How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (25 page)

I flip him on top of me. He comes faster when he’s on top thrusting speedily in and out. It’s the least pleasurable for me, but today isn’t about me. Anyway, I’ve had sex recently, he hasn’t. He deserves a good quickie.

I encourage him to thrust faster and harder by saying, “Faster,” and “Harder.” He wants to wait for me to climax, but he warns he’s getting too close. I tell him to go for it. He does.

All sex can’t be the best sex of your life. Some days it’s more important to get it over with than get it right. Although, maybe it’s philosophies of this type that make me so bad at it that I need lessons.

“That was great,” John says, as he rolls off me, “Totally worth the wait.”

“Yeah,” I agree. Now we’re both lying about how great the sex was.

“I’m glad we got to do this,” he continues, “I think it’s important to know what you’re going to be getting for the rest of your life.”

Well it certainly isn’t always gonna be quick, rough, and tumble, like that, so I’m glad he liked it, but if that’s what he likes, I’m also starting to understand why he doesn’t appreciate it the way I do it when I get my own rocks off. Anyway, no time for sweet nothings, I’ve gotta get on with my day.

“I should get going,” I announce, as I get up to go. John actually looks a little disappointed, but I’m sure he’ll get over it. I quickly get dressed and that’s when I notice a small blue ring box, with a silky red border around the opening sitting in plain view on his bedside table. And then it dawns on me, he just said, “It’s important to know what you’re going to be getting
for the rest of your life
.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“What’s what?”

I point at the ring box, “That.”

“Oh, um, that is a piece of jewelry that I bought for, um,” he draws out every word as if he were trying to buy time to figure out what he’s going to say next, “uh, you, actually.”

I am beaming, he got me a ring. That explains all the candles and music and rose petals, and general explosion of miscellaneous romance. He’s going to propose. Just like I asked him to. Henry can suck it!

Wait, so maybe I shouldn’t be running out of the house so fast.

“Oh,” I offer, “I don’t have to go right away. Did you wanna give it to me?”

“No!” he exclaims rapidly, before immediately taking his vehemence back, “I mean, I wasn’t going to give it to you tonight because—“

“It’s okay,” I assure him, “you should do it however you planned.” I, like most women, would rather wait an extra day or two if it means I get the big elaborate surprise proposal that I can brag about to my friends. And I don’t need the ring until work starts on Monday.

“Oh, no, it’s not a ring,” he corrects me. Awkwardly adding, “Sorry. It’s earrings.” Earrings? I hate to be disappointed when he got me such a nice gift. But also, he knows that I want a ring. I put myself on the line, and outright told him so! “I was just thinking of getting you different ones because,” he continues to stutter out his jumbled thoughts, “because the color. Your eyes aren’t exactly what I imagined… I can do better.”

My eyes aren’t exactly what he’d imagined? What is that supposed to mean? We’ve been dating for almost nine months. What had he imagined my eyes to look like?

I feel bitchy for even having such an ungrateful thought, I mean, I may as well just be happy that he got me jewelry, even if it’s not a ring, and the earrings don’t match my eyes—yet. And Henry is going to think I lied to him… But I should just be happy. Jewelry of any kind is a big step toward commitment for a man.

“Can I see them? Maybe they’re fine. I mean, the main thing is that you thought of me. I’ll probably love them just for that.”

“No. No, I’d rather not. I wanna return them and get the other ones I saw. I want you to like those ones.”

“Okay. Well I’d better go home. I have a lot of work to catch up on for Henry.” He doesn’t fight to keep me there, which is fine, because I really do have a lot I need to do at my place after being out of town for four days.

Chapter 29

I don’t bother to clean the place up for Marty. I mean, it’s just Marty, right? Still when he gets there, I feel the need to apologize.

“Sorry about the mess.”

The dishes are piled up in the sink, as is often the case around here, not to mention the usual clothes on the floor, and what not. But if I were really sorry about the mess, I probably would’ve cleaned up for him. It’s not like this is a surprise drop by.

“No, I like it. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough around me to show me your true colors,” Marty surprises me by saying. Never heard that response before!

“So,” he goes on, “should we do this out here? Or do you wanna go into the bedroom?”

“Um, the bedroom, I guess, would be more comfortable.” Also, in there, he’ll have the opportunity to see even more of the mess I felt comfortable enough to not clean up for him.

I go straight to the bed, and wipe the giant pile of dirty clothes onto the floor, “There. All clean.”

He laughs.

Once that’s over, we stand thereacross the bed from each other. Not sure what to do next. It gets a little awkward.

“So…” I say to break the silence.

“So…” he’s not sure either. It’s not like he’s ever done this before, “I guess we should get naked.”

Yeah, I hadn’t considered that. I’m going to get naked in front of my client. That’s an unexpected turn of events. I realize that it shouldn’t be unexpected, I just didn’t think through the little details of what this would entail, beyond the end result of me learning some cool tricks and techniques from a sexologist.

I guess it’s fine. He is a professional. He’s an expert. He sees naked bodies all the time. He’s like a doctor. He is a doctor—he’s got a PhD. This’ll be like getting naked in front of a doctor, only better, because you don’t always know the doctor who walks into your hospital room to poke and prod at your clothes-less insides and outsides.

“Okay… So I guess we should take off our clothes then?” I try to sound as casual, yet professional as can be.

“Okay,” Marty says, clearly questioning the greatness of this idea to a similar degree as me.

Somebody’s got to start this, so I just go for it. Pants down. Shirt off. Marty follows my lead, but he turns away shyly. I like that idea, so I do it, too. Now we’re facing away from each other, and soon, we’re completely naked, with all our junk hanging out.

“Okay, I’m naked,” I hear him say. “How about you?”

“Yeah. I’m naked, too.”

“So maybe we should turn around on three?”

“Okay.”

“One, two, three.”

We slowly turn around, almost afraid of finding out that which we can’t unsee. Well, he can, but he doesn’t know it, so let me just speak for myself.

We quietly check each other out, trying not to give anything away on our faces. His body is better than it looked in clothes. Don’t get me wrong, he does have an evenly spread layer of doughiness from his chin to his ankles, but he’s definitely more “big-boned” than fat. His skin is vaguely translucent with pasty overtones, but it’s smooth and blemishless. He’s got some light brown chest hair, but not too much. I don’t like a full hair-shirt, mostly because all that chest and back hair makes it nearly impossible to cuddle a guy without waking up from all those little tickly sensations riding into the edges of your nose, as you try to breathe in and out. Not that this matters to us, because I don’t plan on doing any cuddling.

Marty is not the tight-ab’d, health conscious, chisel-boned surgeon I’ve been sleeping with, but I’m not here to get turned on. I’m here to learn how to turn the surgeon on.

“You have a very nice body. So that’s a good start,” Marty compliments me in as non-sexual a way as it’s possible to tell someone their body is hot. He’s such a decent guy that he has even gone to the trouble to stay flaccid despite the nice female body standing across from him.

“Thank you. What do I do with it?” I’m feeling gangly and naïve right now, like a kid deciding to get good at something she’s spent years telling herself she has no natural talent for. Today, I defer to the expert. I know nothing, because what I know seems to be obviously incorrect. I have to learn it all again from scratch, and to do that, I have to be a blank slate.

“Kissing is standard for a beginner,” Marty coaches, taking his cue from my general demeanor.

“Okay, let’s do that. And you’ll let me know if I’m doing anything wrong. Or if there’s something I could do better.”

“Okay,” Marty agrees, before we continue to stand motionless across from each other, neither of us having the guts to advance toward the other. He clears the air first, “Should I come to you? Or do you wanna come to me?”

“I’ll go over there,” I offer, trying to be strong.

As I approach him, Marty self-consciously looks down at himself, “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve allowed myself to become a little aroused.”

If that’s a little, I’m hoping that a lot doesn’t split me in half. Then again, I pretty much know what to expect from the day we made the dildo mold, and I think I can take him.

“No. Not at all,” I reassure him, keeping the tone light, “In fact, we might need that, later, if I’m gonna learn anything.”

Still I try to avoid his protruding erection as I lean in for our first kiss. It’s just a peck, but it feels nice, despite the awkwardness between us.

“You might want to move a little closer. That might help you relax,” he suggests.

“Oh, am I too tense?” Do I really have to ask? My shoulders are cocked up to my eyeballs, and I’m hunching forward just to reach his face. “Sorry.”

I crick my neck and shake myself out. I don’t know if the boob swinging that occurred in my shake-out was sexy or just weird looking, but oh well, it’s just Marty.

“Maybe we should start with touching, so we can both feel more comfortable around each other’s bodies,” Marty suggests, very professionally.

“Okay.”

He grabs my shoulders, pressing his fingertips into the backs of them, to give me a slight massage before running his hands down my arms. The touch of his hands sends a charge through my body, as my stomach drops instantly into my groin, and tingles climb up my arms, sending a chill through my back. I try to hide from him how amazing it feels, forcing myself to stare forward at him, instead of letting my eyes roll back into my head, where they really want to go.

“Feel free to let go. A woman’s enjoyment is a great turn on for a man,” Marty instructs. I giggle, embarrassed to have been caught holding back.

He doesn’t judge me. He just softly touches my sides and lets his hands drop until he’s holding my waist. His hands are like magic. Their every motion along my skin makes me want to let out a deep-rooted sigh of relaxation, as he melts away any discomfort my brain has been causing me. He’s not even massaging me, but even his gentle caress feels as if electricity were coming out of his fingers.

“Do you wanna step a little closer, and try touching me?” he asks.

“Okay.” I’m less awkward, but I’m still feeling shy about demonstrating my total lack of expertise to him.

He takes me by the waist and pulls me closer to him. I wrap my arms around him and press my fingers up his back. I can feel him becoming fully erect, as his full length shoots upwards of my belly button and his own.

“That’s nice. That’s very nice,” he sighs, not holding back his sense of pleasure nearly as much as I did, “I think we’re ready to try kissing again.”

“Okay.”

“Just relax, and pretend no one else is here,” he says as he leans down to kiss me tenderly, “Not even me.”

He kisses me longer and more intensely before soothingly reminding me, “I’m just a fantasy in your head. And nobody is watching you.”

I follow his advice, and pretend that I’m all alone with invisible, soft, pressure-filled lips kissing me deeply, and invisible arms and hands creating that magical tingly sensation all along my back and hips. I feel safe here. Comfortable. Like nothing bad can happen with these arms protecting me. I’m like a fragile, breakable, thin antique vase, cupped in the arms of a giant pillow that would never let me fall.

I accidentally let out a little moan of pleasure. It startles and embarrasses me, so I stop to find my bearings. When I open my eyes, Marty is there, smiling comfortingly at me.

“You’re a really good kisser,” he says happily into my eyes.

“I am?” That was not what I expected to hear.

He kisses me again, and it feels just as blissful as it did before, only add to that confidence. Mine. Maybe I can do this after all. Maybe I’m not as untalented as I think.

“Do you wanna lay down on the bed?” he suggests.

“Okay. Whatever you think.”

He lifts me up, the giant protective pillow to my fragile antique vase, and carries me strongly to the bed. He lays me down like the delicate thing that I feel I’ve become in his grasp, and kisses me everywhere. While he kisses me, he runs his hands all over my body, spreading their magic electricity ubiquitously. I have lost all control of my body, which is jerking and jolting in delight.

“This feels great,” I pant, as I grab his hair and massage his head to coax his body back up to my level, “but I need to know what feels good to you.”

“That feels good,” he gets out, through his own heavy breathing, referring to the head massage.

“What about this?” I ask, running my hands along his body, chest, back, and butt cheeks. He moans openly.

“That feels good.”

“What about this?”

I grab his member, the most important thing I need to learn to understand.

“The most sensitive part of the penis is—“ Marty stops talking, distracted by my rubbing of his shaft firmly upwards with one hand, as I use my other hand to massage the head.

“—You’re doing it right,” he finally continues. “The most sensitive part is the tip, and just around the tip, underneath it.”

“I know that part. It was in your book,” I concede with a little more confidence than I expected. I caress the underside of the rim, letting my fingers linger lightly at the end of every stroke.

“I love it when you talk dirty about my book to me,” he only half-jokes, while clearly expressing his pleasure with each breath out. “Your strokes are exerting the perfect amount of pressure, too. I like how you’re gripping me firmly, without pinching my skin.”