My hands round to his back and tuck under the top of his jeans. “Yes, Esben?”
“Whatcha doing there?” he asks again with a smile.
“I’m done moving through the spectrum. I’m ready.”
He searches my face. “You’re ready?”
“I am. I want to be with you.”
“There’s still other stuff we can do. I want you to be sure—”
“I am totally sure.” I kiss him softly. “I love you, and I trust you. And I trustus. Do you have any idea what it means to me to be able to say that? And feel that? God, I am so happy, Esben. I never thought I could be this happy. I am so ready.” I kiss him again and tease my fingers over his skin more. “Areyouready?”
“I was ready about two seconds after I met you.”
My hand slips lower over the front of his pants. I smile at him. “Allowed?”
He smiles back. “More than allowed. Wanted.”
“So, make love to me.”
I’m pretty sure he stops breathing for a second.
“And let me make love to you,” I continue. “I want to show you how much I love you. Ineedthat,” I tell him.
Esben smiles softly and nods. “I need that, too.”
I lift my hips and push into him. “Good.”
We start back at the beginning of our spectrum and work our way through, slowly, lovingly, sometimes nervously, but with every stage, I am secure in his love, his touch, in the care he takes with me. Even when I’m not sure about what I’m doing, he makes it okay. My hands go where they haven’t before, I want things I haven’t before, and I experience things I haven’t before. We figure each other out together; we learn together.
Later, when we are as close as we can be, and he’s moving very gently against me, he looks into my eyes. He tells me how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, how his world is complete because of me. “You have my heart, Allison.” His voice trembles. “You have my heart.”
“And you have mine,” I whisper back.
We kiss, and I wrap my arms around him, raising my hips more assertively to meet his and then digging my nails into his skin.
He lifts his chest a bit and stops moving, his breathing ragged and hot. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m so okay,” I manage to say. “Please don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
After, when I am curled into him and his arm has fallen over me, I am overcome with how peaceful and complete I feel. It’s true that in my head I am also jumping around, screaming about how I just lost my virginity, and I’m sort of desperate to tell Steff, but mostly I feel as though moving my naked body from his would be devastating.
“So.” Esben all but clears his throat. “How was... or, was that...”
I start smiling, listening to him figure out how to ask this. Esben is the least insecure person I’ve ever known, and there’s something rather cute about how nervous he sounds right now. “Yeah?”
“I’m just trying to figure out or, you know, make sure that you’re good with this. And thatitwas good. Or at least not awful or anything.” I can feel him tense. “Oh God, it wasn’t awful, was it?”
I turn and face him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Truthfully, right now, a little, yes.”
“If it was awful, why do I want to do it again already?”
He laughs softly. “Yeah?”
