Wanderlust

He tugged the towel down. I loosened my hold, letting the cloth slide down my breasts. The hem of the towel caught on my nipples, baring the slope of my breasts but no more. It was almost more obscene this way than if I'd been naked, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull the towel down.

Instead I stared into the darkness at the shadowy curtains that I hadn't drawn closed while the weight of the wet towel tugged at the tender skin of my nipples. He drew his finger over the tops of my breasts.

I sucked in deep breaths, more panicked now, everything more sensitive, so acute—like pain. He touched me so lightly, and it hurt. How would it feel when he was rough? Because surely he would be. There was only one reason I could think of why a man who looked as good as he did would force a woman—because he preferred it that way.

"Why did you let him, your boyfriend? Surely you worried about being caught? I bet he didn't even give you an orgasm out back behind the school. Were you that desperate for a skinny eighth-grader?"

His words knocked the breath from me. “No, I just... He wanted to, that's all. I figured it didn't hurt anything just to let him.”

"That's right," he said approvingly, soothingly. "It doesn't hurt anything to just let him."

With a flick of his fingers, the towel slipped off my nipples, gaping open around my waist. I sucked in a breath and shut my eyes.

"Just let it happen," he murmured. "I want to do this. You let that little kid paw at you, so why not me?"

His warm hand closed around one breast. It was lifted, hefted into his palm before he rolled the nipple between callused fingers. It didn't hurt anymore. He was right about that. It felt good, the slight abrasiveness, the pressure.

Sparks set off low in my belly. He played with my breasts with a proficiency that made my breath catch. Clearly he was experienced. He knew just where to touch me and how to do it. But he seemed to be learning me as well, exploring every dip, every milky expanse of skin and the pink tips that pebbled under his manipulation. My hands were tense by my sides, my eyes shut tightly until he pinched my nipple. I gasped.

"Did he do that?"

"No, I—"

"What else did you let him do? Where else did you let him put his skinny little fingers?"

He made it sound so dirty, when it had just been innocent exploration between two teenage kids, hadn't it? That was normal. This was the fucked-up thing.

He twisted my nipple when I didn't answer.

I sucked in a breath at the pain. "I don't know—oh God."

"Your cunt? Did he touch you there?"

His coarse words made my face heat. I couldn’t remember ever hearing that word aloud but I knew what it meant. Maybe it was just a universal sound or the tone he used, derisive and eager in one note.

"No,” I said. “Sometimes his hands would slip under my jeans, but only in the back."

"He touched your ass. That's it? That's all he got to do to you?"

Cheeks burning, I nodded.

"No wonder that didn't last. What about the next boyfriend? Did you put out for him?"

My voice fell to a whisper. “There wasn’t…He wasn’t…”

"Tell me about the big day. Were there rose petals and candles?"

The pain washed over me afresh. Romance? Not likely. I cursed my mother all over again for not seeing through him, for not seeing how much I was hurting in those weeks before she discovered us.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

"Ah, now that is interesting. Where were you the first time, in his car?"

&nbs

p; "In my room.”

“What did he have you do?”