by Mimi Strong
He had a small tattoo on his chest, over his heart—one I hadn't noticed before, perhaps because it was pale gray. The tattoo was a bird in flight, just one tiny gray bird, and I wondered what it meant.
I moved again, slipping down toward the foot of the bed, my bare breast caressing Shawn's unfurling erection.
“Mm,” he moaned as I slipped down further, until I was betwixt his legs.
I nuzzled the soft, dark brown hair there, enjoying the rich, musky scent of him. My lips grazed the velvet-smooth skin of his hot shaft, and I felt an expectant blossoming in my pussy.
Without so much as a “Good morning,” I had him in my mouth.
He gasped in pleasure and gently tousled my hair, tucking the long sides behind my ears so he could see my face, watch my lips grasping and sliding over him. We made eye contact, and I tried to smile as best I could with his big cock in my mouth. I grasped the base between my thumb and first finger, forming a tight O shape. I meant to ask him if he liked the amount of pressure, but his pulsating, thickening cock, responding so enthusiastically, told me he did.
The view I had of his chest was photo perfect: crisp, white sheets rumpled artfully on either side of his tanned, muscular torso. As I pleasured him, his abdominal muscles flexed and contracted. That was Shawn, my gorgeous boy—my holiday adventure who followed me home like a souvenir.
He came quickly, long before I'd even considered taking a break to rest my jaw.
As was habit for me, I trotted off to the attached bathroom, just a few steps away, spat in the sink and rinsed out my mouth. When I came back to the bed, he was looking at me funny.
“That was … interesting,” he said.
I tried to think of something clever to say, but what came out was a cheery, “Didn't want to ruin my appetite for breakfast.”
In the silence that followed, I feared I'd broken some terrible taboo. Surely Shawn had to know that swallowing was not mandatory? Renee told me she always spat, and back when I was with Lars, he hadn't minded.
I leaned in to kiss Shawn, and he seemed to meet my lips with reluctance.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Shawn, sometimes I spit, okay? The bathroom's three steps away, and it gives me a chance to rinse my mouth.” I pecked him on the mouth to illustrate. “See? All the better to kiss you with.”
“That's fine,” he said. “I didn't know girls really did that. I thought it was just something they joked about.” He stroked my leg and hip with one hand. “My youthful lack of experience is showing.”
“I'm sorry if I offended you.” We were both on our sides, facing each other, and I rolled onto my back to break eye contact. “We're still getting to know each other. I should have warned you.”
He gave me a chuckle and reached across to cup my breast lazily. “Let's not ruin what has been an absolutely magical morning, for me at least.” His hand moved down toward the spot between my legs. “Now, what can we do for you?”
I squirmed away and climbed out of the bed. My sexy mood had passed, darkened by a cloud of doubt. I had other things on my mind, including the cup of coffee that was calling me to make it.
“We can play later. Breakfast now.”
We had English muffins for breakfast, and when I poured Shawn a mug of coffee, I used one of the chipped, blue ones, not the pink mug Zach had paid for.
Shawn noticed and raised one eyebrow. “How come you get a nice, big mug, and I get this chipped one?”
I stammered and gave a long explanation about pink being a girl's color. He laughed and said, “Just teasing you, Laura. Relax!”
I tried to relax, I really did.
After breakfast, we took Princess out for a long walk, and I showed him around my Short North neighborhood.
He said, “It's nice around here, except for the traffic.”
“What?” We were at a dog park, just off a street that wasn't busy at all.
He frowned and said, “I guess you get used to it.”
I led him over to a picnic table, near some trees, where we took a seat while Princess sniffed around the grass. I'd been teaching her to play fetch, though she wasn't very good at it. She was great at chasing after a twig I tossed, but didn't quite understand the part about bringing the twig back to me.
Shawn seemed jumpy, startling at the smallest noises and watching the people around us.
I said to him, “Too much coffee? You're a little ...” I made a freaking-out face, hands up.
“I keep thinking I see people I know, but they're all strangers. Everywhere we go, so many people, and none of them familiar.”
“I grew up in a small town too. Trust me, Columbus is not that big, not such a huge adjustment. I've been here a few years, always in the same neighborhood, and you do get used to it. Plus, people stick around Short North, and you recognize faces and dogs, even if you don't know them by name.”
After a pause, he said, “I could never live here. Too many people.”
I knew I shouldn't take his insulting my city personally, but I was offended. Even if he didn't love the city, it wasn't right of him to put down my home … or flat-out pre-refuse any plans I might have imagined for our future.
He reached for my hand and clasped it in his, our fingers intertwining like two jigsaw puzzle pieces that didn't go together.
Shawn flew back on Monday morning, and I drove him to the airport myself, taking a half-day off work.
Neither of us acknowledged it, but both of us knew whatever we had was over. Trying to re-create what we'd experienced the first time was like trying to copy a fancy restaurant dish at your own house.
We'd both yawned and claimed we were “so tired” on Saturday night, and we'd gone straight to sleep without sex. On Sunday, we'd woken up grasping each other, still half-asleep. We'd then quickly had sex, rough and awkward—the kind of sex punctuated not by moans, but by “oops” and “sorry about that.”
The weather was perfect on Sunday, but we spent most of the day indoors, with me on my laptop and Shawn watching a baseball game on TV.
That night, we slept with a canyon between us on the king-sized bed.
Once we were at the airport, saying goodbye, my feelings got confusing. Seeing him with his suitcase gave me a twinge of sadness, and hot tears came to my eyes.
“Don't be sad,” he said, holding me to him.
“I should have taken you to a karaoke place. We should have sung together again.”
He kissed the top of my head. “No regrets. I'm really glad I came to see you.” He pulled back and looked me in the eyes. “I think the long-distance thing is too much pressure. I like you, a lot, and maybe … down the road ...”
“We don't need to pretend. Both of us met while we were in turmoil, just fresh from a break-up. In your case, it was during a break-up.”
He frowned and shook his head. “I can't believe I didn't get Sharise out of my life sooner, but at least you woke me up. You snapped me out of it.”
“Good.” I looked around the airport to make sure Sharise wasn't around. The woman was pure evil, so I was suspicious that the mention of her name might summon her. Satisfied she wasn't about to jump out and throw a chair at us, I gave Shawn a long kiss goodbye.
As we pulled apart, I said, “Your tattoo. The little bird. What does it mean?”
He looked embarrassed. “It's silly.”
“Is it a baseball team?”
“No, it's from a book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It's something that inspires me. I actually got the tattoo the day after you left town.”
I smiled. “That explains why I didn't notice it before. What's the book about?”
“Lots of stuff. It's kinda philosophical. He's a bird who loves to fly.”
“Okay.” I waited for more of an explanation, but Shawn wasn't forthcoming.
Finally, he said, “The bird is supposed to remind me of a line in the book: Keep working on love.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whatever
you want it to mean.”
“Okay,” I said.
He had my hands in his, and he squeezed them.
“Thanks for visiting,” I said.
His voice cracking, he said, “I'll never forget you.”
As he gazed at me, I knew he truly meant it, and that was what finally made me cry.
3: The Solution Can Be Purchased
Renee insisted on rubbing it in that she “was right” about Shawn.
She came over on Monday night, without her little charge Stuart this time, so we could talk in specifics.
Renee said, “Everybody spits after blowjobs. Everybody over twenty-one.”
“I may have to take a poll.”
“Forget Shawn. I never met the guy, so he's just a name to me. He sounds weird, and too young for you. I'm totally over him.”
I crossed my arms and sunk down in the couch. “Sucks to be me. Just when I find out sex can actually be fun, I only get one night with a guy and then he ditches me. First Shawn, then Zach.”
“You don't need a guy for sex.” She gave me a double eyebrow raise, then laughed hysterically. “Not me, silly. I mean solo.”
“I don't find myself sexy. I enjoy long walks and even conversation with myself, but not that.”
She grabbed her purse, unzipped it, and pulled out what appeared to be a tiny rocketship. “Here, borrow this.”
I fake-screamed and pulled back.
“It's clean,” she said. “Cleaner than any real one you'll find. And you've never seen one that does this.” She pressed a dimple on the device and it began to hum. “I'm going to turn around and face the window, and you hold it to yourself, over your jeans, and see what it's like. Not until you … sneeze, but just for a few seconds. Just try it, once, and I'll never bring up the topic again.”
“Princess is watching,” I said.
She was wagging her tail, her gaze trained on the buzzing little rocketship.
“I'm sure she's seen worse,” Renee said, tossing the rocketship on my lap and then turning around.
I gingerly took the device and pressed the tip of it against my leg. The vibrating was pleasant, relaxing, and pretty soon I rolled the device up closer to my crotch, the vibrations swimming into my body and shaking hands with my own nerve tingles.
“Oh!” I said.
“Mm-hmm,” Renee said knowingly. “Tell me about it. Want me to leave that one here for you?”
I found the dimple to shut the vibrator off and stuffed it back into Renee's giant, nanny-sized purse.
“I should get my own,” I said.
She leaned forward and tapped my laptop, sitting closed on the coffee table. “May I?”
“Order some toys online?” I clapped my hands together. “Yes! That would be perfect. I'm too embarrassed to buy them in a store. I bought condoms last week, and I ended up buying about twenty other things I didn't need. I bought dandruff shampoo, and I've never had dandruff in my life.”
Renee opened my laptop and typed in some websites from memory. We perused the toys and accessories for women, getting giddy and reading descriptions out loud to each other. Some of the items were advertised so discreetly, I had a difficult time figuring out what they were used for. It turns out companies make all sorts of things for men to stick their dicks inside, and you could see one sitting out on a nightstand and have no idea what it even was.
Renee ordered some things to be delivered to her house, but I waited until after she was gone before I placed my order. I didn't mind her knowing in an abstract sense that I'd bought toys, but I didn't want her to know the specific ones.
The package arrived on Friday morning, as I was leaving for work.
I thought about my toys all day.
My desk was cleared off and I left the office at five o'clock on the dot. We still didn't know what the story was with the company being sold, but I didn't care. I had toys waiting for me at home.
I got home, unwrapped the box, and then I basically had … a honeymoon with myself.
Once I discovered how ridiculously easy it was to give myself an orgasm with a battery-powered device, I was hooked, greedy for more.
I'd always thought there was something defective or finicky about my private parts, but I read through the handbook that came with one of the vibrators, and discovered I was “normal,” or as normal as anyone is. I simply needed enough lube, time to ease into the mood, and a variable speed on the vibrator.
When I walked Princess on Sunday night at around eleven, I stared at the attractive men walking their dogs, making mental notes about which ones I might want to fantasize about later in bed.
Under the sheets, though, with the lights off, I thought of Zach Mikhelson.
It wasn't supposed to be him I'd get hung up on. He'd insulted my grandmother's quilt—the same one Shawn had admired. Shawn was the good guy, the one for me. Zach was just a side trip, another of life's tough lessons.
What was that line from the Seagull book? Keep working on love.
Love could suck it.
I had my friends, my doggie, a nice apartment, a good job (for the time-being), and I had my box of toys. I was officially on hiatus from trying to work on love, at least the romantic kind.
4: The Part Where I Get Laid Off
As it does every year, even if you don't take your sweaters out of their zippered storage bags, Summer turned to Fall. At work, we continued on as usual, not knowing what was going to happen to us. I sent out some resumes, even went for one interview, but turned down the job because it was too low-paying.
Fall turned to Winter.
I bought Princess a rain slicker and some quilted jackets to wear on walks, so she could get her exercise without getting too cold. It snows in Columbus, but not a lot. Princess did play in the deeper stuff, making me hunt around for her dookies. When we got home after our adventures, I'd have to pull little icy snowballs out from between her toes while she snurf-snurfed my face and thanked me.
She needed me, loved me, and appreciated me. Dogs rule.
One great benefit of owning a dog, besides all the adoration, is the exercise. I'd never been big on going for walks, but Princess got my activity level up, and I felt more energetic that winter than I had in a long time.
In November, Renee tricked me into going on a blind double date with one of her boyfriend's friends. His name was Chad, and he was dull but sweet.
The four of us went to Skate on the State, which is a temporary ice rink on the front lawn of the Ohio Statehouse. We skated around a bit, and my butt acquainted itself with the ice. Several times.
After my butt could take no more, the four of us warmed up with some hot chocolate in the tents. Chad saw that I was cold and offered me his lap. Around us in the tent, plenty of other girls were sitting on their boyfriends, so I went for it.
Feeling a man's body heat was good. It had been about five months since I'd been with anything that didn't run on batteries.
Chad was a young lawyer, and by anyone's standards, a good catch. He was confident, but not cocky, as Renee had pointed out while we were skating.
As I sat on Chad's lap, enjoying his warmth seeping into me, I noted a little movement in his lap area. Imagining his erection, and what I might do to it, made my pulse race.
Oh, but besides his warm lap and his good-on-paper attributes, Chad was boring, with hardly anything to say. Maybe he took a few dates to really shine, but his cock under my buttocks was the only thing I had any interest in, and that was no foundation for a relationship.
My guilty mind made me imagine I saw Zach Mikhelson, across the tent.
The handsome man handing out samples of food looked so much like Zach, it could be his twin, albeit with longer dark hair.
The man looked up and stared straight at me with his icy blue eyes.
I stopped breathing.
It was Zach.
He was handing out samples of ice cream, which seemed like the opposite thing people would want after ice skating, but they were still li
ning up.
I stared for a while, then finally excused myself from the group, leaving Chad's warm lap. Renee hadn't noticed Zach, and she and her boyfriend kept talking to Chad about some boring trademark law thing.
The line for the ice cream samples took ages, which only made me more nervous. I also got annoyed, because I hate waiting in lines for anything. I refuse to go to hot brunch places where you have to line up. I'd rather have no french toast than wait in line for it.
When I got up to the front of the line, Zach traded off with someone else in a pink Butter Spoons apron. He handed me two sample cups, and I heard some people grumble around me that they'd only gotten one. This made me smirk, and balanced out having to wait in line.
He grabbed two cups of hot chocolate and led me over to the side of the tent, where it was nice and warm in front of a portable space heater.
“Here's to winter in Ohio,” he said, tapping his paper cup of hot cocoa against mine.
“I thought you were back in New York. I haven't seen you around the dog park.”
“Duke and I have a different route. I did go back to New York, but I'm here again.” He didn't say for how long, but he did give me one of his million-dollar grins, dimples and everything. He was thirty-eight, with a few silver hairs at his temples, but so boyish-looking when he smiled.
My throat was so tight from nervousness, I practically whispered, “How long are you here?”
“Not long.”
“You should call me,” I said. “We can hang out.”
He nodded over to where I'd been sitting. “Won't your boyfriend mind?”
I turned to look at my friends and boring Chad, still chatting away, and when I turned back, there was a woman with pale, golden hair standing next to Zach. Her eyelids sparkled, and her lips looked like they'd been stung by bees. Repeatedly. She had her left hand latched over his shoulder, and was extending her right hand to me.
“I'm Sascha,” she said. As I shook her icy hand, I noticed the dazzling diamond engagement ring on the other manicured hand.
