by Harper Bliss
Sex is the ultimate act of giving up control, I think, and wonder if I might ever be able to say these words to Zoe. Not to make her understand, because I’m sure she knows, but as an act of communication, of opening up to her verbally. Although I’ve opened up to her considerably already, and I’m about to do so even more.
I curve my hands behind her neck and pull her close. We’ve shared kisses like this before, but still, this feels different. This kiss is the beginning of something new for us. It’s the next chapter.
Zoe’s hand drifts from my jaw to my neck, and then a little bit lower still. I’m of half a mind to pull my own T-shirt over my head and get the whole slowly undressing thing out of the way. I’ve always found it a nuisance, but maybe Zoe is into that and if so, then I don’t want to take that away from her.
Her hand glides over my T-shirt, ever so gently, until it rests between my breasts, as if it’s lying there in wait to finally touch them. When we break from our kiss, her lipstick even more smudged than before, she looks at me with her mouth slightly open, and for an instant, I can actually believe that I might not disappoint her. It’s a glimpse of glorious possibility that sparks something in me and I try to hold on to it. But then I don’t have to try anymore because Zoe’s hand slips over my breast and we both look at it, as though a miracle is taking place between us, and then we look each other in the eye again, and I know that she knows that this is okay—that I’m okay with this. That I can move past the threshold that demanded this kind of patience from her.
8
Zoe
My hand is on Anna’s breast and I can feel her heart beating furiously. I watch as my hand goes up and down with her breath and I try to pace myself, but her breath is coming quickly, and her heart is pounding and pounding, and I have many questions about what this is like for her, but they will have to wait until later.
I read the chapters on sexuality in the book about ASD and I worried when I learned that, often, it can be all or nothing when it comes to wanting to have sex for people with ASD. Of course, selfishly, I hoped that, for Anna, it wouldn’t be the latter. She has never given me any indication as to how it would be, but that doesn’t make me automatically assume that she’s all in for this. I can sense her caution, her trepidation—her fear. And I don’t want fear to be a part of this, but it’s not as if I can magically wish it away. All I can do is take my time, check in, and make sure that how she feels becomes my absolute priority. Which isn’t an easy thing to do, now that I have my hand on her breast, and she’s looking at me as though, yes, she has finally reached the point where she can go all in. But maybe I’m just guessing, and projecting my own desires onto her. I should reassure her, because she obviously feels—so foolishly—that she’s not good enough for me, while the opposite is true.
Because I see who Anna truly is. I’ve had glimpses of her beyond the anxiety and the need for control. More than glimpses—sudden, delightful insights into how her mind works. When Anna opens up to me like that, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. Not because it’s so hard for her to do, but because of the connection it has forged between us.
And who’s to say what really draws one person to another? Maybe it was Anna’s darkness—the wall she put up—that attracted me to her in the first place. Or the light that I knew must hide behind it. Her tortured soul that she hides away behind faded jeans and T-shirts with quirky slogans. We have laughed and we have talked and we have walked and we have drunk wine together. Getting to know Anna happened so simultaneously with me finding my place here in Donovan Grove, that I now also think of her as home.
She puts her hand over mine, on her chest, and squeezes, and beneath my thumb, I can feel her hard nipple. Then I no longer stop myself. I rub my thumb over her nipple repeatedly and she leans toward me and we kiss again. I don’t just kiss her mouth but let my lips slide down her jaw to her neck, until I kiss the skin above the neckline of her T-shirt, and I feel her wriggle beneath me.
I pause and watch her take off her T-shirt.
She sends me a wicked smile, one I haven’t seen before, and then it hits me that she’s sitting in front of me in just her bra. Her bra is navy—which is a color I know she likes—but also half-lace, and a part of her nipple peeks through the sheer fabric. It’s the kind of lingerie I hadn’t expected Anna to wear, but I don’t want to comment on it now. I make a mental note to do so later—when we’re in the mood for a joke. If I ever remember.
I smile back, because I very much like what I see, although I can’t wait to take that bra off her.
“Do you prefer to take off your own clothes?” I ask.
“I don’t care,” she says, but then starts to unbutton her jeans. “Yes.”
I stand up from the bed, take her hand to pull her toward me, and before I let her disrobe any more, I hold her close to me, so I can feel her bra-clad chest against me for a brief instant. It’s not so much the sensation of having her breasts pressed against me that moves me, but the unrelenting intensity of her heartbeat, as if in this moment, it only beats for me.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
Her chin bumps against my shoulder as she nods. “More than okay,” she whispers back, and her hands tug at my blouse, pulling it from my jeans, and I might as well give her a hand now. I undo the top buttons, but then my fingers become clumsy as the frenzy between us builds and I give up, pulling my blouse over my head. I throw it somewhere in her bedroom, not caring where it lands. Not caring about anything else but getting naked with Anna. Because I want to see her. I want to see what she’s been hiding under all those layers of un-ironed clothing she always wears.
She steps out of her jeans while trying not to fall over, and the sight brings an inadvertent smile to my lips. Anna sits on the edge of the bed and looks at me, but not for long—not long enough for me to take off my own jeans. She pulls me toward her, hooks her fingers under the waistband of my jeans, and undoes the button, then slides down the zipper. I’m still wearing my bra but my breasts are so close to her mouth, my nipples seem to reach toward her.
Then Anna slides my jeans off my hips. I can’t see her face but I feel something inside her stiffen. I glance down at her.
“Should have known you were a thong girl,” she says, looking up at me, the same wicked smile on her face as before.
“Now you know for sure,” I say, and move into her a little closer, spreading her legs.
Her hands move to my ass, and, while I’ve known this all along, because I was there and a fully consenting party to it all, it’s only now that I realize how chaste and buttoned-up any physical activity has been between us so far.
But Anna seems to have moved past that now because her hands are firmly planted on my ass cheeks, her fingertips digging in. When a small sigh comes from her mouth, I bend down, and kiss her. The kiss is hungrier than before—and not just on my part, of that I’m certain.
I don’t know if she pulls, or I push her onto the bed. In between kissing, we tumble onto the mattress, and I find myself on top of her. And I feel as though, for the very first time, I’ve been fully let in. I have full access to this other side of Anna—a side she’s finally willing to show me. But the fact that I’ve had to wait quite a few weeks for this while I was falling in love with her, my desire for her increasing with every passing day, also makes me brazen. I feel I really need to make the most of this, which is perhaps not a fair thought, or a true one, but it’s how I feel. Then I shake off the thought, or I try, and I pull back a little, and glance down into her eyes, which always remind me of the ocean on a sunny day.
I no longer see someone who’s afraid of intimacy. Lying beneath me is a woman who wants this is as much as I do. So I press myself a little harder against her, because I want to feel more of her, I want to wrap myself in the softness of her skin, in the heat of her desire.
She’s gripping my ass again, but then she slides her hands upward, and goes for the clasp of my bra. She fumbles with it a bit—long enough for a
small grimace to appear on her lips. But then she unhooks it and I move away from her so I can take it off. When she flings it to the side of the bed, she smiles at me, but that smile fades when her gaze rests on my breasts.
I’ve never been one to feel any qualms about my body, so I make sure she gets a good look—I relish in it. And my gaze follows her hands as she brings them to my breasts and cups them and her fingers do look ghostly pale against my brown skin, but, fuck, does it feel good to have Anna’s hand on my breasts, to feel her fingertip move across my nipple.
There’s definite moaning coming from her mouth and her eyes have narrowed to slits. I fold over her, while her hands remain on my breasts, and I kiss her again and again, until her moans and groans mix with my own, because she’s tweaking one of my nipples, as if she has somehow found out how much that turns me on.
My clit strains against the suddenly too-tight fabric of my thong. It’s a barely there piece of fabric anyway, and I want it off me so badly. But I’m also kissing Anna, and her hands are so delicious on my breasts, and her skin is so silky against mine. But then she swivels her hips a bit, and I take it as my cue to move off her and give her a chance to take off her own bra.
I watch her as she does, although she doesn’t look at me. But then she’s naked from the waist up and the heat inside me turns up a notch. My reaction to her nudity even surprises me. And I want to grab her, animal-like, purely on instinct, and get to know her body better—the part of her that she has so far always hidden away the most.
I try to be gentle, but before I know it, I’ve wrapped my lips around her nipple. I push her down onto the bed and one of her hands is in my hair—definitely not pushing me away, only spurring me on—while the other has moved back to my breast.
I kiss my way from her nipple back to her lips and our tongues dance, and her hands suddenly feel like they’re everywhere. On my ass, my breasts, skating along my spine, and ruffling through my hair. The need inside me builds and builds.
“God, I love you,” I whisper, in the heat of the moment. But the words get swallowed by our actions because our actions might as well be saying the exact same thing. There’s much more to know about Anna and it might take me years to scale her depths, but I know for a fact that she would never do what we’re doing now with someone she doesn’t love and trust. This is her way of saying it to me. I don’t need to hear the words. This is all I need. This, and to get out of this annoying thong.
Then, I feel her buck underneath me again and I slide off her—even though I’ve always had a tendency to stay on top.
“Lie down,” she whispers, and puts a hand on my belly.
I do as I’m told and wait, which is not an easy thing for me.
“Zoe, I—” she starts to say, then stops. But I can tell this is not something that she desperately needs to say or something she can’t find the words for. In Anna’s gaze, all I see is desire and warmth and love.
I smile at her as best I can, because I feel all the love and desire as well, but most of all, I feel the need for much more of her and the only thing I feverishly hope is that she doesn’t ask us to stop.
“You are so…” she says, then shakes her head slightly. She seems to give up on whatever it is she’s trying to convey. I hope she realizes that she’s done plenty of conveying already. That I understand and I feel the same way.
She drags her hand across my belly, down to between my legs. She lies beside me and her breath tickles my cheek, as her finger circles around my rock-hard clit—and I curse myself again for wearing this thong. I chose it because I had hoped it would turn Anna on, but now I’m hoping it doesn’t turn her on so much that she wants me to keep it on for as long as possible.
“Anna,” I groan, and I sound like I’m begging. But I’m not one to just sit idly by, even though this might mean robbing Anna of some pleasure. I’ll be sure to make it up to her later. “Take it off. Please.”
Her lips are so close to me. I feel how they curve into a smile against my skin. She’s enjoying this. She’s loving watching me squirm. Oh, how I’ll get her back for that later—if I can control myself.
She kisses my cheek and keeps circling her finger around my clit, and something inside me is already twitching in that telltale way and that is not how I want this to go. For my first time with Anna, I want so much more than a finger rubbing some fabric. I want skin on skin. I want her tongue on my clit. I want her fingers high inside me. I can’t settle for anything less, so I hook my own fingers under my thong and attempt to pull it off.
“No patience whatsoever,” Anna murmurs, but then complies, and helps me get the wretched thing off my legs.
“I’m never wearing that again, for your information,” I say on a very exaggerated sigh.
“I appreciated the sentiment while it lasted,” Anna says, then goes solemnly silent. Probably because I’m lying stark naked before her.
Something in her throat moves as she swallows hard, taking in the moment. And I can’t help myself—just like Anna can’t help who she is. I spread my legs for her because it turns me on to do so. I want to see the look on her face and the wild, sudden flush in her cheeks, the faint twitch in her muscles. Still, this is the toned-down version of me. I can’t go fully Zoe Perez on Anna during our first time—I’ll have to save that for later. But I can do this. I can coax her and tease her and make her blush.
Anna’s cheeks flush, and she might be taken aback by my forwardness for a fleeting instant, but I see nothing but lusty determination in her glance. The kind of fire that only stokes my flames. There’s no doubt in my mind that Anna wants me, and to see that so clearly on her face is even more of a turn-on.
As though my spread legs are the most welcome invitation she has ever received in her life, she moves between them, and brings her hands to my thighs.
She glances up at me and with a resolve I haven’t seen in her before, she says, “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.” And it might just be something she says, or it might not be, but I know she means it from the bottom of her heart. All her feelings and all the things she perhaps has wanted to say to me in the past two months are embedded in that sentence. She might as well have said she loves me more than anyone in the world, because that’s what it feels like when Anna says it. Because her words don’t come cheap.
Her hands are so close to the apex of my thighs, I’m starting to go a little wild. My breath stalls in my throat and I need to stop myself from egging her on again, because I want her to do this in her own time, on her own terms, with her very own actions.
She releases the strong grip of her hands and replaces her touch with a single finger that runs over the inside of my upper thigh. Then it feels as though my entire body is reaching for her, trying to hold onto that finger, wanting so much more of it. But I bite my tongue and I practice patience as Anna explores my body, marks my skin with her fingertip. Even though a voice inside me screams how much I want her, how wet I am for her, how utterly ready.
But it’s also a delight to look at her face, at the focus and the wonder in her stare as she gazes down at me. And then, her finger skates in the direction of my clit again, and this time there’s no fabric barrier, and just the proximity of her fingertip so close to my aching clit forces a strangled groan from my throat.
She finds my gaze and as she does, her finger circles my clit and something in me simultaneously relaxes and stands to attention because the tension just got ratcheted up another notch.
I can’t believe she’s looking at me while she’s doing this. In all of this, it’s the most surprising. It’s also the most intimate gesture and all the warmth I feel for her centers around where her finger is doing its thing.
Her finger travels downward now, through the slippery wetness that has gathered there, and then she no longer looks at me. I close my eyes because I want to enjoy this moment as much as I can—the moment that her finger slides inside of me.
And oh, do I enjoy it. To feel Anna’
s intimate touch already feels like a moment of climax. Like something I had to earn. Like something not given freely or easily.
And it feels as though she, too, needs to take a moment to process, because, at first, her finger doesn’t move. It just exists inside of me, insistent and present, but immobile. If this is a big deal to me, it’s a huge deal to her. Because I know what she had to overcome to be here with me tonight, which is why I never pushed for it. All I did was ask for it, in not too many words, yesterday, and here we are. Anna has overcome the last part of resistance, the last inkling of doubt.
And then her finger moves, gently exploring at first. I reach for her because I need to feel more of her skin against mine, or her hand in my hair. I need more connection even though I’m already getting the most intimacy that is humanly possible. And it’s as though my touch shifts Anna into the next gear, because she adds a finger and she pushes with more intensity. That shift moves through me as though a hot sun is moving over my skin. It flushes me and warms me to my core but this isn’t just heat I’m feeling. It’s my love for this peculiar, unique, beautiful woman.
As though earlier, when I was thinking it, she read my mind, Anna bends herself toward me, and brings her tongue to my clit.
I should have expected it, but it still feels like a shock when it happens—an utterly pleasant one. I dig my fingertips into the flesh of her shoulders. And then I just let go because there’s no point in holding on any longer. I’ve waited to come for weeks. I’ve held this desire, tightly coiled, for a long time. Anna has met me half-way and now here we are. And the hot sun is now a fireball that races across my skin, up and down and up and down, leaving me panting and groaning in ecstasy as I come at Anna’s fingers and tongue.
9
Anna
I’m already starting to go into sensory overload because Zoe coming is a true sight to behold. I had never expected her to be the kind of person who only expels a soft whimper at the point of climax, but the vocal fireworks are a lot, even for Zoe. Or maybe not. Maybe this is who she truly is. It wouldn’t really surprise me. It’s her exuberance I was attracted to from the get-go.
