Stripped (26 page)

We both still and go quiet, breathing, and his weight is on me. He goes to move, but I stop him. “Stay. I like your weight on me. I like feeling this.”
 

“Grey?”
 

“Hmm?”

“I love you.” His voice is as soft as silk, a verbal caress. Nothing can ever be as sweet as his voice in that moment.
 

I move slightly, and he moves with me, and now his face is cradled on my chest, between my breasts, my hands in his hair and tracing the shell of his ear and the small place where his jaw meets his ear. “I love you, too.” I breathe it, and he smiles against my skin.
 

We fall asleep like that, in that time where afternoon bleeds into evening.
 

*
 
*
 
*

I wake to his mouth on my breast and his fingers at the apex of my thighs, and before my eyes are open I’m spreading my legs for his touch and breathing sharply in happiness and ecstasy, and I’ve come again within minutes.

But I want something, I want to feel something. I got a taste of it when we made love, but I want it more fully. I push him to his back and take him in my hands and caress the length and thickness of him. I move my face across his chest and belly, press a kiss to the tip.

“Grey?” It’s a hesitant question.

“I want this. I want to try it.”

He brushes my hair away in that familiar gesture, and I take him into my mouth. Just a little at first. He moans immediately, and I know he likes this. That moan is what I want. A part of it, at least. I move my fist around him and set his hips to moving with my rhythm, and he groans, so I accompany that rhythm with my mouth on him.
 

And then I remember a customer at the club asking me to suck him off, and I think about that phrasing. So I suck, taking him deeper and sucking as hard as I can, and he lifts his hips off the bed and groans loudly, his hands tangling in my hair as if struggling not to pull me against him, and his hips flutter as if trying not to thrust.
 

I take him out of my mouth, and he groans in desperation. “Let go,” I tell him.
 

He lifts up and glances at me, and I bend closer to him, brush him with my breasts, and he flops back but then lifts his head to watch again as I wrap my lips around him and suck him deeper into my mouth, close to my throat. And now I suckle him to the rhythm of my fist on his length, and his hips match that rhythm, unfettered thrusting. I match his motion so he doesn’t gag me, and I suck harder, backing away and taking him deep with each thrust and each suck, and now he’s groaning nonstop.

“Grey, Grey, oh, god…” His fingers tighten in my hair, and he’s pulling me down gently.
 

I don’t mind, and I follow his urging, going deeper. I don’t go so deep as to feel gagged, but nearly, and now he’s arching his back and lifting his hips, but I don’t hurry, don’t rush.
 

“Oh, fuck, Grey…I’m coming…” It’s a warning, but I don’t have time to think about what I’m going to do, because he’s erupting in my mouth.
 

I taste it, thick and hot and salty and nothing like I expected. I swallow it and keep going, because he’s still groaning and thrusting, so I match his frenetic pace with my fist and my mouth, and he spurts again, and again, and I’m swamped. His groaning is uncontrolled and spasmodic, and his eyes are fluttering in his head and he’s mad with pleasure, and
that
is what I wanted, to give him such pleasure that he lost control like he made me do.

When I’m sure he’s done coming, I take my mouth off him, but he’s still sort of hard, and I love the feel of his erection in my hand, so I hold on to him and keep stroking him gently. He shudders with each touch, as if hypersensitive. My cheek is on his belly, and I’m afforded a close-up look at him, at his manhood. It’s a beautiful thing. I’ve overheard girls, including my roommate Lizzie, talk about how—despite how good they feel—men’s privates are ugly. Although they used the word “cock,” which makes me cringe just thinking it, but I’m not sure what other word to use. I don’t agree with those girls. Dawson is beautiful all over, every bit of him.

Eventually he draws me up to his chest, into the nook of his shoulder, and we sleep again.
 

The next time I wake up, it’s slowly, gradually. It’s either late or early, somewhere in the dark hours of the night or morning. There’s a touch of gray on the horizon, making me think it’s early. I’ve never slept naked with a man before, obviously. His arm is draped over my hip, his face buried against my back, his breathing deep and even. We’re both still naked, covered now by the blanket and sheet. I love this feeling. I’m protected, safe, sheltered. He loves me, he’s holding me close, even in sleep.

 
And then I become aware of something: His manhood…his cock…is nestled against me. It’s hard, fully erect and thick. He got up at some point after we made love the first time to discard the condom, and now, in the dim light of predawn, I see another square on the bedside table near me.
 

I feel his…I think the word more easily, but still with a guilty cringe…his cock between the cheeks of my bottom, and I’m greedy for it. I want to be filled by him again. I need it. I’m…so desperate for it that I can’t think of anything else.

I reach for the condom, and it crinkles noisily in the silent room. I examine it, a gray plastic square,
Trojan
written in white lettering. I rip it open and pull out what’s inside. It’s a circle of slippery rubber, or latex, actually, a thicker ridge surrounding transparent latex so thin as to be nearly invisible. Which is the point, I suppose. I unroll it a little, and then I realize Dawson’s breathing has shifted.
 

He’s awake.

I roll in place, and meet his sleepy gaze. He just smiles at me, lifts a heavy hand, and brushes his thumb across my cheekbone. I glance down between us and fit the condom over the tip of him, then clutch him near the base and hold him still, unrolling the latex over him slowly with one hand at first, then both, hand over hand until the ridged rim is flush against his pelvis. Dawson reaches down and pinches the tip a little, leaving a gap near the tip. He reaches for me, starts to move, but I just shake my head. I turn in place again, and press my back to his front. I spoon myself to him, and wriggle my hips until his thickness is buried where it was originally. Dawson cups my hip in his hand and presses a tender kiss to my shoulder blade. I wait until the desperation inside me cannot be denied, and then I reach down between us and guide the thick head of him inside me. I’m wet down there, damp and hot and slick. He slides deep into my core. He’s in me, there. Buried home. Neither of us moves for a long moment, and then he rolls his hips and I moan, and he groans in tandem with me.
 

And then, oh, god, his fingers delve to the apex of my cleft and slip in, and I press my hips outward to allow him access, and he’s pressing with his long middle finger, and we’re moving together. I shift my hips away, and he pulls his erection out, and then we push ourselves together. It’s clumsy at first, but then we find a rhythm, and his fingers…oh, god, the way he touches me makes me come apart before I’ve even stroked a dozen times against him, and I’m shuddering and gasping with my mouth open wide in a silent scream, and then a few moments later it happens again, and I’m breathless and he’s desperate against me, moving as if he can’t find enough purchase to let go.

Dawson shifts, and I’m lying on my back on top of him. Oh…whoa. One hand is at my cleft, giving me orgasm after orgasm, and the other is on my breast. He takes my hand in his, and we work my nipples together, and he’s crushing up and into me, and he’s so, so,
so
deep that I nearly can’t take it, but I do I take it and I love it and I need it.
 

And then he challenges me again. He moves my hand, tangled in his, to my clitoris, and we stimulate me together, and that’s the most erotic thing I can imagine, until he takes his hand away and watches me. Both of his hands are tweaking and pinching my nipples, and I’m moaning, and now I—oh…oh—I touch myself and with him buried deep, I can touch myself in a way that even he can’t. I feel a rhythm inside me, matched to some nebulous pattern inside me, a slow-to-fast rhythm all its own that has me too breathless to scream, hoarsely moaning and arching forward, and I feel Dawson watching me touch myself, and I know it makes him crazy, so I touch myself all the more vigorously.
 

I don’t recognize myself.
 

I’m on top of a man I’ve only known for a matter of weeks, and I’m in love with him, and he’s in love with me, and his cock is buried to the hilt inside me, and I’m touching myself as he rolls my thick pink nipples between his thumb and forefinger. I’m chanting his name and he’s murmuring mine, and we’re lost to each other.

It’s heaven…

…but I don’t recognize myself.

He explodes. Dawson calls my name, shouts my name, and I cry his, and he comes. And I come again. His hands clutch my breasts, and then one hand is on my hip, crushing me against him with every desperate thrust, and our voices are a song together, our bodies are moving in a dance, synchronized beauty, perfectly matched motion.

Who is this woman doing this? Making love with such wild and desperate sensuality?
 

I can almost see us, see myself as if from above. My breasts bounce and jiggle with each thrust of the man beneath me. His hands paw and claw at me, and I shove my chest into his touch, because I love his touch. And me…my own hand is between my thighs, touching my privates. My other hand is up behind me, grasping at Dawson’s face and neck. His eyes watch me, watch my moving hand, watch my bouncing breasts.
 

“God, I love you,” he whispers as he comes.
 

Who am I? Who am I, that this man loves me?
 

I’m not a film student, I’m not a stripper, I’m not a dancer, I’m not anyone. I’m just Grey Amundsen. But this glorious man, this near-deity…he loves me.
 

Why?
 

What am I, that he feels so strongly about me? What do I offer?
 

I don’t know the answer to that, but I know he does.
 

So why don’t I ask?
 

Because my throat closes and sticks. He might see the panic on my face, but he’s behind me, rolling to one side, still buried deep, still thick, still pulsating with the aftershocks. I’m still quaking, too, still shuddering and shivering uncontrollably in wave after wave of post-orgasm earthquakes. Some of the shudders are from panic, though. He doesn’t see. He slips out of me, out of bed and into the bathroom. I hear him wash his hands, and then he comes back and sidles up behind me and presses against me. His manhood is still slightly turgid, and he buries it between the globes of my backside. Even in my panic, I love that feeling.

And loving that sets off more panic. I just sinned. I had sex with a man. Three times, I had sex with him. Well, twice. I’m not sure if making him orgasm with my mouth counts as sex, but it definitely counts as sin. And letting him do the same, more times than I can count? He made me orgasm so many times. I never even bothered counting.
 

Does that multiply my sin?

I’m not married to him. Not even engaged. I’m not even positive of his middle name. I don’t know where he went to high school.
 

In the darkness of predawn, it’s easy to feel the condemnation. I haven’t thought of my father, really thought of him, in months. But now I remember him telling me I’d fall into a life of sin. And I have. Look at the life I’ve been living. He was right. Oh. Oh, god. God, forgive me. He was right. I hear and feel Dawson fall back asleep, and so he misses the single sob that escapes me. I shudder, and his arm tightens on me, tucked just beneath my breasts. I can’t breathe. Can’t…breathe.

What have I done? What have I let happen?

Exactly what I knew would happen, right from the first moment I saw him. I knew I would fall and lose myself in him, and I have. I fell in love, fell into sin.
 

I try to rationalize my way out of it: It’s not sin. I love him. He loves me. And I don’t even really believe in any of that anymore, do I? No. I don’t. I didn’t just have sex; I certainly didn’t fuck. I made love, mutual love, to a good man. A wonderful man who’s never done anything but try to take care of me and protect me and give to me. I’m not a pastor’s daughter anymore. I don’t go to church. I don’t believe in God. So I haven’t sinned.

Have I? Or doesn’t it matter whether I believe?
 

I once heard Daddy—my father—telling a man in his congregation who was caught in adultery that it doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or sin; He believes in you, and will judge you regardless of whether you choose to believe or not.
 

My head is spinning crazily, whirling, throbbing.

Other parts of me throb, too.
 

I worm my way out of Dawson’s grip, leaving him in the bed, clutching a now-empty space. He’s so peaceful, so beautiful. I can’t help but just stare at him, and for the briefest moment, my worries vanish under the weight of the sheer rugged masculine beauty of the man and the tumultuous, tempestuous storm of emotions he incites in me.
 

Then they are back with a vengeance.
 

I walk to the bathroom, although hobble is a more appropriate word. My privates throb, ache, and twinge. My thighs tremble and hurt. Everything down there aches, but the memory of how that ache came about is sugar-sweet. Even through my guilt, I can’t regret doing it. I regret my guilt, regret my upbringing that I can’t just enjoy the love of Dawson.

God, I’m so confused. I’m overwhelmed to the point of breathless pain by the guilt and shame of what I just did, but at the same time a part of me is contented and self-satisfied and smug and in total bliss. The guilt, the Baptist shame, tells me the smug satisfaction is the seed of sin.