Wake

by Abria Mattina

  “How do you feel?” she whispers as she lowers her face to my arm again. Willa trails slow kisses up the inside of my arm from my elbow, lingering over the sensitive skin. Her hands are under my hips, lightly tracing the indentations at the back of my hipbones. I couldn’t possibly feel calmer and my skin feels warm and tingly.

  “Beautiful,” I murmur, because for the first time in a long time, it’s true. I won’t mean it twenty minutes from now, but I try not to think about that. I nest my hands in her soft curls.

  “Your heart is beating faster.” She’s right. I’m relaxed, but my heart is double-timing it, pounding in all the places Willa made me feel—my elbows and knees and neck. I have a sudden craving to have my throat touched, and pull Willa away from my arms to attend to the skin there.

  She trails her tongue from the hollow of my collarbone to the tip of my chin. Sweet bliss. My hands and breath tremble as she traces the underside of my jaw with her lips, laving at my earlobes.

  “Jem?” she whispers with her teeth around my earlobe.

  “Mmh?”

  “Where do you feel your heart beating?”

  “Everywhere.”

  “Everywhere?”

  I nod dumbly and try to recapture her lips for another kiss. My skin feels hot and swollen, like a ripe berry about to burst. I feel so blissfully alive and I don’t want her to stop touching me.

  “Jem?”

  “What?”

  “You realize you’re hard, right?”

  No one has ever had to point that out to me before. I look down, flabbergasted, to find her quite correct. It’s not exactly a steel rod, but it’s the first promising erection I’ve had all month.

  “Do you want to do something about it?”

  Yes.

  No.

  Maybe.

  Why the hell are you leaving this up to me?

  “It’s going to hurt.”

  “Do you get any pleasure out of being touched? Or is it all pain?” Willa kisses my neck and I shiver. It’s an odd sensation, like the ghost of what being touched used to feel like.

  “It doesn’t feel bad until the end. It’s just…frustrating. I don’t get anywhere.”

  Willa’s hand makes its way to my inner thigh. “Shall I?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to do it yourself?”

  “No. Just kiss me, okay?” I pull her face to mine, trying to resurrect the good thing we had going before my cock had to get in the way with its dirty tease. Willa opens her mouth to my tongue. We play in her mouth for a while, licking and sucking on each other’s lips. Then she has to thrust her tongue into my mouth, goading me on. Willa wants to tongue-fuck.

  Her arms tighten around my back and she shifts her legs, tangling them with mine. My yet-to-disappear hard-on is sandwiched against her front. I try to ignore it and pour what I can into our kiss. Willa loves it. She opens up to it. She moans into my mouth and part of me wishes she would wriggle just a little bit, putting friction elsewhere. But I know that’s a bad idea.

  I put an inch or two of distance between our lower halves and Willa breaks the kiss.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Willa grabs my waist and thrusts her hips against mine. The small relief of that brief action is enough to make me grunt and thrust back just as hard.

  Bad idea.

  Very bad idea.

  You’re not going to want to stop until it’s too late.

  Willa smiles at my obvious pleasure and adjusts her hips to give me a better angle to grind against.

  I pull away. Fucking hell, I can’t do this.

  I roll onto my back, out of her reach, and try to catch my breath. Willa wants to know if she hurt me. Like all that matters is whether or not I find this physically painful.

  “You weren’t just…trying to get me hard the whole time, were you? Just to prove you could or something?” I don’t want sex with her to be an ego trip. I want her to want me—not to prove that she can get me to work right.

  “No.” Her tone makes me want to believe her. “There’s such a thing as phantom orgasm, you know.” Her fingers close gently around my exposed elbow. “It’s gentler, but…powerful. I thought if you couldn’t have a real one you might be able to have something else. You were shivering—I thought that was it. But then he clued in.” She gestures to my crotch with her eyes. I’m still hard. Another minute or two without stimulation and it’ll wilt, just like it always does. My body’s not big on satisfaction these days.

  “Did it feel good?”

  Yes.

  “I don’t know.” I sigh. “It’s not worth the pain.”

  “What happens when you stop just before the pain comes?”

  “I don’t. It sneaks up on me and then it’s too late.”

  A thoughtful crease appears on Willa’s forehead. “Before you got sick, could you tell when you were about to come?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “But you can’t now?”

  “No. There’s no orgasm, just sudden pain and sometimes jizz. Okay? Leave it alone.”

  She doesn’t. “Where is the pain?” Her hand settles over my navel, stroking little swirls against my shirt.

  “Here.” I trace a line from my balls up to my abs. The pain always feels like being sacked, the way my gut tightens and makes me want to gag.

  “That’s not so surprising,” Willa says.

  “What?” I’m actually worried for the guys she dated before me if she thinks an agonizing orgasm is normal. Willa rolls her eyes and accuses me of not paying attention in sex ed.

  “Ejaculation is muscular. Orgasm is a nervous function.” Her hand strays to my crotch, palming my erection, which has decided not to fade after all. I brush her hand away and she pushes me right back.

  “You can have an orgasm without ejaculating, you know.” Willa carefully slips her thigh between my legs and rocks against me gently to keep me hard. “It takes a lot of muscle strength or the absence of a reflex—but it’s possible.” She leans in to kiss me and I realize that I’m panting. This is so embarrassing—I should be pushing her off…

  “I don’t feel anything good, you know. Touching it might keep me hard, but I’m not going to get off. It doesn’t feel…like anything.”

  Please let her quit now.

  “If it didn’t feel like anything you’d be numb,” she says, still rocking. “Treatment has changed things, but you’re not dead down there. What does it really feel like?”

  Stop panting, damn it.

  “Like…not enough.” She applies more pressure and I angle my hips away from her with a yelp. “Too much.”

  “What about my hand?”

  “No.”

  “My mouth?”

  Mine falls open. Willa’s hand leaves my shoulder and starts to unfasten my pants.

  “Please, it’s gonna hurt.” I grab her hand to make her stop.

  “I won’t try to make you come,” she promises quietly. “I just want to understand what feels good and what doesn’t. You can tell me to stop—just let me start, okay?”

  Her hand wiggles free of mine and lowers my zipper the rest of the way. Willa removes her right glove and her hand slips inside, through the gap in my underwear. I jump when her fingers touch my bare skin. “This doesn’t do it for you?” Her hand slides ever so gently along my penis. She doesn’t try to remove it from my pants, and for that I’m thankful.

  “You might as well be touching my arm.” Willa chooses to take that as a hint and leans in to kiss my inner elbows again. It’s a little sad that that touch feels better than her hand on my dick. Her fingers tease their way from base to tip, exploring my shape. She smirks against my arm between kisses. “You’re uncut?”

  “Don’t tell me that’s your turn-off.” Of all the things about me…

  “No.” Willa gives me a kiss and then moves to my neck, kissing and licking the spots I like best. “Touch me,” she whispers. I stroke her through her shirt, teasi
ng her nipples. Maybe I can turn the focus of this on her and she’ll forget about giving me a handjob.

  Willa’s hand slips out my fly. Thank you, Jesus. I grab at her sides and clothes and kiss her roughly, trying to be a distraction. I think it’s working. Her hands stay planted on the mattress for support and she whimpers when I suck her lower lip. Distraction accomplished.

  My dick is throbbing at the loss of attention. The erection will fade, but that doesn’t help at the moment, because my natural urge is to find some sort of friction.

  Willa leans more of her weight on me to deepen the kiss and I can’t help it—I lift my hips to meet hers, pressing my groin against her.

  Willa takes this opportunity to tug my pants down over my raised hips. The waistband gets as far as the top of my thighs before I break away and reach down to stop her.

  “No.” She won’t let my pull my pants back up. I try to cover myself with my shirt but she pushes my hands away. She’s sitting on my knees in such a way that I can’t leave the bed or draw my legs up for cover.

  “Willa…”

  “Jem.”

  I drop my head back to the pillow and close my eyes. I should have stopped this sooner. I hate this nakedness that has nothing to do with my body. I want her to stop touching me and just hold me before I fall the fuck apart.

  “I want you to stop.”

  “Okay.” Willa leans forward and wraps her arms around my shoulders. Her head comes to rest on my shoulder, her hot breath on my neck. I try to shimmy my jeans back up and Willa tells me to stop.

  “Take a second.” Her fingers gently clasp my wrist. “Listen.”

  I actually pause for five seconds, listening to the silence. “What?”

  “If the sky had fallen we’d have heard it by now.” She smirks. “I’m not running away, Jem. I don’t think you’re ugly. I want you.”

  “Don’t look at me.” The words come out on a cracked whisper.

  “Look at me,” she says. “Give me one minute, that’s all I want.”

  “What, exactly…?”

  Willa scoots down so she’s kneeling over my knees instead of my hips. She looks so calm, so determined. My shirt is still covering the essential bits, but Willa slowly moves it away. I can hardly stand to watch.

  “I love you.” Her fingers weave between mine. She gives me a tender smile.

  And then her head dips.

  “Wait—wai—!” Willa’s mouth comes down around me and my fingers squeeze hers. Fuck. Her first pass is a gentle one to moisten my skin. I feel the sweat break out on the back of my neck as she lowers her mouth for the second time. Jesus Christ. I’ve gotten head before but this feels…different. Less sensitive in some parts, and more sensitive in others. The slow caresses of her tongue make me whimper.

  “Hmm?”

  “Good,” I agree breathlessly. “Gentle.”

  I should really stop this.

  You should.

  Yeah.

  You’re not going to.

  Nope.

  Willa’s hands leave mine to touch me elsewhere and I fist the blanket for lack of a handhold. My skin has that hot, ripe-berry feel again; that high of hypersensitivity, the acute awareness of every movement and the corresponding sensations each elicits; the little flicks that her tongue laves against the most sensitive part of me, bringing just enough pleasure to drive me insane, but not nearly enough to make me come. And I’m fine with that, because for the first time in forever, it feels good.

  Willa has to hold my hips down with her forearms to keep me from bucking. In my defense, it’s been awhile...and she’s incredible. Her mouth is gentle and pliable enough to give me stimulation, but not firm enough to cause discomfort—the perfect balance that my hand can no longer achieve. She spares no effort: the warm wetness, the slick sounds, her teasing tongue... I press my teeth together and seal my lips to keep from screaming.

  I find her hand where it rests below my navel and grab on. I want to praise her, to thank her, but if I try to speak right now I’ll just end up moaning loudly for the whole house to hear. I squeeze her fingers, trying to convey all this, and she squeezes me back. Willa understands.

  There’s a feeling I haven’t had in awhile: a distinct build. Willa must know it, because she increases the gentle pressure of her mouth. Willa has to lay her whole arm across the front of my hips to keep me still. I want to thrust so badly. I want to scream. I want to come but I can’t—I know it’s going to hurt.

  “Stop.”

  She keeps right on going. Her hand and mouth work together, driving me along a collision course toward orgasm.

  “Willa—”

  She moves just as the first sensation of climax blurs my vision and reduces the world to white noise. Every muscle, every nerve ending, is focused on the pulsing at my groin and the sweet, empowering pleasure of a long-overdue orgasm. Part of me waits for the pain, but it never comes. The rest of me is awed that I could forget what this feels like, because it’s much better than I remembered—until I black out. It’s just for a moment, but when I open my eyes again I feel dizzy and displaced.

  I think my skin did burst. I don’t feel like a ripe berry anymore. I feel like goo. Like splattered pulp. I’m in shreds and my heart is pounding. I can’t breathe. Maybe because it’s the first one in a long time, my orgasm doesn’t fade immediately. It lingers long after I’m finished coming, and when Willa touches me to clean off my stomach my skin is on fire.

  “You’re shaking,” she says. Willa’s face swims in my line of vision. My ears are ringing.

  “I know.” No wonder.

  She touches me once and I pull back, startled by the sensation. I turn away from her and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Head rush. I try to stand up too fast and end up stumbling into the bedside table. That’s going to bruise.

  My nerves are tweaking and I’m going to be sick. I hurry to the bathroom, lock the door, and promptly vomit. I haven’t eaten enough, and very little comes back up before I start chucking bile. It’s nerves—I can’t get a good breath and my limbs are shaking. When the urge to puke passes, I lean back on my haunches and realize my pants are still around my thighs. Thin strings of semen have run down from my stomach into my lap. I get up on shaky legs and grab a washcloth.

  I splash my face with cold water first and rinse the taste of puke out of my mouth, and then I start to clean the mess down below. It’s much thinner than I remember it. Fucking chemo. I hope Willa is okay—she didn’t swallow, but she shouldn’t be ingesting any amount of my drug-laced body fluids.

  Willa knocks on the bathroom door. “Jem?”

  “I’m fine.” I sound like a twelve-year-old boy caught with his dick in his hand.

  “I didn’t ask, ‘cause I know you’re not.” Damn it. “Do you need anything?”

  “No. I’ll be out in a minute.” I hear her step away from the door and the sound of her sitting down on the bed. I should have told her to go home and I’d see her tomorrow, even though that’s terribly rude. I don’t want to go out and face her.

  I look up at the mirror while I re-wet the washcloth, and wish I hadn’t. That’s the view Willa had of me. Those hipbones sticking out. The scanty, pathetic pubic hairs. I instinctively cup my hand over my junk, like I can protect my body from my own thoughts. I can still feel her spit on my penis.

  I think she likes your cock. What other girl shows that much enthusiasm with a dick in her mouth?

  Don’t think about her like that, you sick fuck.

  Maybe she’ll want to do it again sometime.

  Not for a while.

  You won’t last ‘a while.’ She’s too good at it.

  Not until I look human again.

  You think she’ll wait on you that long?

  I need to get Willa out of here. It’s got to be the rudest thing I’ve ever thought of doing: Thanks for the blowjob, would you mind taking off now? I’m too busy hiding in the bathroom like a wimp to even kiss you goodbye.

  Maybe I don’t
need her to leave. Maybe I just need her to be farther away than just on the other side of the door. I pull my pants back up and unlock the bathroom door.

  “Willa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe you should go downstairs and watch TV with Elise. I’m gonna be awhile.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I just want to take a shower.”

  Suddenly she’s right on the other side of the door, looking through the gap at me with naked eyes. “Can I join you?”

  “No!” I answer way too fast. Willa slips past the gap in the door and shuts it behind her.

  “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Shush.” She locks the bathroom door and pulls her shirt over her head. I just stand there like a stunned little boy while she undresses in front of me, right down to the skin. Her skin is like opals: fair with flushes of color underneath the surface. She stands there for a few seconds, watching me watch her, and then switches off the light.

  There’s very little light coming from under the door, and there are no windows in this bathroom. I can’t see a thing.

  Willa finds my hands in the dark. “These are yours now.” She laces her fingers with mine. “I won’t look at anything you don’t want me to, okay? You control where these go.” Her fingers squeeze me and every single fiber of my being thinks this is a bad idea.

  Her hand leaves mine and a moment later I hear the splash of water in the shower.

  “Come on.” Willa takes the hem of my shirt and starts to lift it over my head. She even knows how to handle removing the shirt so as not to catch it on the caps or tubing that hang out of my chest. Fuck. I help her undress me, but make no move to remove any of my own clothing. I can’t seem to move. My limbs feel like lead and my stomach is in knots. I don’t like feeling exposed like this, but there’s nothing to see—I can only feel her next to me—and I can’t find my voice to protest.

  “You’re shaking.”

  I don’t have anything to say to that. She steps away a little and I hear the swish of her long hair as she ties it back.