by Mimi Strong
I lifted my knees and spread my legs as he approached.
He said, “Do I just put it in?”
There were, of course, a million things we could have done besides just putting it in, but I wanted him inside me, so I said, “Yes.”
He positioned his body on top of mine, his cock between my legs, and he pushed. It slipped up between my lips and the head popped out below my bush.
He frowned, seemingly confused, so I reached down and guided him to the right spot and angle.
With the tip of his cock against my opening, he said, “I just push here? Is this right?”
I nodded and moaned.
He nudged it in, just the head, and I watched as he got the most beautiful look on his face, like he'd just realized something. He pushed again, the shaft sinking further in and filling me, and from that point on, he did not seem like a beginner at all.
He returned to kissing me, and he stroked in and out, fast and then slow, hard and then gentle, until suddenly I was going over the edge.
“I'm coming,” I said.
He stopped moving.
I wailed, “Oh, god, don't stop!”
He started up again, moving steadily, his body tense. I wrapped my legs around his hips and let him in as deep as he could get, and I came. Panting and sweating and raw.
He went even more rigid, and he pumped into me, getting faster and harder, and then he cried out.
He buried himself in me, and when he relaxed again, he slowed to a stop and looked tenderly into my eyes.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself.”
My insides were still having tremors as he kissed me.
“That was incredible,” he said. “You're incredible.”
I realized my hands were gripping his ass, and this suddenly embarrassed me, so I let go.
We rolled to the side and he withdrew slowly, still firm, but sated.
FACTS ABOUT KISSING
1. Try not to think about this fact while you're locking lips, but anticipating kissing increases your saliva, giving your teeth a healthy rinse.
2. Your lips are more sensitive than your fingertips. They're even more sensitive than your downstairs-goodies.
3. Kissing isn't just for people. Some porcupines kiss each other on the lips.
PART III
Have you ever gotten restaurant regret? That's where you go out, feeling super hungry, and you order a bunch of food and gorge yourself. Then, when the bill comes, you wonder why you had to get the starter, the meal, the extra side dish, and so on. The idea of ordering all that food seems repellant, and you don't think you'll ever eat again. Even if you have a grocery list in your purse, you'll just march on by the grocery store on the way home, since you can't imagine wanting food.
After I had sex with Devin, up in my little sleeping loft, on my red sheets, I got a wave of restaurant regret.
How could I have been so hungry for man-happy in my vagina that I'd allowed the better of my urges, and slept with a client? Or, worse, slept with a guy I really liked, but whom I was not dating.
I'm telling you, after the sex, I could not get Devin out of my place fast enough. We had our clothes on and he was out the door five minutes later, with me practically pushing him. He probably would have stayed and cuddled—he seemed like he could be the cuddly type—but I didn't want to risk it.
When you have enjoyable sex, or even some fun kissing with someone (the lips are a hundred times more sensitive than any other part of the body), your body experiences a rise in the hormones that lead to bonding. Some say these natural chemicals are stronger than opiates, which explains the drunken, goofy looks that teenagers swapping spit in public always seem to have.
These chemicals are why “friends with benefits” often leads to love and marriage and an overpriced SUV-sized baby carriage.
“But,” Devin said as the door closed between us.
There was something else, muffled.
“Okay!” I yelled cheerfully. “See you!”
He said something else, but I didn't want to hear it. The door was locked.
“We'll talk soon!” I yelled, and then I walked over to my stereo and put on some music.
Steph came over to see me an hour later, just as it was getting dark outside. She had chicken noodle soup.
“Chicken soup? I don't have a cold,” I said, rubbing at my red eyes.
“You look like shit.”
“I've been crying, but I think it's stopped.”
She steered me over to the kitchen stools, sat me down, put a spoon in my hand, and cracked the lid of the container. The soup smelled amazing.
“A lesson from my gramma,” she said. “Saltwater out, saltwater in. Eat.”
I took three sips, the salty taste awakening my appetite. I hadn't eaten since lunch, nearly eight hours earlier, and soon I was slurping the soup with gusto.
“Saltwater out.” I pointed to my red eyes. “Saltwater in.” I tipped up the Styrofoam container and drank down the last bits.
“Gramma knows best.”
“I think there is wisdom in the old ways. There've been so many changes to how we live, and they're not all good.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, indulging my need to spew factoids.
“We used to live in multi-generational households, and nowadays, in America, that's considered odd.” I scooped up a stray noodle with my fingertips. “If you live with your parents as an adult, let alone your grandparents, people think you're a loser, like you can't earn a living.”
“Caleb lives with his parents.”
“Oh, right. You have a boyfriend now.”
Steph got that dopey-teen-makeout-session look at the mention of Caleb. They'd been seeing each other almost every day, and it sounded serious.
“What do I do now?” I said.
Steph crossed her arms and gave me a hard stare. “Feather.”
“Seriously, coach me. I need it.”
“Feather, you slept with him. I haven't met him, so I don't have a clue. On one hand, he sounds really sweet, but on the other hand, I want to shove my foot up his ass for treating my best friend like a prostitute. I mean … did he pay you extra for the sex, or what?”
I thought of him trying to tell me something through the door and realized he hadn't paid for that day's session.
I relayed this to Steph, and she said, “Whatever. You have to let go of how things started off, and move ahead.”
“You mean find someone else to date?”
“No, I mean don't worry that years from now it might come out he was your coaching client. Look at me. Do I look worried that one day I'll get married to Caleb and someone will tell the embarrassing story that he kissed my best friend two minutes before our first kiss?” She laughed. “Okay, I'm a little worried, but that's life. Things are weird and complicated and that's just how it is. They say not to mix family and business, and here I am, running a shop with my mother.”
“You're right. I shouldn't take advice from you. You do everything wrong.”
She picked up my cell phone from the counter and handed it to me. “You've been glancing over at this thing once every ten seconds. Maybe he'll call or text, or maybe he won't. Do you really want to put the future of your relationship in his hands? This is a guy who was terrified of kissing.”
“You think I should call him?” I put my finger over the screen, but hesitated. “I can't call. What if he doesn't pick up?”
She grabbed the phone from me and typed a message: Now that I'm not coaching you, I would like to go on a real date, if you're interested. If not, please delete this message and let's pretend nothing ever happened.
My mouth went dry.
“That sounds too earnest,” I said.
“If you were paying me money for my advice, you'd send that message.”
“I shouldn't have told you all my coaching secrets.”
“You guys should totally date,” she said. “And not just because you can double date with us, but bec
ause your apartment has never looked better. I like coming over here and knowing there won't be half-folded laundry all over the couch.”
“Yeah. 'Cause it's all about you, isn't it?” I teased.
Steph smiled and dug around in the paper takeout bag, then produced three more containers of soup.
“I guess I'll send this message,” I said.
She took the lid off one container and put it in front of me, then another one for herself.
I sent the message, and immediately felt buoyant, like I might float away on a red balloon.
I put the phone down and dug into my second soup.
A moment later, I said to Steph, “Why do you need soup? You haven't been crying.”
“No,” she said, grinning. “But Caleb's been working me like a gymnast. I've been sweating a lot, ya know? I think I've lost five pounds.”
“Gross.”
“So, how was he? For a virgin?”
“I swear, if I hadn't know, I wouldn't have guessed.”
“No bad habits,” she said. “He didn't have some other girlfriend before you who enjoyed being pounded like a cheap cut of meat that needs to be tenderized.”
“Uh.”
“Because that's how I like it, and with a little coaching, Caleb's finally getting the hang of it.”
I put my face in my hand. “Gross.”
My phone beeped and we both stared at each other, frozen like mannequins.
“You read it.” I pushed the phone toward her. “Break it to me gently.”
She frowned at the phone, then smiled. She kept reading and reading, and then she laughed.
I kicked her.
She said, “Dinosaurs?”
“I will shave off your pretty hair in your sleep if you don't tell me, right this minute.”
“He's busy with work this week, but he wants to take you to see the dinosaur exhibit on Saturday.”
And that's when I literally fell off my chair.
The museum.
Noon.
I went to the museum, armed with a single banana. The security guy excoriated me for bringing food into the place, but I insisted it was a gift.
“It hasn't been opened yet,” I said.
He was a skinny man with a comically large mustache. “If you'd put it in your purse, I wouldn't even know you were smuggling in outside food.”
“I don't want it to get all bruised. C'mon, it's a gag gift, for a guy I like. Things between us are a little awkward right now.”
He said, “And you think giving him a banana is going to help?” He shook his head.
“C'mon, you guys let small children in here, with their drool and their boogers. Unlike the little germ incubators, I'm not going to wipe anything sticky and green on the exhibits.”
A double-team of snot-monsters came by just then, coughing with nothing covering their mouths and proving my point.
The security guy grinned under his mustache and finally waved me in, saying, “You're not a big fan of the little ones, are you?”
“I come from a very long line of people who don't like children,” I said as I winked.
He looked upset, so I told him what he wanted to hear: That of course I would change my mind about kids when I got older, and I'd pop out a bunch of ankle-huggers and bring them to the museum every chance I got.
“Good,” he said. “Enjoy the museum, ma'am.”
I walked away, feeling weird about being called ma'am instead of miss. Was I a ma'am now? How old did he think I was?
I found the spot we'd planned to meet, and stood in front of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, pondering how it was always the gums that made the beasts seem fake. The pink gums around the ferocious teeth lacked moisture. Would a high gloss topcoat help?
Where was Devin, anyway? One more minute and I was going to freak out about him standing me up.
A mother who looked about my age walked by with a baby in a stroller.
I wondered if I would change my mind about kids when I got older.
I'd already experienced a pregnancy once. One bonus cruel thing about miscarriages is the body doesn't snap back immediately. The pregnancy hormones can remain in your system for weeks or months, giving you morning sickness and all the other symptoms. For weeks after the miscarriage, I'd find myself humming and holding my stomach, as though preparing for something wonderful.
But nothing wonderful came.
I dropped out of school and kept living with Steph, who generously paid all the bills until I got a job. I did my therapy (I often say that phrase the way someone would talk of doing a sentence in jail—Girl, I did my time!) and I took some courses. I got my life together, then I decided to take on other people's lives, and got into coaching.
Most people will change careers about a gajillion times in their lives, but I may choose to be an outlier and stick with coaching, forever.
Either that or find a career taking hilarious photos and posting them online. (Ah, if only it paid.)
Devin was still nowhere in sight, so I got out my phone and took some pictures of my hand and the banana near the dinosaur's desiccated-looking lips and gums.
Some little kids gathered to watch, so, naturally, I pretended I was trying to coax the dinosaur to eat.
“Just a nibble,” I said to the big monster. “Yum yum! Baby, you have to try new things, or you'll go extinct.”
Someone said, “You're a natural.”
I turned around to see Devin, looking stylish and handsome as always, in a blue button-down shirt and tight black jeans.
“Oh, he's not mine,” I said. “I'm just babysitting while his mother is out eating other dinosaurs.”
The little kids all thought this was the most hilarious thing yet. Go figure! Kids laugh at very different things than adults.
Devin walked right up to me and kissed me.
On the cheek.
“Nice to see you,” he said.
The kids had finally realized I wasn't a museum employee and wandered off.
I handed him the banana. “Here, I got you one of those fat-free bananas you've been so curious to try.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You can't eat it here, though. No food in the display area of the museum.”
He nodded and stuck the end of it loosely in his front pocket, like a gun in a holster.
“You look like a cowboy,” I said.
“And you look really nice today.”
I struck a girly pose. I wore ballet flats and a blue-green dress with a skinny red belt. The dress color matched my eyes and the red belt matched my lipstick. (Oh, no, I hadn't obsessed about my look at all.)
“This lipstick is smudge-proof,” I said, apropos of nothing … but kissing—kissing Devin on his luscious, boyish, soft, kissable lips.
He grinned and tossed back his lanky black hair.
We started walking, and he grabbed my hand to hold it in his.
As our fingers entwined, blood rushed through me and sent sparks though my erogenous zones. I was sure everyone in the museum could see nothing but my blushing cheeks, yet they all seemed to be going about their business, unaware that Devin was HOLDING MY HAND! IN PUBLIC!
Never mind that we'd had sex four days earlier … we'd never held hands before, and it was every bit as thrilling.
He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed my thumb briefly.
“What's it like being so white?” he asked.
“I burn easily.”
“I bet nobody ever asks where you're from.”
We approached a display of fossils.
“Probably not as often as they ask you,” I said. “You could be a model or an actor, and your skin is so beautiful. No wonder they're curious.”
He stared at the rocks behind the glass. “I guess I don't mind looking different from everyone else. I mean, sometimes I forget, and when I see a photo of myself with Indian friends, I'm surprised I'm the pale one, or that I'm the brown one with my white friends. When I'm with them, I feel like we're all the
same.”
“My best friend is also a blonde. People think she's my sister, but she's way ...” I stopped myself, clamping my lips tight. I knew not to put myself down in front of a guy. It was one of the first things I coached my clients on, and I'd almost confessed to my insecurities.
Even without me finishing the thought, Devin seemed to know what I'd meant.
He turned to me and said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
His words sent a chill through my body, the skin on my bare forearms tightening into goosebumps.
“That is so true,” I said.
He tugged my hand, leading me to the next display. “Have you been to London? Specifically, have you been to the best thing there, the Natural History Museum?”
“No and no. Is that a famous museum?”
He pretended to cough and be horrified I didn't know, and then he went on to tell me all about it as we walked through the dinosaur displays. We walked along, me with my system happily flooded from the chemical reaction of him holding my hand, and he told me about his trip to London. He was only there for three days, for a hotel management conference, and he'd gone to the Natural History Museum every one of the three days. They'd had to kick him out at closing time each day.
As he talked about the artifacts and displays, his face took on a far-away, blissed-out look. (Apparently, I look the same way when I set foot in a Sephora makeup store.)
I asked, “Would you be a historian or archaeologist in another life?”
He grinned. “Is that a crack about reincarnation?”
I stammered that it was not.
He pulled me in for a hug. “Relax! I'm just teasing you.”
I nuzzled my cheek against his chin, taking in the warm, intoxicating scent of his neck. The man smelled so good. I pulled away, embarrassed at how turned-on I felt, and sure everyone could tell by the way I stood or walked exactly what feelings I was having.
“My dream job might surprise you,” he said. “I'd love to work with cookbooks. The fancy ones with the nice photos and funny anecdotes along with the recipes.”
“No way!” We started walking again—slowly, because we were behind a group of kids. “What's that all about? Do you love cooking? Or photography? Or stories?”
