Madly (New York 2)

“What do you do, usually?” she asked.

He couldn’t imagine how to begin to answer the question. “What do you do?”

“I just…I use my hand. With my clothes on. Usually just wherever I’m at, sitting or lying down. I like to be on my stomach.”

“I do the same. In the shower, most of the time. Or on my back, in bed.”

It surprised him how incredibly difficult it was to say aloud, even knowing that everything they’d put on the list thus far had been like this—a dare to be vulnerable with a stranger. A desire to have something they’d missed out on.

Allie was no longer a stranger. She was a soft weight along the length of his body, a familiar brush of frizzy hair against his chin.

They’d made a list of ways for two people to belong to each other, and so he belonged to her a little more tonight than he had yesterday, and the day before. Just as she belonged to him.

“Let’s try,” he said.

“Okay.” She rolled away to her side of the bed. “Should we get naked?”

“I’m going to take off my shirt.”

He did, and as he worked his way down the buttons, he felt her sit up beside him, felt the movement of her arms as she skinned off her top and tossed it aside.

He unbuckled his belt.

“Are you doing it?” she asked.

“I’m beginning.” He slid his hand inside his pants. He was partially erect, and he fisted himself, starting up the sliding rhythm he’d learned as an adolescent and never varied.

Allie shifted beside him, making the mattress bounce. “Me, too.”

And then there were quiet movements from her side of the bed, breeze from the ceiling fan, his hand finding a rhythm as he came fully erect. He listened hard into the darkness for the sound of her.

“Tel

l me what you’re doing,” she said softly.

“I’m—I’m stroking myself.”

“Does it feel good?”

It felt…not wrong, precisely. But not correct, either. It felt rather lonely, and he didn’t know what to reach for, whether to open the storeroom of images and experiences in his head that usually inspired him to completion or to reach out, in the dark, with his mind, for Allie, and this shared experience.

“It’s hard to feel that we’re doing this together.”

She stilled. The mattress shifted as she turned again, resituating herself. “I know what you mean.” Her hand groped over his chest, his arm. “We could hold hands?”

He offered his hand, and she grasped it in hers. “You’ve turned onto your stomach.”

“Yeah. I thought I’d try it like this, but I don’t know.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I feel kind of stupid.”

“Don’t feel stupid. There’s nothing stupid about it.”

She squeezed his fingers.

Then more silence.

The bed made noise for them—quiet squeaks and moans. He listened to her breathe, imagined his hand was her hand, Allie fisting him tight, jerking him. It made him harder to think of her that way, so he thought about it more, thought about finding her alone in his bed on her belly, her hand in her knickers, her ass in the air. The way she might moan, undiscovered.

His breath became labored, his hand slick.