Red Hot Blues

by Rachel Dunning

  Wow. Wow. Wow.

  That was good. That was so good.

  I look up at him. He’s so beautiful. He’s so out of my league. And that’s OK.

  I took a decision. I wanted him. I wanted him badly. I like him. So I let him touch me. It’s been...four years. Four freaking years! It was time. And I’m glad Ace was the one.

  Will it hurt when he goes? Yes.

  Will he go right away? I don’t believe he will. I think he and I are gonna do at least a little bit more of what we just did before he leaves. Why? Because I turn him on. I know I do. I don’t know why I do, but I do.

  And that makes me confident. Right now, right here, I’m confident. And confidence is something a person needs, like little insulin shots for a diabetic. Vitamin shots for a depleted body. The Energy Drink of Life.

  Confidence. I’ve needed my shot for too long now.

  Four years.

  I know he’ll get sick of me, when he sees girls with tighter asses, tighter boobs, thinner thighs. I know it. But for now, I’ll ride this wave. I’ll ride this confidence wave as far as I can take it.

  The day we spent together today was amazing. We laughed. He pushed me into the fountain outside the city hall and I was lucky I just missed getting wet! He took funny photos of me. I took funny photos of him. We rode past a couple playing Frisbee and stole their Frisbee and rode away on our bikes and got sworn at by them.

  I had fun. I had friend fun. And now it’s progressed to more than that.

  A girl can dream. A girl can pretend. I knew I was pretending when he touched me. I know he’ll go. But this time I made a choice. When I was with Brett, I’d had no choice. And that’s what’s different. I knew what I was getting into this time, no illusions, just living in the moment. And knowing the moment will end.

  “Don’t feel pressurized to stay,” I say.

  He frowns. I straighten my dress, pull my underwear back into place (front and back!)

  “Promise me something,” I tell him. “When you want to leave, don’t stop talking to me. I’m not clingy. But don’t do that.”

  He frowns even more seriously.

  “Promise me!” I demand.

  He hesitates. Then, “O—OK. I...promise.”

  “You promise what?”

  “That—that I won’t stop talking to you.”

  I smile widely. “I’m not clingy, Ace. And I know I’m not the sexiest girl—”

  “Gin—”

  I stop him with my hand. “Let me finish. I know I’m not the sexiest girl in the world—”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “—so just don’t get all macho and shit when you realize it for yourself.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  I shake my head, frustrated. “Ace, whatever. You don’t need to play to my ego. I’m a big girl.” I realize the awkward pun in that too late... “Just, treat me with respect when you leave, OK?”

  He waits.

  “Ace?”

  “You assume I’ll leave.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “You said you couldn’t promise me you’d stay.”

  He looks way. Caught out. “But it’s not because of you that I can’t stay. It’s—”

  He doesn’t finish. On my right, his left, coming up the stairs, is a man. He smiles at us when he gets to the top. We smile back, shifting slightly away from each other. You ever get that feeling when you just know someone’s been making out? Ace and I were standing really close, and I know this dude knows what we were up to.

  Ace whispers. “It’s not because of you that I’ll leave. It’s—”

  “Shhh. It’s OK. I don’t need to know why. Just...give me warning, OK? I understand you have...issues.” I look at his swelling eye. My hand moves up to it and I hover my finger just above it, not wanting to press the bluing area. “I get that. I also have issues. Let’s respect each other. If you wanna tell me about them, tell me. If you don’t, don’t. But you need to let me know before you leave. Don’t just split without saying goodbye. And if you ever pass through town, say hello, have a honey whiskey with me. Don’t ignore me, OK?”

  “I’d never do that.”

  I shake my head. People promise lots of things in the heat of the moment. Looking at his boots—the boots he’s been riding a pink bicycle with all day!—I say, “Ace, let’s be real. We’re not teenagers. And if you wanna end it at what we just did—”

  “I don’t.”

  I look up flirtatiously at him. “What, you want more than what you just got?”

  He looks behind me at the dude looking out at the public square. I’m speaking softly but it’s so quiet up here that maybe the guy can hear us.

  Ace whispers, “It’s not about that with you, Gin.”

  “Ooh, my, you are good!” I like flirting with him. I’ve had my confidence-shot for the month, so now I’m on a roll.

  He shakes his head.

  “Hey!” I say, grabbing his shoulders. “Don’t be so serious, babe. I’m just playing with you.”

  He looks at me intensely. “I don’t wanna play about that. I’m a lot of things, Gin. A lot. A lot of bad things. But I’m not that. I’ve played girls, plenty, but I’m not playing you. I...like...you.”

  Wow.

  It feels like the world just tilted a little.

  I try and keep it light. Try and remember to breathe. One breath in, one breath out.

  “Don’t say stuff like that to me.” I can barely look him in the eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t deal with intense. I...need it light.”

  “Why? So you don’t feel?”

  “You hardly know me, Ace.”

  “I know enough. And I know I like you.”

  It’s too much to deal with. Too much.

  The dude that walked up earlier starts to go back down the steps. Maybe he’s sick of hearing the love-talk behind him, or of feeling the sexual tension in the air.

  Ace and I say nothing while the man walks down, and then finally disappears.

  It’s just me and him again.

  Twilight. Almost darkness.

  And a cold wind.

  Ace bends down, grabs me by the shoulders. I lift my head so my lips can meet his. He touches his to mine, gently, softly.

  This is different now. Different. Sensual. Scary. This is close. This is emotional.

  This is a problem.

  My world spins as my fears take root, throwing fists at my chest while his tongue dances over my lower lip, scrapes against my teeth, and finally pierces into my mouth and buries itself so far into me that I can’t breathe.

  My legs have widened again, instinctively. Millennia of genetic experience already expecting what I’m thinking I might also want to happen. With Ace. Just one night.

  I’m up against the wall, feeling his hard body on mine.

  This makes no sense. No sense! And yet...I’m overwhelmed by it. Going along with it. Caught in a drift and being ridden by it.

  It’s too good. The feeling, the emotions: They’re too good. I’m being lied to. My mind is lying to me—my genes are lying to me!—telling me it’ll be OK, that he’ll stay, that things will work out—

  I don’t care. His tongue, his breath, the salty flavor of his skin.

  I want more.

  I slide my tongue out to the side of his mouth, lick his lips. Put my hands behind his neck and drag him down to me, lifting my pelvis toward him.

  He’s hardening. My body is his, completely his.

  But not here. Not here.

  “We need a room,” I tell him.

  He stops, cups my cheeks, smiles. “Damn right we do.”

  “I have a roommate. I could tell her I need the apartment to myself but it’s too damn embarrassing to say it to her.”

  He smiles wider.

  “Don’t laugh at me.” I’m embarrassed already.

  “I’m not laughing at you. I’m adoring you.”

  I kiss him again. A desperate kiss. Clutching his hair in my
fingers and not letting go. Feeling the thrum and sizzle between my legs. Wanting to crest, to be taken over the edge with him. Burning. Tingling. “Oh, god, I want you so badly, Ace.” But I shouldn’t have you.

  He pins me to the concrete wall with his body, his shaft again hard and pushing at my soft mound. He buries his lips on my neck, starts sucking. I feel the tingle, feel the strength leave me. Oh, god, I haven’t gotten a hickey in so long! My eyes sting and burn. Shafts of lustful pain shoot down my neck and he just sucks and kisses and...

  I imagine sucking as well. And I don’t know why I imagine it because I’ve never done that but... With him. Maybe. Maybe I would.

  Maybe it’s the intimacy of it. This feeling of trust I have for him. Even though I hardly know him?

  Oh, god, he has to make me come again or else I’m not gonna be able to think straight!

  I give a low, slow moan and feel the pressure of his sucking lips bolt down my body all the way through my nether lips, down my thighs, calves, and out my toes.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  He pulls away. “Let’s get a room,” he says.

  I’m delirious, lost in the moment. He grabs my fingers and before I know it I’m downstairs looking at the green grass of the public square and he’s got me on the bicycle and we’re riding past the fountains and all I know is I need to follow the pink bicycle with the guy in the cowboy boots.

  Then we’re back at the Renaissance Hotel, but this time at the reception, and Ace has his credit card out and he’s booked us a room but my mind is still whirling because my neck is tingling. And did I hear her say this is part of the Marriott family of hotels?

  Yikes.

  In the elevator, he pulls my back against him, his cock hard and beautiful, snuggled between the generous buns of my butt and he’s leaning down and kissing my neck. His hands move up my sides. Shivers thrill through me—

  The elevator stops. I feel Ace’s head lift up. An older couple gets in, smiles. I don’t remember smiling back.

  And then we’re in the room—how we got here, a blur. And I fall on a bed so comfortable I think I could climax just lying on it. Ace climbs on top of me, presses down against me, kisses my salty neck and ears and pushes down at my most sensitive spot—

  We’re in the moment, lost in each other, the culmination of a dozen or a hundred other unspoken “moments” shared throughout the day today, where he knew what I was saying and I knew what he was thinking. Inexplicable moments. Moments of magic, the meeting of two minds. Moments of just knowing this will be OK.

  Moments of not caring, of wanting him, of dreaming of this precise second. On this bed. Him above me...

  He breathes in deeply of me and kisses my neck, my chest, starts pushing the straps of my dress down.

  “Wait.”

  He doesn’t.

  “Wait, Ace. Wait.”

  He stops kissing me. Looks up at me desperately. Wanton, sexy desire in his eyes. “What?”

  “I need to shower.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not. I...need to shower. I can’t have you kissing my dirty skin after a full day of cycling in the sun.”

  “You taste like M&Ms.”

  “And you’re a bullshitter. And good at what you do!”

  He shrugs as if to say, I do OK.

  “Asshole!”

  “I’ll shower with you.”

  And see my rolls of fat? “No, please, let me shower alone. I’ll be five minutes. And then I’ll be squeaky clean.”

  Misunderstanding my reasoning, he says, “Gin”—Oh, god, I love the way he says my name—“we’re not gonna do anything you’re not comfortable with in there. And, personally, I’m not a hundred percent comfortable with having sex with you either. Not yet.”

  Not sure how I should understand that one...

  He picks up on my confusion.

  “Gin! You’re too sensitive! What I mean by that is...well...it’s a little embarrassing to say it.”

  “Just fucking say it because you have me falling off the personal insecurities cliff here.”

  “I’ve told you already. I like you. I don’t want to hurt you. And unless...I can...commit...to you... Well, sex is different. Sex is...a commitment.”

  He gets up off me. Moves onto a one-seater and sits.

  I sit up on the bed, legs dangling off the edge. “You’re telling me every girl you’ve slept with has been a commitment? That smells an awful lot like bullllllshit to me!”

  “No. I’m saying that sex with you would necessitate a commitment. At least in my books. Don’t make me explain that. It’s just the way it is...with you.”

  Right. Punch to the chest. Deep. Very deep.

  “Gin?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Just had to catch my breath there.” This is already getting serious. Maybe he really does like me. As in, for real. “Well, FYI, I wasn’t going to let you sleep with me.” Saying it out loud makes me realize it for the first time. It’s one thing to dream. It’s another to act. I’d be uncomfortable acting on this so soon. “I, unlike you, have not slept with anyone and everyone in the world. I have standards,” I joke.

  “Hey!”

  “But sex with anyone is a commitment to me also. And I’m...not ready to commit to anyone.” Now or ever. “But I do want to have some fun with you.”

  “I want to have more than fun.” He leans forward, an intense storm raging in his eyes.

  I put an index finger up. “Don’t make it serious, Ace. I don’t do serious very well. I’m doing OK here because we’re keeping it light.” Uh-huh, his finger inside me was keeping it light? “Well, light-ish.”

  “Shower, Gin. Because I want to do things to you that they censor out of books.”

  “Not these days, baby. You’ve been reading entirely the wrong genre.”

  -35-

  In the bathroom, looking in the mirror at my “Slightly Larger than Lena Dunham on a Good Day” figure: Rolly stomach when I sit. Dimply hips when I stand. Muffin-top. Nice “tits.” Yep. Not bad. A little droopy, but fleshy. A good asset, I decide. So now I have a sexy voice and sexy tits.

  OK.

  Thighs? They’re OK, I guess. They’re large, yeah, but shapely. I can see that now. I see the muscles in them when I flex. Uh-huh. I can see how a dude might like those.

  Confidence shot. I’d been missing my confidence shot for the year... No, the decade.

  Ass, view from the side. Hmmm. Not a good asset. Moving on.

  Suck the tummy in. Looks good, but I can’t breathe. Forget that. Just put the lights off.

  Calves, upper arms, forearms. I stretch my arms out. Not cool. A little droopy at the bottom. Layna says they’re not. But Layna’s biased. All best friends are biased. It’s what makes them best friends.

  “Gin?” Ace’s voice from outside the door.

  “Gimme a minute. A girl has to get herself ready!”

  My hair, not bad.

  My mind drifts... Hell, that was hot at the observation point. How he just came for me. Out of nowhere. Damn! I hadn’t been expecting it. And when he did, when he slid up behind me. I was his. Completely his.

  I’m glad I met him. I’d really like to stay in touch with him. He’s basically the first guy I’ve done anything beyond second base with since high school. That’s gotta check off Friend Forever right there, right? I hate it that people who hook up never stay friends. I don’t want to lose Ace as a friend, so I need to play this cool. I need to not let it go too far.

  “Gin?”

  “Damn it, boy, put a leash on it!”

  “OK.” A weak sound.

  And I trust him. Maybe this is good for me. I can tell he cares, as best as he can. I understand his whole commitment thing. What he doesn’t know is that I’m worse than him. I can’t commit. Not to him. Not to anyone. Too much pressure. What if I gain ten pounds next month? Maybe I’m OK-looking now. Maybe. But ten more pounds? I can’t do that to him. And I can’t guarantee I won’t put it on. Even if I stop dri
nking Frappuccinos for the rest of my life.

  I think this is good for me. A little fun. A little confidence booster with a dude I like hanging out with. Yeah, you go girl.

  I can do this.

  I put on my sweaty dress again. Going out naked in that well-lit room is out of the question.

  When I get in the room I see Ace lying on the bed, arm behind his head. Sexy.

  I gulp.

  He gets up, goes to the shower, but on his way he slows down when he reaches me. Looks down at me with greedy eyes.

  And then his fingers just graze past me. There.

  I think I make a yelp of a sound, or a whimper. I do know that my legs go weak and that moisture pumps out of me in one solid endocrinal pump.

  Then he’s gone, into the shower.

  I dim the lights so they’re almost off. When he comes out (three minutes, tops), I’m on the bed, in my dress. Waiting.

  And he has no shirt on.

  I almost die.

  -36-

  He’s perfect. Just perfect. Not an ounce of fat. Everything I’m not. And that tattoo on his arm, turned away from me now so I still can’t fully make it out. But it covers his shoulder, and most of his bicep. It’s huge.

  I’m so nervous, so self-conscious suddenly. I can’t even look at him.

  I look away, at the window, waiting for the moment of mortification to disappear. I say, “We can just kiss, if you want.”

  Before I know it, he’s on top of me—this Hercules is on top of me! And he’s kissing me, and his muscles are so powerful and striated and perfect that I feel completely out of my depth. “Now why the fuck would I want to do only that?” he says, and he goes down for a kiss on my ear, licking me, pressing his manhood down below against me.

  I can’t answer him. The lust grows in me, fueled by his musk and his grinding and pushing. My breathing deepens. “I still don’t know what you’re doing with me.”

  I’m looking away, at the window.

  He kisses my neck, licks me like a razor left to right, then moves up to my ear again. Nibbles it.

  His hardness below is maddening. I have no underwear on and I can feel him poking from behind his jeans, just scraping my nub as he grinds and moves so delicately, so perfectly, over me.