Deklan

“Touch me,” he says.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

The reality of what we are about to do floods my brain. I’m so nervous I can barely stand. My hands are shaking as I copy his earlier motion, and trace his shoulder and arm with a single finger. When he doesn’t move, I run back up his arm with my whole hand, stopping at his bicep. He flexes, and I push back against the firm muscle.

“How much can you bench press?” I know almost nothing about weightlifting, but it sounds like the kind of question someone might ask a body builder.

“Four hundred or so,” Deklan responds with a slight shrug, “if I have a spotter.”

I nod as if I know what he’s talking about, but I have no clue what a “spotter” is. Four hundred pounds is a lot.

Deklan stands, and my hands fall from his shoulders as he towers over me. He reaches down and releases the button on his pants and then lowers the zipper. As his pants fall to the floor, I notice scarring on his lower leg, but it’s not a thin line like the one on his shoulder. His skin looks mottled, like the kind of scar left from a burn. As I try to be subtle about looking at the scars, Deklan hooks his thumbs into the waistline of his boxer-briefs, slowly pulls them down, and my eyes go wide.

I don’t know if it’s huge; I have no basis for comparison. It looks big, jutting out from his body like a tentacle attached to a bizarre underwater alien in a monster movie.

It also looks…weird.

From the pictures I remember from health classes, I’m expecting a ridge and a bulbous tip at the end, but there isn’t one. Instead, his whole shaft runs smoothly together, all the way to the end.

“I was never cut.” Deklan’s voice startles me from my ogling.

“Cut?”

“Circumcised.”

“Oh.” I don’t know how else to respond. I know from my online classes that some men have a foreskin and some do not, but apparently, I’ve only seen pictures of men without one.

I realize I’m still staring at it and quickly look away. I hear Deklan chuckle softly, and I wonder what is so funny.

“You’re laughing at me.” I sound like a petulant child, and I don’t care. This is all bad enough as it is. I don’t need him mocking me as well.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re just…young,” Deklan says. “It’s not what I’m used to.”

I consider asking just what sort of woman he is used to but think better of it. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know the answer.

“It’s all right.” Deklan takes my face in his hands. “Touch it. Feel it. Do whatever is going to make you more comfortable with this.”

My heart beats faster. I’m not sure I want to touch it, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to touch it. Should I caress it softly or grip it hard? My inexperience is leading to panic, and I can’t even bring myself to move.

“You really don’t want to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” I want it over with. I want it done—completed.

Consummated.

I also just want it. I want to feel his hands on me. I want to know what it’s like to have something like that inside of me. I want him on top of me, looking down at me with that lust-filled stare. I shiver at the thought, and my breath catches audibly in my throat.

Deklan suddenly takes a step away from me.

“I can’t do this,” he says. “I’m not a rapist. I’m not going to do this.”

My stomach drops with his words, and I’m suddenly aware of the chill in the room as he backs away from me, denying me the heat of his body as his words chill my bones.