Bound by Secrets

by Angela M Hudson

  I dropped to my knees instead, intent on giving him the same pleasure he gave me.

  He folded in half, shocked, as I touched his zipper, but I shoved his hand away and drew it down anyway. I wondered if this made me a slut—doing this with a boy in the closet at my best friend’s party—but I also didn’t care right now.

  I pulled everything down to release him, and as it sprung back up, my eyes widened. Shaun’s did not look like that.

  “What?” David said, cupping the sides of my face with his moist hands.

  “Why is it so big?”

  He laughed. “They get bigger when they’re hard.”

  “But… that’s so much bigger than Shaun’s.”

  He laughed again. “Yeah. It varies from guy to guy.”

  My eyes were so wide I was sure David could see them in the dark.

  He rolled his head back as I touched the boner, groaning loudly.

  “Did I hurt you?” I asked.

  “No. God no.”

  It was really smooth to touch, and though it was hard, it still had a softness to it that I hadn’t anticipated. It was like a steel rod wrapped in, well… soft skin. I could see how it would feel good inside of me and how, with that moisture my body made, it wouldn’t hurt at all. I thought I hated all penises, but I kind of liked David’s.

  Without giving it a second thought, I put it in my mouth.

  David heaved and bent over a bit, cupping the sides of my face. “Ara, what are you doing?”

  I ignored him and pressed my tongue to the tip. It tasted really salty, but it wasn’t unpleasant. And now I had no idea what to do. But I recalled him saying he would rub it to relieve the pressure, so I put my hands around it too, gently rubbing. I could feel a rough, kind of rigid texture to it in places, like the skin didn’t match, but I figured they all felt like that when they were hard, so I didn’t ask about it.

  “Please. Do not. Stop,” he groaned, reaching down to guide my hands slowly up and down the length of it, his other hand cupping the back of my head to hold it still as he gently moved himself deeper inside of my mouth. And it made sense. It was like sex: the penis goes in and out of the vagina. I just had to suck this like I was a vagina.

  “I’ll warn you when I’m about to cum, okay?”

  I stopped sucking for a second and looked up at him. “Why?”

  “Because you don’t want it in your mouth.”

  “Why? It can’t get me pregnant that way.”

  “No, but most girls don’t like it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s salty, I guess.”

  “Can I just try it? So I know.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned back, his stomach contracting to reveal his six-pack. “Yes, Ara. You can try it.”

  I wrapped my mouth around him again, and after only two strokes he tensed, grunting once before he stopped himself. His hands tightened on my head, holding me in place as a liquidy rush shot up the vein on his penis, like water flowing through a straw, filling my cheek and the space under my tongue. It was salty and very gooey, but warm and really not that bad. I quickly swallowed it down, hoping he wasn’t lying about not getting pregnant from this.

  His fingers loosened their grip then and he leaned back, panting as his penis went a little softer. I expected it to just drop back down again but it stayed up.

  “I didn’t do it right,” I said, wiping my mouth on my arm.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked in a very sweet voice, as if I was a child.

  “It’s still hard.”

  He laughed, moving my hand onto it. “It’ll go down in a few minutes.”

  I closed my fingers around it and, sure enough, it was getting softer and softer. But not smaller—not like Shaun’s.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, trying to get to my feet, but my knees were stiff and a bit weak. David tried to help me up, tipping back as I stumbled into him.

  “That wasn’t too awful for you, was it?” He cradled me safely in his arms then, and it felt so nice that I went all floppy against him.

  I shook my head, in complete awe of him. “It was amazing—all of it.”

  “Well,” he smiled, casting his eyes shyly off to one side, “any time you feel the need to… get a load off, you know where to find me.”

  I still felt hot and tight between my legs, maybe because I wanted more from him or maybe because I just needed to let the moment pass, but it was a nice feeling. And it had been nice with David. I trusted him, felt comfortable with him, but as much as I’d been afraid of it, I didn’t feel awkward, and I didn’t feel like I either wanted a relationship or wanted to stop being friends. I felt closer to him in a lot of ways—like we shared a secret—but that was all.

  “What are you thinking?” He rested his hand alongside my face, running his thumb in gentle circles over my earlobe. I closed my eyes and relaxed my entire body into his, feeling his soft penis against my wet thigh.

  “You’re so different to what I thought you were,” I said.

  “In what way?”

  “I guess you’re not as… weird as I figured.”

  “Weird how?” He laughed.

  “I dunno. I guess I just always felt like… you have this air about you that makes me want to stay away from you.”

  “Really?” He sounded hurt by that. “That’s how you see me?”

  I looked at his eyes and saw the shimmer of tears. And then I thought back to the free hugs—how he told me that people don’t really hug him and that it didn’t mean he didn’t need it every now and then. It broke my heart. The very thing about him that made me want to keep my distance made everyone else do it too. He must feel like no one in the world loves him. So I wrapped my arms around his ribs and squeezed. After a moment, he reluctantly folded his arms around me and squeezed back.

  “That’s why people don’t hug you,” I said. “You look unapproachable, David, but I can see that’s just a protective front.”

  He curled his shoulders around and buried his face in my neck. “You hit the nail right on the head there, Ara.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, leaning back a bit at the waist. “Now I understand you better, I’ll make more of an effort to be a good friend.”

  He nodded, pressing the back of my head to fold me into him again. I wanted to pull away and go back out to the party now—the horniness had vanished and I was bored in here—but I cared about him more deeply than I ever realized before, and I could tell he needed a friend. I could feel it in the way his arms wrapped me. So I hugged him a bit longer, all the while worrying about Cal and if he was wondering where I’d gotten to.

  * * *

  After a long week of school, then spending all Friday night, Saturday and then Saturday evening with the girls talking about boys, I slipped into my swimsuit and flip-flops, and walked down to the beachfront café where Elora worked. The gentle summer breeze, the slow pace, the peaceful whisper of nature in my ear didn’t even slightly quiet the voice in my head that was still moaning David’s name.

  So many times, I almost told the girls about what he and I did in the closet, but I was afraid Bree would be mad with me for doing that in her house. Yet I kind of needed to talk about it. David didn’t say anything when I saw him at the movies on Saturday night, as if it hadn’t happened, and I got the sense that he regretted it. I, on the other hand, kind of wanted to do it again. I woke up Saturday morning, surrounded by six sleeping girls, my undies wet again and my breath heavy, the feel of his mouth on me still so fresh in my mind. It was odd, really, to want so much from him physically but not emotionally. If I thought about it, hugging him the way we did after the orgasm felt really nice, and I always felt very comfortable talking to him, as if we’d been friends our whole lives. But it seemed like having anything more with him would just be too heavy, so instead of telling him how I felt, I just tried to ignore it all and hope it would just blow over.

  The desires in my body wouldn’t though. I
was beginning to think mouth sex wouldn’t be enough for me. I had wanted to keep my virginity and save it for the right guy, but while my mind and heart had one plan, my body clearly had another.

  “Hey you!” Elora seemed genuinely happy to see me. She glided out of the glass-walled café with a round tray on her hip, her long tan legs sticking out of very short black shorts with a matching shirt that had the ‘Mike’s on the Jetty’ logo.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you here to see me?” she asked. “Or did you just get word about our world famous milkshakes?”

  “I was here to see you,” I confessed shyly.

  “Great,” she beamed. “I get off in ten, wanna go for a swim?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, way too enthusiastic. “I’d like that.”

  “Great.” She drew a pen from behind her ear. “What can I get you in the meantime?”

  “Oh my Lord!” someone squeaked in a really high voice. I turned to see a girl with jet-black hair and funky purple boots bounding toward us. “This is her!”

  “Ara, Ali,” Elora said. “Ali, Ara.”

  Ali grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a hug, a wide, eager smile brightening her thin face. “I’m a member of the club,” she hinted. “I was so happy to hear we have a new GFF!”

  “GFF?” I looked at Elora for the answer.

  “Girl Friend Forever,” she said.

  “Oh.” I guess I’d been accepted into the fold without even trying. I relaxed a bit then.

  “Are you staying?” Ali asked. “I’m finished now. I can keep you company while we wait for Lors.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, taking a seat at the empty table right beside my hip. Ali sat down across from me and handed me the menu. I looked it over for a second but felt rushed, since Elora was waiting for my order. “Any recommendations?”

  Ali and Elora looked at each other and both said, “Milkshakes.”

  “Sounds good.” I folded the menu shut and sat back.

  “Okay, I’ll be back in a sec.”

  When Elora wandered off, my eyes lazily moved onto Ali. She had a wild sort of look to her, as if she had way too much energy and too little manners to control it, but in a good way. The piercing in her lip and the streak of blue in her hair made her look a little intense, but mostly because I’d only ever seen that look on the ‘bad kids’ on TV. But she rocked it. I imagined she’d be a lot of fun and a great person to have at your back when the going got tough.

  “So?” Ali said, resting her chin on her hands, her knees rocking open and closed under the table. “Elora tells me you’ve been hanging out with her brother.”

  “David?” I scrunched my nose up. “Yeah, but it’s nothing to gossip about, really. We’re just pals.” Pals that do naughty things in closet spaces.

  “Pals?” She sat back a bit. “Elora said he was pretty badly into you.”

  “So he talks to her about me?”

  “They talk about everything,” she said simply.

  I shrugged, rubbing away the stiffness in my skin from the hot, beating sun. “I know he likes me, but he’s not my type, so it’s kind of too bad, I guess.”

  Ali laughed loudly, covering her mouth then as if she hadn’t meant to laugh.

  “You know, I hate to eavesdrop,” Elora said, placing three milkshakes on the table, “but do you really even know him?”

  “Who, David?” I said.

  “Yeah.” She sat down and divided the milkshakes, passing one to each. “He might be more your type than you think.”

  “If you gave him a fair go,” Ali added.

  “He might.” I nodded, taking a sip of the icy-cold chocolate shake. “But I’m not after anything more than a couple of friendships right now—maybe a date or two to see where things go, but that’s about it.”

  “So why not go on a date with David?” Ali suggested.

  “Because, of all the guys I just met”—emphasis on just met, so get off my back—“if I was going to go on a date with any of them, it’d most likely be Cal. But, like I said, I don’t want a relationship right now, at least not until I’ve got myself figured out.”

  “What do you mean?” Elora asked, sipping her shake.

  “David was the one that actually pointed this out: I don’t really know much about myself yet, which means I don’t really know what kinds of guys I like. So if I get in a relationship with anyone and then realize one day that I’m not that interested, I could stand to hurt a lot of guys. And if I get any closer to either David or Cal right now, knowing both of them like me, then I’ll lose them as friends. I don’t wanna risk that.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty smart then, I guess.” Elora sat back as she sipped through her straw. “But what did you mean about not really knowing yourself yet? You’re, what, at least seventeen, right? Surely you know a little about yourself.”

  “Not really. I only woke from my coma a few months ago, and—”

  “Coma?” Ali said.

  “Um… I had an accident last year and my mind was completely wiped—”

  “Oh my God!” Ali said, putting her shake down and leaning inward.

  “Yeah, so I had to learn to walk and talk and all that fun stuff again. And now I don’t remember any of my past, so I don’t know anything about myself.”

  “That must be torture,” Ali said.

  I looked at both of them carefully and, seeing they both looked genuinely interested in my story, I went on. As the sun got hotter and then started to slip closer to the earth, I talked about everything: the recovery; the embarrassment over Brett caring for me—which they both completely understood and empathized with; learning to hunt and the challenges I faced trying to do human things at Lilithian speed, and after another few milkshakes, I finally realized I had nothing left to say. It felt as if someone had turned on a tap and released all the pressure inside of me, and now I just felt at peace, like I’d been heard.

  Elora looked at me sympathetically. “You really needed someone to talk to, huh?”

  My cheeks got hotter. “I’m sorry. You should’ve told me to shut up.”

  “No way.” Ali slapped my wrist playfully. “You’re one of us now, Ara. If you need to talk, then talk until dawn, right Lors?”

  Elora nodded. “It’s clearly not doing you any good to hold onto all of that.”

  “But I don’t get it,” Ali said. “I’ve met Fal… er, Brett. He’s a really amazing person. Doesn’t he talk to you about all of this?”

  “We talk a bit.” I nodded, readjusting my legs where the seat dug into them. “But there are some things I can’t really say to him.”

  They both nodded.

  “So how long did it take you to recover from death?” Ali asked.

  “Um…” I sipped my shake to deflect my emotions as they bubbled up inside of me. “I died not last Christmas but the one before—”

  “So the year I was twenty-two,” Elora said to Ali.

  Ali nodded.

  “And my body didn’t come back to life until about six months ago, but I don’t really remember the recovery.”

  “None of it?” Elora asked.

  I shook my head. “I know it was painful only because they told me—”

  “What actually happened to you?” Ali asked. “You never said.”

  “I never asked Brett. He just said I had major brain damage.”

  “Oh. And he didn’t say how?”

  “He said it was a car accident, but I don’t believe him.” I slurped down the last of my shake.

  “Why?” Ali said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  “Would he have a reason to lie to you?” Elora asked.

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Like what reason?” Ali asked.

  “He’s protective,” I said.

  “You don’t think it’s a control thing, do you?” Elora asked. “Like he doesn’t want you to go out into the big bad world all by yourself and he’ll lose his little
girl?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think that’s it. You have to know him to understand,” I said, and the girls exchanged worried glances, “but I’m not ready to know anything yet anyway. It’s only been about four months since I started living.”

  “Four?”

  “Yeah. My earliest memory was waking up one day to Christmas lights and Brett’s face above mine.” I motioned behind me as if he was standing at the head of a bed. “From there, I’ve learned things pretty quick, and here we are. But all the time before that, like after I first woke up from the coma, I don’t remember. I mean, I don’t even remember not being able to sit or chew steak.”

  “Do you ever wish you could remember your old life?” Ali asked.

  I thought about that for a second. Things were really starting to look up for me. I liked my friends, my school, the long summer days and the balmy nights here in Perth. I wouldn’t want to go back to where I was before. “Not really. I like my life now.”

  “What if, like…” Elora leaned closer, grinning. “What if you found out you had a family—like kids and stuff?”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t you want to get back to them?” Ali added.

  My eyes wandered to a woman loading her baby into a car, and I felt nothing. I couldn’t relate to that in any way. “I doubt I had kids.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not the kind of person that would.” I curled my lip.

  An awkward silence filled out the dense afternoon air.

  “Me either,” Ali said, and laughed to bring the mood back down again.

  Elora seemed distracted though, and as we talked for a while longer before they announced that they had to go, I got the feeling that what I’d said in some way offended her. It wasn’t until I was walking home again that I realized: David. He had a son. Elora obviously cared about her brother—wanted him to have the girl he had a crush on. But if I didn’t like kids then there wasn’t much hope for us ever being together long-term.

  I wanted to turn back and tell her that there wasn’t much hope anyway—that it wasn’t entirely to do with Harry. David had a lot of good qualities and I could definitely let myself fall for him, but I didn’t want to risk hurting him with my flakey personality if I decided a week from now that he wasn’t what I wanted. He was different to me now after the closet incident, and I felt closer to him. No, I felt deeply closer to him, but I was now even more certain—seeing how easy he was to hurt—that I had to be careful with him. I couldn’t let him fall in love with me or give him any hint that our friendship could ever become more—not, at least, until I was ready for that.