Random Acts of Love (Random #5) (2 page)

It was Joe’s perfection that made me lust after him. But it was his imperfections that made me love him.

Mmmmm, I like that
, I texted back, my hand wandering and spreading, ring finger sliding over my clit, then down to catch some wetness and bring it back to lube up my swollen, tender nub, pretending it was him. When we’d started texting Joe had been excited but Trevor had seemed...displeased. The fool wouldn’t open his mouth and say what he was feeling or thinking—in that respect he and Joe were stubbornly similar, while I was like an emotional spigot with a washer worn all to hell.

You never knew exactly when I was going to squirt.

Finally, Trevor had blurted out, “Why do you need to do that nasty shit when you could just sleep with me?” Unbeknownst to Trev, my speaker phone had been on and Joe had heard the complaint, his voice barreling out of the tiny little device.

“Because she likes it and so do I and fuck you.”

Trevor’s eyes had gone very wide, his fists balled up, and he’d turned around and walked out.

At that moment, my pussy had dried up like a slice of strawberry in an infomercial food dehydrator. And Mama had called, forcing me to flip over to her other line, only to be informed that I had won an S&M party pack filled with $300 worth of leather sex items, finger cuffs, nipple clamps, candles, and assorted sex manuals to teach the basics of BDSM. 

Which made my entire series of sex organs desiccate on the spot and float off into the wind by my own sputtering exhale of disbelief and horror.

To be fair, though, the sound of Mama describing all the sex toys had made Trevor come back into the room. And then we’d both forgotten poor Joe, left on call waiting forever after I had pretended to lose the call and get rid of my mother while Trevor showed me exactly what he would do to my body with those nipple clamps...

That memory got me all fired up, my breath catching in my throat, the cloth of my sweater brushing with an aching sensitivity against my nipples, making me want Joe’s mouth on them, sucking and teasing.

Post a pic
, he insisted, sending his own picture of his hand on his thick rod. The first time he’d sent me a photo of his naked self I’d burst out laughing, the absurdity so over the top, like kissing a chicken. Who needed naked pictures of the person they got to sleep with whenever they wanted? It felt like taking a picture of the donut you were about to eat.

And then I’d realized that’s exactly what millions of people do every day. Except it’s called Facebook. Only you can’t post a picture of your dick on there (or, at least, you’re not supposed to).

Suddenly shy, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to send a picture
of
. My boobs? My fingers on my belly? Hand on my breast? Tweaking a nipple? My tongue? Not the surly dandelion muff, though. No need to give Joe a glimpse of that untamed jungle, and for an image of my hurly-burly curlies to be stored by the NSA in some file that would be used against me thirty years from now when I was respectable and running for the Senate. 

What do U want 2 C?
I typed back.

I got one response:

{()}

And then my phone rang, playing Cee Lo’s “Fuck You” ringtone.

Joe.

Hey,
he
picked it.

“Yes?’ I said in my best breathy, Marilyn Monroe voice. Sounded more like Marilyn Manson, but whatever...

“I’m right there with you, my mouth moving slowly across your neck, leaving wet kisses exactly where you like them,” said Joe, his voice hushed and horny. Closing my eyes, I imagined him in front of his computer, cock-deep in law school books but thinking only about
me me me
right now.

“Yes, you are.” My finger reached back down to find my clit, peeling off the interminable butt floss undies Trevor liked so much and pitching them straight in the trash. If I want my nether regions in a constant state of irritation and for my ass to feel like someone just rubbed a washboard against it for seventeen hours straight, I’ll give Trevor and Joe some E and Red Bull and let them tie me up. Some fool pair of panties wasn’t worth all that suffering for nothing in return. 

“No, no, no,” he chided. “Naughty lady. You don’t get to touch yourself just yet.”

My hand froze. “Lady? Joe, honey, this is Darla. You sure you called the right number? Maybe you meant to call a 1-900 line?”

“I called exactly who I wanted, to get exactly what I need.” His answer made my throat—and pussy—swell with joy. Although he had shocked me by moving to Philly and actually doing it—ditching me and Trevor for Penn law school—as the weeks had turned into months and now, finishing his second year, his willingness to use the train, texting, phones, email, and Candy Crush games to forge and maintain a bond had quelled so much of the worry in me. 

Horny little fucker.

(Me. Not him.)

Right now, though, worry was vanquished and raw, hard hunger for his cock was all I wanted to focus on. If the fingers I used now to tease my clit out weren’t his, by God they’d be his instrument.

“Whatcha gonna do to me?” I murmured, already halfway home, needing release as his voice made love to me through the phone. Regretfully, I put it low, on speakerphone, hating to put myself at risk of being caught with my hand in the cookie jar—er, my pants—but the neck cramp that lasted two days from our last phone sex session wasn’t worth it.

“My mouth is making its way down your neck to your breasts, and as I stroke myself right now, your mouth is on me, giving me just enough lube to make me wet, the strokes—” his breath hitched, all his own undoing coming from him. Dammit! I wanted a train ticket, right now. This would have to do. Joe wouldn’t be back for another week, after finals were done and his fourth of six semesters completed. What the next two brought I couldn’t fathom, because this very minute I didn’t count time in semesters. 

I counted it in orgasms.

“My hand is on you as I lower myself to my knees before you, taking you in with my mouth,” I said, interrupting him as I felt the familiar rise of a wave that spun heat out of pure desire, the warmth flooding through my entire body, making me recline against my headboard, the pillows no substitute for Joe’s hot, muscled chest. 

But they would have to do.

“Then you’re under me and I’m going down on you and you reach up to deep throat me,” he said in a voice like whisky and chocolate, sharp and sweet and oh, so luxurious, the mere sound of his breath in the phone enough to tip me over. This was no heated rush of fire and tongue under a pine tree at a rest stop in Ohio, but it would have to do. 

Closing my eyes, I could see him above me, thighs flexing as my hand reached up to grasp one chiseled half of his ass, the other sucking on his left testicle, the one he favored. His mouth was on me and the pathetic understudy of my finger had to pretend to be the star—Joe’s tongue was a tough act to follow, and because I hadn’t seen him for three weeks, this was “enough.”

It had to be enough. And, it turned out, it was for both of us, as Joe’s words descended into garbled gasps and groans, my own fingers speeding up with remarkable precision to extract exactly what I needed, the expertise of masturbation a skill I could never add to a curriculum vitae but one that really ought to hold some social cache, like knowing Latin or being able to start a fire with a string and a stick.

Tying a cherry stem with my tongue was the closest socially-appropriate skill I could talk about. Being able to meet my body’s sexual needs by my own hand—with a little verbal help from Joe—was an accomplishment, but one there was no CLEP test for. It’s not like you march into the Harvard admissions office and use that as the talent portion of you interview to get in, right? 

Then again, I’ve met a few of those Harvard day students. Common sense is about as rare as a non-smoker in a trucking school. Maybe some of them got in that way after all...

“Aural sex is the best,” Joe chuckled into the phone. “How you doing?” The real conversation came now, as I sat with a hand that smelled like hope and relief, trying to hold my phone in a way that didn’t make me think about my friend Amy and her moment of vibrator app passion. I have seen grown men do remarkably stupid things back home in Ohio, including but not limited to an attempt by a neighbor to kill off a giant wasp’s nest via roman candle—and I still could not grasp how Amy could be so caught up in her own pleasure that she somehow forgot she was holding a communications device against her vulva and then—oops!—it substituted as a cock.

A woman should notice these things.

Some high degree of rapture had to be responsible. And not the Jesus kind, because if the real rapture involves smartphones getting stuck in hoohaws, then I might have to avoid church altogether. The Church of the Holy Dripping App Store was a little too creepy. 

“I’m here, you know?” I replied, finally, wondering if this was just too weird.

“How is your class?” Joe’s tone changed from post-phone-sex-coital to schoolmasterish (and not in a sex fantasy kind of way). I was taking a basic research methods class at Harvard.

Har-fucking-vard. (Yes, I know I’m talking about it a lot. Too bad. It’s a big deal, like Mama winning a dream home or a year’s supply of ice cream. You tell everyone so they understand that your life doesn’t suck any more). 

Josie had turned out to be right, after all, and the most prestigious school on earth (in my mind) had a night school like a community college—only better.

Because all I had to do to prove myself was take three classes and earn a B or better and I was in. Full-time, with all my financial aid applied. Joe was my unofficial nanny-tutor, harping on me non-stop to make sure I got whatever help I needed, support, and general nudging.

“I’m getting an A. My final paper is due soon.”

His voice tightened. “You haven’t sent me a draft to review yet. My finals are this week and I—” The words came out in a concerned rush, his voice angst-filled and struggling. I loved being cared about like this—I really did—but his ferocity could be too much sometimes. Stifling, even. But it seemed like one of the main ways we could connect outside of bed. Trevor and I had musical tastes and proximity in common.

Joe? Joe was three hundred miles and a world away in every sense except this. When it came to my class, he was there, like a hockey parent who cheered and jeered in the stands until they became larger than life, bigger than the team, and a force unto themselves.

Joe was like that, only about MLA style and shit.

“It’s fine.” 

“Don’t let that asshole teaching assistant talk down to you,” he insisted, his tone protective and outraged, somehow balancing both and making me feel relieved and righteous. A few weeks ago I’d accidentally used the word “irregardless” in class and the professor’s TA had been leading her discussion section. After a thoroughly piss-ass dressing down I’d called Joe, vulnerable and in tears, only to get the world’s greatest pep talk.

With one exception.

“I won’t.”

“But please don’t ever use that word again.” I could hear him shudder. Could he hear my eyes roll?

“I won’t. Irregardless—” 

“Darla!”

“—Amy said she’d look at my paper.”

“Amy?” he scoffed. Then the condescension appeared, just like I suspected it would. “She’s fine for checking out a first draft, but you really need me to do the final read.” 

“Right. Because a woman who is getting her graduate degree in how to do research in a library is the exact wrong person to turn to when I’m taking a research methods course. How stupid of me.”

“You’re not stupid, it’s just that Amy doesn’t really—”

“You wanna talk about Amy, or you wanna talk about what I’m gonna do to you when you get home?”

“I’m already working on building up calluses on my cock to be ready,” he joked.

“You’ll need them, because poor Trevor could use a break.”

Normally, that kind of talk was fine, but I caught my voice at the end and winced. The blanket of silence felt so heavy and stifling as I tried to put my finger on what had changed these past few months between the three of us.

My finger had just been on part of it, of course. Sex with Trevor was easy and fun and dynamic and athletic and did I mention,
fun
? The three of us together made for an even better experience, but with Joe’s move he hadn’t just physically gone away. The need to connect had emerged, and the twinned expectations of some emotional distance and the desire to bridge the gap meant that Trevor and I had tried to fill in the vacuum.

With loads of sex. Too much, probably. Some days I thought I had rug burns on my labia from going at it too hard and so long and so much and just—so.

So.

So. About that silence...

“Trevor will get a break,” Joe said in an even tone that I knew he was trying so hard to maintain. Learning the physical ins and outs of these two men had been a natural process, one of uncertainty and exploration, of delight and discovery and
yum.
The emotional landscape of each of us, then each with me in dyads, and then the triad itself?

I suspected I could get a Ph.D. at Boston University in psychology and never fully understand what we were trying to do, how the dynamic among us worked, or what the fuck “we” were.

Psychology, though, was shaping up to be my major because I figured that if I were going to study anything in depth, it should be deviance. My own and that demonstrated by others. It was a pretty safe topic that provided non-stop job security, because whether you worked at a threesome dating service or at an addiction counseling program or an Alzheimer’s unit, you dealt with open deviance.

And then there was the covert deviance, which was a whole ’nother story.

“Trevor’s already kinda broken,” I said in a conspirator’s voice, my yawn catching me off guard at the end, making Joe’s glorious voice barrel out with genuine laughter he so rarely exuded. It made me love him all the more.

Bzzzz
. Joe’s phone beeped in. “Damn! Darla, that’s one of my study mates. Got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”