The Opposite of Nothing (2 page)

Between the storm and the dorm’s all-or-nothing heating system, the humid air in his room clung to his skin like a sticky film. He stripped down to boxers, switched on the oscillating fan he used year-round, and grabbed his laptop. Sprawled on the bed, debating “no experience jobs” and “legal fast cash” as search terms, he looked for a tiny green light next to a tantalizing name.
Sasha.
His money troubles weren’t going anywhere, but his elusive “friend” could blink out of existence at any moment. He pushed his worries to the back of his mind. The fan blasted his overheated skin, raising goosebumps as he opened a chat window. His pulse sped up while he waited for a response.

* * *

C
allie’s apartment was a pit. The tiny sink in her galley kitchen overflowed with cups and plates, completely obscuring the small collection of carnival glass she’d set up on the windowsill. She’d been so proud when she moved into her own place. She’d felt grown up and relieved to not have to deal with the drama of group living, the mystical puzzle of interacting with familiar strangers. She’d never fully adjusted to dorm living. She was too wary of people’s motivations, mistrusting overtures of friendship to the point of isolating herself.

Ignoring the mess, she grabbed a quart of orange juice from the fridge and drank directly from the carton. As soon as the soured liquid hit her tongue she sputtered. Capping the carton, she shoved it back into the fridge to deal with later, hip-checked the door closed, and went in search of cookies. Anything to get that taste out of her mouth. With an Oreo clamped between her teeth, she breezed through what she called her living nook, jostling a pile of papers in her wake. A futon and two upside-down milk crates didn’t exactly qualify as a room. It was more like a wide hallway leading to her bedroom. Her destination.

She dumped her soaked hoodie into the hamper and collapsed onto her bed. The cookie was stale but edible.
Even bad cookies are still pretty good.
If she were back in the dorms with a roommate, this would be the portion of the evening where they braided each other’s hair and compared notes on campus hotties. Too bad she sucked at braiding and hated almost every conceited frat boy she’d ever met.

This was all her former roommate’s fault anyway. She was the one who’d brought Tayber back to their room last year. Callie had woken up to the unmistakable, lip-smacking, heavy-breathing symphony of a serious hook-up.

“Trying to sleep over here,” she’d said.

Jessa had thrown a pillow across the room and not-so-politely suggested Callie get the hell out. She’d been such a dork. It was a wonder Jessa still spoke to her.

If Callie had just pulled the covers over her head and pretended they weren’t there, Tayber never would have recognized her in Calculus. Never would have apologized with an offer of conciliatory pizza and beer. Never would have wormed his way into her heart.

She changed into a tank top and threadbare shorts before slipping into her desk chair.
I’ll just check my school email, ten minutes tops.
She was lying to herself, bargaining with the devil.
I will not open his profile. I will not send him a message.
Making that fake profile for herself last month had seemed like such a good idea at two o’clock in the morning, after a few beers with Jessa and a few agonizing hours of watching Tayber hook up with some random girl at The Brick. She just wanted to know what she was missing. In graphic detail.
Sasha
let her find out. Except it had only made her wanting worse, and it was such a wrong thing to do. So she’d stopped. At least a dozen times.

But nothing stopped him from messaging her. There it was, blinking away. She should ignore it. Delete, delete, delete. It wasn’t even for her. Not really. It was for Sasha. And she’d sworn she’d never be Sasha again.

Tay: Hey

How could three tiny letters be so suggestive? She could hear him in her head. He’d say it kind of soft, but forceful, like the whole universe of his carnal experience could be contained in one word. She pictured him hunched over his laptop, shaggy hair eclipsing his face, shirtless, bare feet hanging off the end of his extra-long bed.

She had to answer. She wanted him any way she could have him.

Sasha: Hey yourself.

Tay: Why am I always happy to see you?

Sasha: Because I’m awesome like that?

Tay: You are. I’m looking at your picture right now. So beautiful.

Not me.
She’d sent him a picture of her cousin, on spring break in Cabo three years ago, filling out her bikini and pulling a duck face for the camera.

Sasha: Not really

Tay: Inside and out

Sasha: Laying it on thick tonight?

Tay: I can’t stop thinking about you.

It was torture. The ninth level of Hell. Everything she’d ever wanted him to say was there on the screen, except it wasn’t really for her.

Tay: I wish I could touch you.

And she was burning, flaming. If he were saying these things in person, she’d disintegrate. She tugged on her tank top, pulling the thin cotton away from her itchy skin.

Tay: Is that okay?

She was practically molting, slipping right out of her skin on the spot. This disastrous attraction might kill her. She squeezed her thighs together and shifted in her seat.

Sasha: I want to touch you too.

Tay: Skype?

Sasha: Can’t, still no webcam.

Shit.
This was going to be the end of it, again. Who didn’t have a webcam? She held her breath, waiting for the little indicator to flash that he was answering. A full minute. He was probably frustrated, pulling that mop of hair out of his face now, tugging it into a tiny ponytail. A minute and a half. He’d lost interest. Any second now his light would go out.

Tay: Too bad

She exhaled, a rush of relief that left her giddy.

Sasha: Sorry

Tay: Don’t you want to see me?

Sasha: More than anything

Tay: I want to see my hands on you.

Was he touching himself now? She traced a figure eight over the soft skin below her navel, chasing the flutter building there. She’d never be able to tell him the truth, and this was never going to be enough.

Sasha: You’re touching me now

Tay: Where?

Sasha: My belly

Tay: Lower. I’m touching you lower. I’ve got my fingers between your legs and you’re so wet for me.

Tay: I’m pinning you to the bed and kissing you.

Tay: I’ve got my tongue in your mouth. You taste sweet.

Like red licorice.
If anyone else sent her messages like this she’d block them in a second. Without thinking, she slid her hand lower, beneath the waistband of her shorts and between her legs, mirroring his description. She’d need to answer him soon. Tell him something, everything she wanted to do to him. But first, she’d take the edge off a little. The edge that had been building all evening beside him, watching love scenes filled with artsy shots of peaked nipples and glycerin-smeared abs and punishing kisses.

Why had they gone to that movie?

She was crushed under the weight of her unfortunate attraction and the game of pretend he didn’t even realize they were playing. Desperate for a friction she couldn’t find, couldn’t manufacture on her own.

Sasha: Keep going.

Tay: What are you doing to me?

That question could mean so many things. And she could ask it herself.
What are you doing to me, Tayber? How am I this person right now?
She knew he wanted her to type something sexy. Something to make his dick hard or harder. Something he could play over in his mind while he jerked off alone. Both of them alone, together, touching nothing but static.

Sasha: I can feel you pressed against me.

Tay: I am so hard.

This was hard, because it was easy. So fucking easy to pretend to be someone she wasn’t while he laid himself bare. She had to tell him. Not now. She wasn’t that cruel or that selfless. But soon, before she slipped and typed something only Callie would know. Or, worse, repeated something in person only Sasha knew. She moved to the bed. Curled around the laptop, she pushed things further than she ever had before. It had to be the last time. If he could lay himself bare, she’d do it too, in her own way. Her name might be fake, but these dirty fantasies were real. And just for him.

Sasha: my hand is all slippery

And it was. Her left hand, sticky slick, buried between her legs while she pecked at the keyboard with her right hand.

Tay: Lick it. Suck your fingers.

She almost did, but she didn’t want to stop touching yet. It felt so wrong and so good. Seeing his name, his words, blink up on the screen while she skimmed over the hard bud of her clit again and again and again. She pictured the flash of stomach she’d seen earlier, and her mouth went dry with desperate longing to drag her tongue over that patch of skin. And lower.

Sasha: rather suck you

Tay: plz

God, it wasn’t even a word. Just a collection of letters and intent. He was touching himself now, she knew it.

Sasha: squeeze first, tight, until you beg me to put my mouth on you, until you push me down on your cock

Tay: yes suck my cock

She wanted that more than anything. For him to want her as much as she wanted him. More, even. For him to make her, to tangle his fingers in her hair and drag her down. She was so far gone with lust she could barely see.

Sasha: sucking hard

Tay: gonna cum in yr mouth

Sasha: yes

Tay: on yr chest

Sasha: make me a mess

Such a mess. Twitching and achingly empty. So close. The more she got, the more she wanted. With her eyes squeezed shut, the space between
enough
and
good enough
shimmered behind her eyelids, flickered at the tips of her fingers—an invisible barrier. She needed something real, something solid. Instead, she clung to what she could have. The life she’d fashioned out of Popsicle sticks and poor substitutes. The pillow she’d shoved between her thighs. All the c
lose enoughs
she could manage. The pleasure built and built until the only way out was through. Her orgasm was a burst of light in the darkness, a secret wish given voice.

She closed the laptop without signing off.

* * *

H
e left her picture open on his desktop long after she stopped responding. How had he gotten to this place? He could stumble out of his dorm room and find a warm body in no time. He could message someone he actually knew and have a knock on his door in fifteen minutes. But he didn’t want just any lips on his cock, not anymore. Instead, he was trying to memorize the curve of her breast, the sliver of pale skin exposed where her bikini top skewed. He held that image in his mind while he stroked himself back to hardness. Slow, lazy, still spent from the last round. The image slipped, blurred, morphed into dark hair and a sad smile. She turned away from him, lifted her hair up as though waiting for something, the gesture an echo of one he’d seen earlier that day.
Not a stranger.

Someone who never asked him for anything. Someone he should not be thinking about with his hand in his pants.

Fisting his cock, he jerked hard and fast. Flashes of breast, of navel, of wide blue eyes pierced his consciousness until he finished hot and sticky in his palm.

Did it even matter who he was talking to? If his fantasy matched a reality that probably didn’t exist? He kept seeing those eyes, bright and searching.
I know those eyes
. Not Sasha’s. Hers were hidden behind giant neon sunglasses. His brain was filling in blanks. And there were so many blanks to fill. Callie was just the last person he’d seen. He grabbed a towel off the floor and cleaned himself up before closing the laptop for the night. He slept with his shame tucked around him like a blanket. It had been keeping him warm for years.

S
he’d made it to class on autopilot, but the professor’s droning lulled her deeper into a zombified state. She planted her elbow on the sloping desktop and rested her cheek against her palm. She was listening, she just needed to prop her head up a little.

“Callie, wake up. It’s time to leave.”

The shaking startled her, but she squeezed her eyes shut against the sound of Tayber’s voice. His fingers rested on her bicep, and she didn’t dissolve into a puddle of insensate mush. Good sign.

“I’m awake.” No use tempting fate, so she shrugged out of his grip. Ducking her cheek into her shoulder, she prayed he hadn’t seen her drooling.

“I’m usually the one falling asleep in class. What gives?”

“Late night.” Her voice cracked. Four hours to function might work for some people—for
him,
obviously—but she needed at least seven.

He raised an eyebrow and broke into a grin. He swung his leg over the seat in front of her and sat backwards. “You got a boyfriend?”

The incredulity stung. He was joking, but it was so close to the truth her stomach clenched.
I was studying. I was sick. I was abducted by aliens. I was up all night pretending to be Sasha, and you told me things I’m still blushing over.

She swam in an ocean of lies. She could fish out any explanation. He’d believe her.

“Yeah, so?”

She clapped a hand over her backstabbing mouth, too late. His face went blank. His decadent mouth vanished into a thin, hard line.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Deflect. Deflect.
“It’s not like you tell me everything.”

He’d never mentioned Sasha, for one thing, but she couldn’t call him on that.

“Right. Sure. I better grab some lunch before Lit.” Tayber shook his head and squeezed her shoulder.

“You wouldn’t want to face your mob of adoring fans on an empty stomach.” Back on the common ground of banter, his hand off her shoulder, she settled.

“I can’t help it if girls go crazy over my dramatic recitations.” He pulled himself up to his full height and put his hand over his heart. For all his flailing over math, he had a gift for language. With his free hand he grabbed her fingers and drew them toward his mouth.
Don’t kiss me. Oh, please God, don’t kiss my hand here.
Instead, he gave a stiff bow and laughed. “Accompany me, Milady.”