-ong. I see his eyelids flutter and his lips part, and then he’s rocking his hips, just a little. Just experimentally.

His hair has fallen over his forehead, but he doesn’t stroke it back. Instead he drops down so that he’s just propped up on his elbows, and brings his hands to my face. Strokes a thumb over an eyebrow, too soft and too much.