by Laine Watson
Without warning, Haru slaps me again, and my voice cries out in pleasure.
A rush of fright, excitement, adrenaline, and ecstasy falls over my body as Haru flips me over onto my stomach, and soon, my cheeks are being spread just slightly and squeezed. His hands are large enough to grab my ass easily, and after a moment or so, he slaps his hand down onto my skin. I know he watches as it jiggles. I hope it’s hypnotizing.
He slips a finger between my legs, rubbing the wet folds that lie hidden there, and prods at a playful rhythm, making my muscles twitch and dance around his finger. He slides the finger out, and immediately, he pushes himself between my petals and my body adjusts, welcome him.
He moves deep and slow, working himself in further with every thrust.
I can barely find reality anymore. He asked me to tell him if I wanted him to stop, but there’s no way in hell I want him to stop this. I moan to myself as he pumps faster inside of me. He works his hips in a musical passion. My mind falls further into a place where only Haru exists, and he exists to make love to me.
On the verge of climax, my body pulsates with pleasure. My fingers cramp up, and in my mind, I’m begging Haru to keep going until I die inside of this impelling orgasm.
We climax together as I tighten around him, and he twitches inside. Warmth spreads through me, weakening me. I try to bite my bottom lip, but it turns into a quiver. I’ve never been this satisfied, this angry, this fulfilled, this happy, this beside myself in my life. My eyes fill up with tears. I want to shout at Haru, but I can’t bring myself to.
“Oh, princess.” Haru snatches the blindfold off of me. “You’re crying? Why? Didn’t you like it?” he asks, undoing his belt.
It’s taking him too long to do it; I can barely sit still. Once it falls from his hands to the bed, I jump on him and squeeze him so tight. I bite his chest as hard as I can and squeeze his hair in my hands, pulling it a little as he groans. I moan and make sounds I should have made during my orgasms.
I’m still orgasming; it won’t stop.
It slows, but every few seconds, my flower contracts reminding me how plainly and utterly satisfied I am.
“You can’t get close enough, can you?”
He knows me so well.
Chapter Fourteen: Don’t Stop Trying
As we close out this semester, I couldn’t be happier. On a Saturday afternoon, Darby and I sit in a quaint little coffee shop on the outskirts of town. She’s in town for two reasons: to finalize the wedding plans and to see Hayden.
“We need a date, Summer. This year? Next year?”
“Hmm. I think—I don’t really want to wait for a long time and plan like this crazy big wedding. I want to do it as soon as possible. Like I want to be Summer Arima. I want to officially be Max’s mom.”
“So, pick a date. If I talked to some wedding planning companies, I’m sure they have an option to hire a crew, some decorators, we’ll need to find someone to marry you. There’s a lot of things to consider. I need at least three months.”
“Okay, so if we do three months... let’s see, it’s May, school starts in September. How about August thirty-first?”
“That’s almost exactly three months, a little over, but it’s possible.”
“Then it’s perfect. We’re getting married on the thirty-first of August.” I smile.
“Fine with me.” Darby says.
I stare at her. Is it bad that I don’t really want to talk anymore about the wedding, I’d rather know what’s going on with her and Hayden?
“So, are you and Hayden dating?” I ask, taking a sip of my caramel café mocha.
Darby sips some kind of an expresso. “Sure. Whatever he wants. If you can have a sexy, muscular, well-off man, so can I.”
“Oh,” I say sadly, not intending to. “You know, back at Lincoln, you turned him down a lot of times.”
“She sets her cup down on the coaster. You sound disappointed.”
“It just sounds like you want him now because he’s hot and has a good job. He’s probably the oldest friend Haru has, and you’re my best friend. I wouldn’t want things to go bad because you guys aren’t looking for the same things.”
“You know me and dating aren’t exactly a match made in heaven. I was half-joking, anyway. I don’t know what’s going on between us. I must say, he is well-endowed.”
“You guys already had sex?” I arch my neck.
“What exactly did you think I was going home with him in the middle of the night to do? Why do you think I’m staying with him and not you guys? Didn’t you and Haru have sex that night?”
I avert my eyes.
“Right, and so did we. Get over it. At least he called me the next day. You don’t have to take ownership for this; you didn’t fix us up. It happened naturally. Maybe...” She sighs and twiddles her fingers. “I wasn’t being honest with my feelings back then, just like you. Okay, yes, I was. I’m not who I was back then, and neither is he. He’s charming, in a lewd kind of way. We make love, and we get along. That’s cool for now.”
I take a sip of my drink and place my white cup back on the coaster. “If you’re happy and he’s happy, then okay.”
She nods. “So, how are things going? He’s sparing no expense with the wedding, you know? Every time I email Haru, he says, ‘Ask Summer. If she wants it, let her have it.’”
“And what do I say?”
She sighs, annoyed. “‘If we don’t need it, don’t get it.’ You’re no fun.”
“Well, we don’t want to waste Haru’s money. It’d be like wasting Max’s future.”
“Said no bride ever! Where’s your Bridezilla? This is the one time you can be a brat and no one’s going to call you out on it. You don’t have to be the considerate, good girlfriend, Summer. You can be a bratty, entitled bitch! You have a guy who will literally give you anything you want—can afford to give you anything you want—and you still muddle around in basic and mediocre territory. Please let me make this big as shit, please!”
“No, that’s why I wanted you to do it. Can you just do it how we planned?”
“Fuck, no! You don’t get a say anymore. This is mine and Arima’s wedding.” She giggles. “You shut up and just show up in your sexy goddess dress, be omnipotent and marry your spring god.”
I giggle.
“Just think about modern Mount Olympus. Sexy guys in white suits—because let’s just face it, everyone Arima works with needs to be fucking worshiped.”
“Yeah, all of his friends are almost as hot as he is.”
“Right, and we’ll be just as sexy in temptress-like 'flowy’ dresses, looking all nymph-like, worshiping your Majesty, the goddess of Summer.”
I laugh as my cheeks warm a little.
“In a cathedral-like atmosphere at a library in Akari, Japan,” she continues. “I looked everywhere for the perfect place—Venezuela, Cabo, France, Italy, Ireland, Brazil, Canada, even here, but this place is perfect. I can’t wait to go and see it.”
“Yeah, we should all go soon. It could be like a mini-vacation. Max is gone for the weekend; he’ll be back on Sunday.”
“When you say ‘we,’ you mean...”
“I mean, you, me, Haru, and Hayden.”
She smiles bashfully. “Cool. We should.”
“I’ll talk to Haru about it. We have a date tonight. I’m forcing him to watch a fantasy movie.”
“I bet he’d agree to anything to get laid.”
I giggle, quietly agreeing with her.
“So, you never told me how things are going—school? The internship? You and Haru?”
“Sorry, we got carried away in other stuff. I handed in my final paper yesterday on diversity in the community. Yesterday was also the last day of my internship. I submitted my application for next semester’s internship, but I won’t know until closer to school starting back if I got it. Mira said she’d write me a recommendation letter. I’m hoping so.” I let out an anxious sigh. “Haru has been...” I bob my head to the side,
trying to figure out the best way to say what I’m trying to say without embarrassing myself. “... different.”
“How so?”
“He seems more reflective but also in other ways a bit dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yeah.” I gulp. “It’s—well I mean you may have been right about the training wheels thing.” I avert my eyes.
“Oh. I get it now.” She smiles.
“I’m happy about it. It feels so good to know more about him—to know these things he must have been embarrassed or afraid to show me. Or maybe he was thinking of me and just easing me into it.”
“It was probably the last one.”
“I find myself more in tune with who I really am, what I want, the more he shows me who he is.”
“That’s a good thing.”
I sigh with sparkles in my eyes. “To think, we’ll be getting married soon. I don’t think anything will change between us, though I do appreciate his effort to open up more, even if it mostly comes out in the bedroom,” I confess, refusing to go any further. My cheeks burn a bit.
“I love when you blush.” She pauses. “So, the engagement party is out of the way.”
“Yeah.” I sigh heavily.
Darby stares at me. “Are you—are you sad about something? It was awesome, you shouldn’t be sa—”
I lower my head.
“It’s your mom, isn’t it?”
With a telling sigh, I stare up at her.
“I shouldn’t be sad. I should be perfectly fine. It shouldn’t bother me. But it does.”
“That’s not true. You have every right to be sad or upset. It should bother you. Your mother should be here. You have Arima’s parents though, and you have me. We’re all here for you. I know we can’t replace a mother’s love, but we’ll do everything we can to make sure your wedding day is the most special day of your life.”
“I know you will.”
“That doesn’t change the sadness you feel. Does it?”
“No.”
“It’s because it’s not just the wedding. It’s everything.”
“If I weren’t getting married, she’d discover another way to find disappointment in what I choose—to make me feel like I don’t deserve what’s mine.”
“I’m sure that’s not what she means to do. She’s from the school of hard knocks; you know she does the tough love thing. You’re her soft spot.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You just have to deal with a lot of crap because she’s hard to break. One day, she’ll let down her guard. She’s probably scared. It’s hard as a single mother to see your daughter run off with this extremely hot and wealthy man. I get it would be so much easier for her to say that, but she’s not going to. She has to appear strong on all fronts. Mostly to you.”
“To me?”
“Yeah, I’ve had a lot of experiences in my life. Seen a lot of shit, but I know when someone loves someone, and she loves you. She’s probably just as scared about you embarking on this new chapter in your life as you are. You’ve been standing up for yourself more since Haru has come in the picture. That’s probably scary. You both need to talk and let each other know you want the best for each other.”
“She doesn’t listen to me. She only barks at me and tells me I’m a loser.”
“I definitely agree with you. Which is why I tried to stay away from her. The small encounters I’ve had with her, she basically ignored my presence, anyway. No different than the dinner. She didn’t even speak to me on the plane or the car ride over. The most she said was ‘hello.’”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. You’re my friend. I’m just saying she is in a rough place too. She’s dealing with it as an immature child, which means she’s not ready to talk about it or accept it. When the time comes. You’ll both be ready to take that plunge. Don’t give up. Don’t stop trying, and if you have a feeling or an urge to talk to your mom, follow it, even if it results in you crying and a shouting match. It’ll be all right.” She smiles motherly.
I smile back, taking a sip of my drink.
After some more light chat, we say goodbye. She heads to Hayden’s, and I head home.
Chapter Fifteen: What I Wouldn’t Change
When I walk into the house, I leave my shoes at the door. There are things all over the house, I know I put away: tee shirts, jeans, a bowl on the table, an opened box of cereal on the island, and pants.
I clean up. After a short while, Haru comes around the corner of the hall, shirtless, eating a bowl of cereal at seven o’clock in the evening in a good china bowl.
“What are you doing?”
“I didn’t know what time you were coming home, princess.” He places the bowl of half-eaten cereal on the island.
“So, in the last six hours, you manage to leave clothes everywhere, not put away your things, have dinner without me, somehow have a pair of slacks in the kitchen—you didn’t even go to work today—what have you been doing?” I shove his clothes into his stomach.
He grabs them with a smirk.
“Put these in the hamper. That’s why we have one!”
He doesn’t argue as he heads toward our room. He appears without the clothes in hands. “Sorry,” he says, apologetically.
“I can’t believe you ate without me.”
“You want a fancy bowl of cereal?” he asks, pulling down the good china.
“No! We’re supposed to be having a date. What happened to us watching The Corbin Castle?”
“Eh, you—” he points his index finger at me “—wanted to watch The Corbin Castle. I wanted to get laid, so I agreed.”
Heh. Darby was right. “Are we going to?”
“Are you going to keep bitching at me?” he asks, defeated with a bit of annoyance.
“S—sorry.” I scratch behind my ear nervously. My eyes fall to the floor and I push my hair behind my ear.
He frowns mockingly at me. “You didn’t even say hello.”
I’m annoyed with him and still anxious about my mother. As his words fall upon my ears, my heart beats fast. Disappointing Haru as much as I’ve disappointed my mother makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t handle Haru speaking to me the way my mother does.
“I’m sorry.” I cup his face with my hands and kiss his lips.
He kisses me back, but weakly. Our eyes meet; our gaze is intense.
“Can you not worry so much about how the house looks or material shit, and just worry about me?”
I step back and cover my mouth. “What?”
“I didn’t mean you’re materialistic. I don’t mind when you tell me to do stuff—someday, I might even remember to do it like you want—just don’t get too consumed by these things. I’ll be disappointing you all the time. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to disappoint you all the time.”
“Y—you don’t.”
“Good then, because I feel like I do, especially when you come home yelling at me.”
“I didn’t yell.”
‘Sounded like it. Do you loathe me every time it happens?”
“It’s not—I don’t loathe you.” I sigh, confused. Why is he so emotional? “What’s wrong with you today?”
“What’s wrong with me? You didn’t say hello. That really messes with me. I feel like a kid or something, like I’m in trouble.”
“I’ve done that before?”
“Not until recently. Princess, I don’t want to be in trouble in my own house unless I did something.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I mumble.
“Me neither, but something’s going on with you, and it’s pissing me off. I don’t like to feel like I can’t say what I want to say or do what I want to do. So, what’s wrong? Did I do something? Max? Are you frightened of me now?”
“What?”
“The sex, is it too much?”
“This isn’t about sex, Haru!” If anything, that’s the number one thing
I wouldn’t change—you, remembering to put your clothes away and not be a Neanderthal, that I could live without.
“Then what is it?”
Tears surround my eyes, though I do not cry. My eyes are heavy with sadness as I stare at Haru. “It’s my mom.”
“What about her?”
I take a breath before I speak, trying to calm down so I don’t cry. “Before the engagement party, I called her. We argued. I really wanted her to come to the wedding, but she thinks this is stupid; I’m stupid... and you’re having an early mid-life crisis, and eventually, you’re going to leave me. But I still miss her and want her to come to the wedding.” I close my eyes and suck my tears back up. “I’m sorry if I’m a little on edge. I’m sorry I made you feel devalued.”
Haru stares at me with kindness. “Are you hungry?” he asks, changing the subject.
I don’t want to talk about this all night. I don’t want to talk about anything. I want him to make love to me, but being together will suffice. “No.”
“We could watch that movie if you want,” he says humbly.
Now he feels like he has to do everything I want because I’m sad. He was sad too. I took over his sadness and made it about me. That was selfish, I should listen to him too. “Haru, stop. You don’t have to do that. I’m a big girl.”
“Hey, don’t bite my head off. You’re sad. I’m just trying to cheer you up.”
“I don’t like how you’re acting,” I say. “You don’t have to give into me all the time because I’m sad. You were sad too.”
“Yeah, because you’ve been acting weird. You didn’t say hi, you were fucking yelling me. It’s simple.”
“Was it really because I didn’t say hi? Or was your manhood hurt because you thought I was weird about the sex?”
“Hey, you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to ask me questions like that. I told you what the fuck was wrong. We’re getting married, so no. This has nothing to do with my manhood. I just don’t want to hurt you. I expect you to not want to hurt me. When I am hurt, I promise to be completely, one hundred percent transparent with you. I need you to know it and correct it.” He stares me deep in my eyes with seriousness. “We did that, it’s over. We’re not going to fight all night about bullshit.”
