“And fuck you,” I say and I watch as Charlie’s mouth goes slack and a short, sharp little grunt leaves his lips. He shudders, once, twice. When Charlie stops moving and his hands stop squeezing my backside, I know exactly what’s happened.
“Fuck,” he says, his head hanging down, and while he’s still breathless from his release, there’s something else in his tone. I can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or shame but I decide for us both that it should be neither. I pull my hands out of his trousers and lift up his chin so his sea-blue eyes are on mine.
“No, you don’t,” I say.
“I believe I justdid,” he says, his cheeks flushed pink and his eyes still avoiding mine. And it’s there, the shame and the embarrassment and something else I also don’t like, something like defeat or despondency. Like my negative opinion of this turn of events is a foregone conclusion.
“Yeah, and it was hot,” I tell him.
“It was?”
“You just came without me even touching you.”
“Well, you were touching one part of me.”
“Okay, you came without me touching your dick. I’ve never seen that happen before.”
Charlie finally meets my eyes. “According to you, you’ve not touched a dick since you gave Jan the Dutchie approximately sixty-seven hand jobs.”
“And you saved me the effort this time too!” I smile at him, hoping far too hard that he smiles with me. He does, slowly, the pink still in his cheeks. Then he sits back and tugs at his trousers, assessing the damage.
“Did I get you?” he asks.
I look down. “A little,” I say, touching my stomach near a very small wet splodge.
“Shit, sorry,” he says as he moves to stand up. “I suppose you’re now also thinking how much better sex with women is. I mean, there must be a lot less mess.”
“Not unless I’m doing something wrong,” I say slyly and after a quick pause, he smiles a bit more. He then reaches his hand out and I take it, letting him help me get up. Once standing, I can’t help but notice his sloping shoulders and the way his gaze has dropped to the floor again.
Now I’m no longer chasing an orgasm, it feels almost wrong or misplaced to touch Charlie again, like there’s no point anymore, however, I feel compelled to put his mind at rest again. I put my hand on his face, cupping his cheek. Even though the dynamic has changed between us and now I’m looking up at him, I still feel I’m riding high off the climax I just had.
“You need to get over this,” I tell him. “Don’t be embarrassed. Be annoyed that you made a mess of your suit, sure, but don’t beat yourself up. Because I need to be able to walk into that meeting on Monday morning and know we’re okay.” I wait for him to acknowledge my words and he does with a small nod, his eyes on mine. “I need to be the lead on that project and you’ll make it far too easy for me if you get sucked into a pity party because you came in your pants.” He huffs out a quick laugh, but it’s punctuated with a smile, a real Charlie smile. “I don’t really know what the fuck just happened between us but that orgasm was far too good for me to also feel like it was a mistake or something I need to tie myself up in knots about. I don’t have time for shit like regret.”
“I don’t regret it,” he says and he licks his lips. I wonder if he can still taste me. I’m half-tempted to kiss him again to find out, but I know that moment has passed. And what I said is true, I need to now focus on the pitch and getting that project lead. I don’t know if it’s the orgasm I just had or the pep talk I just gave Charlie but I feel more clear-headed and more focused on what I have to do than I have in a long, long time.
“Neither do I,” I say and then I drop my hand because I had just started to stroke my fingers against his faint stubble and frankly, that was a weird and unnecessary thing to do.
“Thank you, Mina,” Charlie says. He catches my hand on its way down, and his thumb starts rubbing gently against my skin.
I shrug his words and his stroking fingers off, as I remove my hand from his. “I think I should be thanking you. That was one killer orgasm and I suspect yours was less than satisfying.”
“Let’s just say, I didn’t see stars or well, anything beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Come on,” I say, turning around to pick up some of the coats I threw off their hangers. “Let’s go get you cleaned up and then try and survive the rest of this party.”
“You’re going to stay?” he asks, looking shocked.
“I believe we still have half a room to play the name-guessing game with, and I’m sure I can find a few other ways I can piss off your mother before the party’s over.”
Charlie’s smile is back to emitting sunbeams and for some reason that makes me feel proud of myself, like I did that. I made Charlie smile.
“Deal,” he says. “I’ll just go to the gents while you finish tidying up.”
And he leaves in a hurry. It doesn’t take me long to pick up the coats that dropped and I know Charlie is going to take a bit longer so standing outside the cloakroom, I dig my phone out of my bag and scroll through a handful of notifications that have popped up. There’s nothing of any special interest and I’m not sure why but I find myself opening a new browser window and typing in the web address for one of my favourite online shops. I’m also not certain why I tap through a handful of pages until I am on the page I want, where I quickly scroll down and consider a number of different sizes, colours and shapes. I don’t really know why I put a few of the dildos I like in my shopping basket and then after checking the product details will work with my harness at home, I check out quickly, entering in my credit card details in a rush.
Except I do. I know exactly why I do it. I know the reason loud and clear. I know what I want. But why?
Why, oh why am I still thinking about how much I want to make Charlie see stars?
