Steel 7 (Multiple Love)

“What’s your most embarrassing sexual experience?” is the first one Luna chooses.

Elijah shakes his head. “The first time a girl put her hand into my pants, I came in exactly three seconds.” I snort with laughter, and Luna places a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with amusement. “Thankfully, I’ve learned to last a lot longer than that since.”

“Only just,” I laugh, and he punches me on the shoulder.

“Choose a question, Luna,” Elijah says, his eyes focusing on the ceiling as he tries to come up with questions that will embarrass me as much. “Worst sexual experience or most extreme place you’ve ever fucked?”

There’s no way I’m going to go into my worst sexual experience, so I opt for the second. “Most extreme place I ever fucked was the backseat of my girlfriend’s truck when her mom popped into the store to buy milk. We were in the parking lot and not tucked in the corner either. Her head was thumping against the side of the car, and she came so loud, I swear the store manager must have heard.”

“Wow,” Elijah says. “That was ballsy.”

“Horny teenagers will do anything to nut.”

Luna snorts a puff of air from her nose but somehow manages not to use her voice at all.

“Okay,” Elijah says, splashing water at me. “The most disgusting thing that ever happened to you or the weirdest thing that ever happened to you.”

“Where the fuck are you getting these questions?” I ask.

Elijah shrugs. “When I was a kid, there wasn’t a lot for us to do, so we used to ask each other twenty questions. They’d be different every time, but we always ended up in stitches.”

I watch as Elijah’s face goes from happy amusement at the memories to sadness. He hasn’t spoken to his family in years. Not since he decided he didn’t want to be part of the religious life they’d imposed on him since birth. I’ve never asked too many questions about his past. There’s always a melancholy that comes over him whenever he’s forced to think back. It’s not only his parents. It’s his brothers that he left behind too.

“Okay, most disgusting thing,” I say.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Elijah says, holding his hands up. Luna nods enthusiastically, moving her hand in a quick circular motion, trying to tell me to get on with revealing the answer.

“A dog once shat on my pillow,” I say.

“Gross.” Elijah screws up his face, but Luna makes the hand gesture again, not believing my answer.

“You think I’ve got a grosser answer?” I ask her.

When she nods, Elijah splashes me again. “Are you holding back, dude? Not cool!”

“Okay…how about this one. I was with this girl in a club. We both drank way too many tequila shots. She decided it would be a great idea to go down on me in one of the club booths. So she’s there, bobbing away enthusiastically and I don’t know if it was the amount of alcohol she consumed or the difficult angle, or the fact she was rushing in case we got caught by one of the burly bouncers, or you know, the sheer massiveness of my cock…”

Luna rolls her eyes, Elijah snorts, and I pause for dramatic effect.

“…but she vomited all over my dick, and my trousers and my shirt.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Elijah’s face scrunches, and Luna is laughing silently.

“I had to tuck my huge boner into my soiled pants and head home stinking of tequila vomit.”

“That is really fucking gross.”

Using my arms to make a bowing gesture, I enjoy their laughter, but it’s tainted because I know this isn’t going to happen again. These stolen moments with Luna are going to get taken away by people outside of this room. They’re going to judge us without knowing anything about how awesome it feels to sit in a hot tub with a woman who makes your heart feel full to the brim and your friend who can make you laugh without even trying. They’re not going to know how real and pure this feels. All they’re going to care about is slandering Luna and destroying us.

The press is going to do what they do best and stoke the fire of public opinion. No one will believe how being in this relationship has changed all of our lives for the better. No one will ever know because Luna will be forbidden from discussing it and we will be pushed out of the public eye, restricted by our non-disclosure agreements and the need for us to try to rebuild our reputation that is going to be shattered, maybe irreparably.

All of that is coming tomorrow.

Luna slides closer, her arms wrapping around my body until her head is resting on my shoulder. Beneath the water, she hooks her legs over Elijah’s and pulls him closer. Her forced silence makes everything feel more serious, and I’m not good with serious at all.