Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

I groaned, my head falling back. “’Kay, kiss now, please.”

Will kissed me and I forgot that he was basically doing me a favor. That this was just sex to him—maybe even pity sex. I forgot everything except that his mouth felt like heaven and his body against mine was intoxicating. I was immediately at about an eight out of ten on the imaginary arousal scale that I’d just created. What would you measure arousal in, anyway? Well, I was at eight out of ten of them, in any case.

“Okay, okay, okay,” I chanted, pulling away and praying that Will would see how close I was and ease off just a little.

He reached into the bedside table and pulled out a condom.

“You know how to do this?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, starting to rip it open with my teeth like I’d seen people do in the movies.

“Oh dear god, give me that, I’ll do it.” He snatched the condom and rolled it over my erection. I bit my lip, and he smirked at me.

“Can I, um.”

“Spit it out.”

“I want to… can we switch places?”

“Oh, you want to be on top of me?”

I nodded.

“You going to fuck me hard, Leo?” His comment was half flirtatious and half mocking, but somehow I thought he was a little excited at the idea. And my dick definitely was.

“Lie down,” I said, and he did. Spread out beneath me, Will looked different. Accessible in one way, but more remote in another. Like he was giving me a part of himself, but if I took it, another part would recede.

Gone was the man I’d made out with over pancakes, or cuddled with on the couch, binge watching Orphan Black. Gone was the man I’d listened to as he ranted about typography on book spines, and the one who’d eaten chicken tikka masala off my plate and grinned when he got caught, sauce in his teeth.

The one in his place was sexy, experienced, in control. Distant. But I had said I wanted this and I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance to prove to him what we could be.

I thought back on all the porn I’d watched, but couldn’t actually remember what happened before the actual fucking part. Maybe they edited that out? Was I supposed to, like….

“It’s on the condom already.”

“Huh?”

“Lube. If that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“Oh, okay. Um, so should I like… do something?”

“Yeah, you might consider fucking me. That or get me something to read in the meantime.”

“No, I meant, um, like in terms of preparation or—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Okay, then I’ll just, uh….”

But my hands were shaking and my knees were shaking and really this did not feel like I wanted it to. And I know Will made fun of me for having these grand romantic notions—“capital-R romantic,” Professor Ginsberg would probably say—and maybe he was right, but….

I dropped my chin to my chest.

“Hey, can we not do it like this?” I said, my voice small.

“You’re the one who wanted to switch places!”

“No, I mean…. Will, come on. Please. I know it’s maybe a joke to you, but I really haven’t ever done this before, and you’re kind of making me feel like shit.”

I opened my eyes a crack and looked at Will. He looked away.

“Like, I want you you, not sex you.”

“Sex me,” he repeated.

“Yeah, with the whole ‘I’ve slept with a ton of people, and this is just one more notch on my bedpost, I’m beautiful and confident and not terrified I’m about to totally fuck it up’ thing.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re not gonna fuck it up.”

“I might,” I whispered.

This had been a huge mistake. Will was looking at me like I was a stranger he’d offered a favor to who was now making the favor much more work than he’d anticipated. I’d had warmer, more intimate exchanges checking out library books. This was nothing like what I wanted with him. Nothing at all.

Chapter 8

January

I CLAMBERED off Will and rolled out of the bed in a mortification of clumsiness, running into the living room and tugging on my pants as I went, in a futile attempt to feel less exposed.

God, what the hell just happened?

Images of Will, sublimely beautiful in his nakedness, got all jumbled up with the expression on his face: a neutrality so blank I may as well have been a stranger. A pathetic, overly eager, horny stranger. I dropped my head forward to clunk against the kitchen wall. Fuck my life.

“I didn’t quite live up to the fantasy, I guess?” Will’s voice was ice.

“Can you… can you please not be mean to me right now?” My voice was muffled by the wall.

“I’m not being mean to you. I’m serious. You had a vision of what it’d be like to fuck me, and I didn’t fulfill it. Like college, or Christmas.”