by Koko Brown
“You never had sex without it?”
The answer is no. And though I’m not a virgin, I feel like one.
“Are we talking or fucking right now?” I snap, instead of answering his question.
He stills, his body tightening beneath mine. Then he says, “Don’t rush me, baby.”
He’s not snapping back at me. It feels more like a quiet command. At first. Then it begins to feel like punishment as he slowly takes my t-shirt off. Slowly unhooks the front clasp bra, and slowly takes it off.
Hands cup both my breasts and smooth thumbs make slow circles around my nipples as he starts slowly kissing my neck. It soon becomes unbearable.
“Jake,” I gasp.
“Don’t rush me,” he says again.
Another minute of punishment. It feels like hours. But I finally get why people make such a big deal out of foreplay because I’m ridiculously wet. I want him. For real now, not for play. The urge to regain control of the sex comes back to me with a vengeance.
This time he doesn’t just catch my hands when I reach down to unbuckle his pants, he pushes them away.
“Why?” I demand.
“You like being in control?” I can hear the lazy smile in his voice.
“Yes.”
“I asked you what you liked earlier, and you just said touching. If you wanted control, you should have put that in your terms.”
“It’s not something I’d put on a list of things I like,” I say. “It’s just something that is for me. My natural setting.”
“Okay, I’ll let you be in control.”
I start to go for his buckle, but he grabs my hands and says, “Next time.”
I tilt my head to the side because “There isn’t going to be a next time.”
“Too bad,” he says. “Guess you’re never going to be in control.”
And before I can protest, he captures my lips in a slow kiss.
Damn, he’s a good kisser. The stubble of his beard scrapes my face as he takes my lips. Drinking them in as his tongue slowly pulls on mine.
His hands come back to my breasts. Massaging them. Torturing them, while he slowly grinds into me below.
I soon become afraid. So much so that I have to pull away from the kiss to tell him on a gasp, “I’m going to come. I’m going to come if you keep doing this.”
“Then come.”
“No…I don’t want…I don’t want.” After so many years of taking, I’m not sure how to tell him what I want. What I need.
“You want me inside you when you come?” he asks, voice low and mean.
“Yes!” I gasp. Finally giving him the last piece of pride he’s been slicing off bit by bit.
A lifting sensation as he rises with the both of us off the couch. There’s no coffee table in front of the couch. No furniture to get in his way as he carries me to the bedroom, with my legs still wrapped around his waist.
My back hits the bed. There’s the soft whisper of clothes coming off. A small tearing sound that I recognize as a condom.
Then he’s on top of me. Heavy weight pushing me into the bed.
I can feel his breath against my face as his head aligns with mine for another kiss, but before he can, I say, “I need to touch you. Check that you have a condom.”
Awkward pause. And a hot wave of resentment washes over me because I have to say it. Usually, I just do it, no weird conversation needed. But the only thing more awkward than having this discussion right now would be having it after I tried to touch his cock again, and he pushed my hands away like he kept doing in the living room.
He reaches up and grabs my hand, guiding it between our bodies so I can feel the latex. But only for a moment. Then he brings the hand back up, entwining his long fingers into mine as he starts slowly kissing me. Kissing me so good that the awkward moment falls away and sooner than expected, the fear of coming too soon is back. He’s mostly naked now. I can feel all that skin against mine. Arms roped with muscle. Lean hard waist between my soft inner thighs. But I can also feel the barriers that remain. My underwear and skirt. I want them off. I want all of it off.
“Jake…Jake…” I say, voice trembling. All this fucking teasing. I want to come, but I don’t want to be disappointed.
“Relax, baby,” he says. “I got you.”
He rises, pulls my underwear to the side, and then starts easing into me, feeding me the longest, thickest dick I’ve ever felt.
I start coming before he’s all the way in.
“Oh, fuck!” I gasp out.
“It’s okay, baby.” He starts moving inside of me. Slowly stroking into my climax. I thought this was what I wanted. I thought this would stop the fear. But as the orgasm washes over me, hot tears spring to my eyes and ugly sounds fall out of my mouth, because it’s just so intense.
I hit his shoulder, slamming the ball of my hand into his arm. I don’t know why. I don’t want him to stop. But I feel so helpless. So vulnerable and scared.
“It’s okay, baby,” he says again.
But it’s not okay. I can’t stop the tears. I can’t stop all the emotions rolling over me.
“Want me to come, too, so you don’t feel all by yourself?” he asks.
What a strange question, but the answer is yes. I nod because my voice isn’t working right now. I’m too overcome by after light.
His thrusts speed up, but not for long. I guess he was on the edge, too, because he releases with a sharp expulsion of air, which I can feel hot against my cheek.
He rolls off me as soon as he’s done and I hear the sound of something dropping into the trash can next to my bed. The condom, I think, and wonder if he’ll go now. I want him to go now. Want him to leave me alone.
But he comes right back. Wraps me in his arms and covers both of my legs with one of his. It’s like the spoon position set to suffocating. I love it. The feel of his skin against mine. But I want him to go.
“You can go now,” I tell him.
“Don’t rush me,” he answers, settling his chin into the crook of my shoulder.
“I don’t do overnights,” I inform him.
“Sssh!” he says like I’m disturbing his sleep.
And I find myself silently cursing because I don’t do overnights, but…I like the feel of him. The hair on his chest and legs. The warm skin against my still hot body. Being able to sleep with a guy without having to worry about losing the wig…
I decide to let him stay. Just for a little while, I assure myself.
But when I wake up the next morning, he’s still there.
And when I’m making us coffee in the kitchen, he asks, “So when are we going on that date?”
FOUR
THE TENDER TRAP
We spend the entire morning going back and forth about this date I supposedly owe him. My argument, of course, is that the omelet at my place was the date—because it was. But he says it wasn’t because we didn’t order any food, and he didn’t take me anywhere but home.
His voice gets further away from the kitchen doorway as he announces, “I’m taking out my phone to figure this out…all right, got it: Date,” he reads aloud as his voice returns to the kitchen’s open doorway. “A social or romantic appointment or engagement. Last night wasn’t either of those.”
“It was social! We talked,” I insist, placing the cup of coffee I made him on the sliver of tile Naima had the nerve to call counter space when she helped me set up the kitchen.
“Yeah, for like five minutes and then you jumped on top of me—you call that a date? Wasn’t romantic neither.” He takes the coffee from me with a chuff. “I think you can do better than that, Reynolds.”
“What are you talking about? I gave you what you wanted! Now you can cross me off your list.”
I hear the slurp of his first sip of coffee before he asks, “What list?”
“You know, your bang list. Blind girl’s probably worth like 10 or 15 points.”
Silence…then comes the muted clink of ceramic being placed back
on the counter. The next thing I know, Jake’s right in front of me, his voice low and quiet as he says, “You’ve either got real low self-esteem or accidentally hooked up with one of those douchebags who has a bang list.”
He gets his answer in my silence. “Ah, hell,” he says. “Was he Italian? Tell me he wasn’t Italian.”
“I don’t date Italians,” I remind him.
“So he wasn’t Italian. Thank fuck. Like I need another thing working against me with you.” He kisses me on the forehead like that’s all settled, and says, “Alright, we can talk about the rest over breakfast.”
“I’m not going to breakfast with you.”
“You wanna make it here? That’s cool. Could go for another one of those omelets…”
“Sorry, I used all my eggs yesterday—you know, for our dinner date.”
“But see, that wasn’t a date.”
We end up arguing about this over breakfast at Tom’s Restaurant, which Talia told me was once an iconic diner because it was the setting for some TV show I’ve never seen and some song I’ve never heard from the 90s. And we keep arguing about whether last night was a date or not as we walk to school.
Then at 8:30 P.M. when I leave my Civil Rights Lawyering in the Modern Era seminar, the first thing I smell is his cologne. He’s there, waiting outside the door.
“So what you wanna do?” he asks me. “Go to your place for dinner or get that date you owe me out of the way?”
In the months that follow, we argue about whether I still owe him a date over several meals—at my place and out and about in the city. During the intermissions of the special TDF Accessibility Broadway show performances which I try to attend at least once or twice a month. While he’s hanging spare suits in my closet, so he doesn’t have to schlep over to his Upper East Side condo to get dressed for class every morning. Sometimes he even brings it up when we’re trying to decide what music to play via Alexa. He likes Sinatra, like all day and every day, while I usually listen to current music made by people who aren’t dead. “We should go to a jazz bar on that date you owe me,” he argues like he’s cashing in a token. “Then you’d learn to have some appreciation for the greats.”
In late April when we make the rounds of end-of-the-school-year parties together, we drag our fellow law students into the argument, asking them to take a side. Only to band together against the one friend who points out, “Um, aren’t you pretty much already dating? What does it matter?”
Okay, it matters. Yeah, maybe we are kind of together. Like, technically. But keep in mind, Talia, my best friend go-to guide, is currently planning the wedding of the decade. So I guess you could sort of call Jake a fill-in. Who I happen to have sex with—lots and lots of hot sex.
And it should be pointed out he’s never kept his promise to let me be in control when we have sex, even though he’d said, “Next time.” According to him, he meant next time after our date. Which I don’t owe him, so cue another argument whenever I try to get on top.
Though the arguments have lessened as the weeks have gone by. I don’t want to say Jake has tamed me. It’s more like I feel a little less prickly every week I spend with him. I mean, he’s all right. He’s always doing stuff he doesn’t have to do for me, like coming over to my place to study, even if it’s for a class we’re not in together. Like, just in case I need anything. He’s great at navigation, and listens to the specially trained describer at the Broadway shows we go to so he can get better at describing things. He says it’s a good skill for a lawyer to have, but still…it warms my heart more than I’m comfortable with, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy spending time with him.
He can be so stubborn and irritating. I almost never laugh at any of his jokes, but it feels like I’m always smiling whenever we talk.
I mean, we’re not officially together. We haven’t had any conversations about it or changed our Facebook statuses or anything like that. It just that we’re always, like, not not together. To the point that when we attend the b-school’s end-of-the-school-year party, one of his classmates asks Jake, “You and your girlfriend have plans for the summer?”
Jake answers. “Haven’t decided yet. I have to start back up with business classes at the end of May, and Amber’s got to start studying for the bar after she’s done with final exams. What’re you and Heather doing?”
“Why didn’t you correct that guy when he called me your girlfriend?” I ask later when we’re walking back to my place on what feels and smells like a beautiful spring New York City evening. Warm flower scented air with cool breezes carrying faint whiffs of concrete pee.
“Because that would’ve been stupid,” Jake answers.
So I guess I’m his girlfriend now? I write to Talia the next afternoon. Jake goes down to New Jersey to spend every Sunday with his parents and their large extended family, so he’s not there to overhear.
Even though it’s late at night on her side of the world, the voiceover on my computer notifies me I have a reply message, like, seconds later.
Of course, you’re his girlfriend! He’s over there all the time. He’s probably over there now!
Yeah, all the time except now. He spends Sundays with his family.
Have you met them yet?
No!
That’s weird.
Not really. Jake and I talk a lot. But not about our families. And not about my past. Which I’m totally fine with. Saves me the trouble of an awkward conversation where I have to claim I don’t talk about my family or my past because I’m still so traumatized about the car accident. Almost the truth, but not quite, and another consequence of inadvertently becoming his girlfriend—I’ve been feeling worse and worse about lying to him.
I don’t know. I guess. I type back to Talia.
Have you been to his place yet?
My place is closer and set up exactly to my specifications, I type back in lieu of a no.
But you like him, right? Even though the Voiceover reads the words in a completely neutral monotone, I can sense Talia trying to put a cheery spin on what looks like a couple of huge red flags.
Do I like him? It’s a question I’ve never had to think about before.
But I answer honestly. I don’t know. It’s like my wall’s still up. But instead of knocking it down, he crawled over it and made himself right at home. Without permission. In my apartment. Just about every night except Sundays.
Sounds like you like him, she types back.
Yeah, it totally does, I admit to myself.
We text our goodbyes. And since Jake’s not here to crow about it, I cave and tell Alexa to put on the Come Fly with Me album by Frank Sinatra. Then Frank takes me on a romantic tour of the world, from “Autumn in New York” to “April in Paris.”
Listening to Sinatra sing his worldly songs, I think of my father…the real one who’s still out there somewhere in the world, not the fake one who died in a car accident.
I will myself not to do it. I’ve resisted doing it for weeks now. Months. Ever since that morning when Jake took me out to breakfast.
But by the time Frank starts singing about the “Isle of Capri,” the computer’s male voiceover informs me that I’ve opened a new Incognito window in Google Chrome. And then that I’m signing into a Yahoo account.
I take a deep breath…and start typing as Frank tells me about the moonlight in Vermont.
The Voiceover literally spells it out as I type, “D-e-a-r SPACE D-a-d-d-y, SPACE I SPACE m-e-t SPACE a SPACE b-o-y.”
FIVE
SOMETHIN’ STUPID
“Heya, Reynolds,” Jake says when I let him into the apartment the next night. He presses a kiss to my lips, and then I hear the sharp inhale of sniffing. “Smells fucking amazing in here.”
“It’s the oil and garlic for the scallop and scallion stir-fry I’m making.”
“Sounds great,” he says.
“We’ll see,” I answer. Since Jake doesn’t eat Italian or weekday carbs, I’ve been experimenting with a lot of new recipes
that go beyond what I grew up cooking with Mom.
As I rush back to the kitchen, I can hear his wingtips clipping against the wood floor as he comes to stand at his usual post, right inside the open kitchen’s arched entrance.
“Alexa, play ‘Frank Sinatra, Best of Vegas,’” he commands the assistant device I keep in the kitchen. A few seconds later, a 60’s-era voice announces Frank Sinatra. And what sounds like a big band starts up the intro for “Luck be a Lady.”
But this recipe doesn’t take too long. I throw scallops, yellow squash, snow peas and red peppers into the wok Jake showed up with one day, and tell Alexa to set the timer for two minutes.
Less than ten minutes and a little plating help from Jake later, we’re seated on the couch with dinner in our laps while Sinatra tells the band to get their horns up for “New York, New York.”
We talk about our days. Jake spent his with his Brand Management Case Study group going over their final presentation, and I got the last of the research in for my Non-Profit Law and Policy paper. We make a plan to spend tonight studying for our Public Health seminar’s final exam.
But first…
When Jake comes back from washing our dinner dishes, instead of fishing his noise-cancelling headphones out of his bag so he can study without my Voiceover interrupting him, he takes the laptop I just opened away.
“Hey!”
“How about we have some fun before studying tonight?”
The next thing I know, I’m in a new position with my back resting against the arm of the couch.
“Is this about me falling asleep the last time we studied together?” I ask as he drags my joggers and underwear down my hips
“It ain’t not about that,” he answers, hooking both my legs over his shoulder. “Plus, I didn’t get to see you last night.”
Because of the family dinner. The one he never invites me to go to with him. Talia’s “That’s weird” barges into my mind like an uninvited guest.
But that intruder gets shown the door when Jake’s mouth presses into my core, tongue diving in deep.
