that want with an embarrassing degree of lust. Can still feel the desire to explore every inch of his nudity with the tips of my fingers.
I didn’t indulge, of course. Those kinds of liberties are expected to be exchanged in kind in those situations, and I couldn’t endure much in return. I did allow him to fondle my breasts, let him tease my nipples to sharp peaks. Allowed my own palms to sweep up and down the sculptured landscape of his chest.
When it seemed the touching might progress to more wandering, I distracted him yet again. “I have a condom in my purse.” It was going to be hard to find in the darkness, but I was up for the challenge.
“I have one. Grabbed it from my wallet before my pants came off.”
What a gorgeous man. Sincerely. Perfection.
Also a mite alarming that he’d had more than one condom stashed away, but I wasn’t about to get hung up on his possible sexual habits when I was the benefactor, and who was I to judge anyway?
The series of photo memories that play out from here aren’t necessarily my favorite of the album, but they are the ones I look at the most often. Usually with my eyes shut tight and my hand buried between my legs. It’s an absolutely wicked arc of a story they tell, provocative and obscene with the way he drilled into me, the way he ground his hips against mine. The delicious drag of his cock moving in and out and in and out. It was slower than the frenetic pace from the bathroom earlier, but still a tempo that had us soon sweating.
The sticky feel of his body pressed to mine may have been the trigger for my first orgasm. Bless the man, I had three total. Three earth-shattering Os that each wrecked me in its own beautiful way.
I’m not sure I would have had any of them at all if I hadn’t been able to relax with him as I did. I tend to be overly tense with my clothes off, even in the darkness, but the fear that Hendrix’s hands might roam while we fucked was quickly eliminated when he drew my arms over my head and threaded his fingers through mine.
Strange how connected to a person you can feel just by having your hands laced.
His cock inside me, too, but our hands...maybe because it was exactly what I needed at the moment, I’m not sure. Whatever the reason, it’s our locked hands that I focus on the most whenever I look back.
The series ends with his collapse on the bed next to me, my cheek pressed against his chest as his breathing evened out and grew deeper, his arm wrapped loosely around my waist. I don’t ever look at the sequence of events that followed—the part where he fell asleep, the part where I swallowed back a sob, the part where I stealthily rolled from his arms and groped around in the dark to find my clothes and then dress and then leave that me—his me—behind with him. There’s a story in those memories too, but I’ve done my best to forget them. And today when I’d do best to remember why I snuck out, why I couldn’t possibly stay, why there is no way on God’s green earth that it could happen again, I still can’t bring myself to acknowledge them.
Maybe I avoid that story because it’s too hard to bear.
More likely I avoid it because it’s so easy for me to see it ending another way.
Chapter Six
Juxtaposition: An act of placing things close together or side by side for comparison or contrast. - MoMA Glossary of Art Terms
It was a moment of weakness to agree to dinner, but at least I had sense enough to insist that I’d meet Hendrix at the restaurant instead of letting him pick me up. It makes it easier to lie to myself about what this is, why I said yes. It’s a fact-finding mission. That’s all. Not a date. Not an encounter with expectations beyond the meal. Not an opportunity to spend time with someone I am really, really fond of.
He picked well for the location, too. It’s more pub than restaurant, which keeps it casual and helps enforce my lie. Since it’s not one of those fancy places with rules about only complete parties being seated, he’s already at our table when I arrive. He sees me when I’m still across the room, watches