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Nearly every night, before climbing into bed, he had to fluff his two pillows five times each, counting aloud with every squeeze and smack. Then, he turned down his corner of the bedspread, went to brush his teeth for precisely two minutes, and came back to flatten both pillows like a well-made sandwich before slipping between the covers. It seemed counterproductive and a little on the side of obsessive-compulsive, but it was cute.
It was very Peter.
“Why are you staring at me?” he asked with an awkward little chuckle as he grabbed his book from the nightstand.
A strip of toilet paper was tucked between the pages even though I had gifted him three bookmarks in the time we'd been together. He said old habits died hard, but deep down, I suspected it was that he didn't like the bookmarks I'd picked out.
“You're just adorable,” I replied with a pained smile.
Truthfully, I was watching him to keep my mind busy and off the foreboding in my gut, saying this was the last time I’d ever watch him get into bed.
“So are you,” he said, leaning over to press his lips against mine.
At this point in our relationship, I knew that when Peter leaned over to kiss me good night, sex would quickly ensue. This night was no different, and soon after his lips touched mine, he coaxed my mouth open with the tip of his persistent tongue, and the book was left at the corner of the bed, freeing his hand to slide beneath the comforter and up my threadbare T-shirt.
I kissed Dylan, my brain screamed as Peter kissed me and I half-heartedly kissed him back while his hand grabbed at my breast in a way I always felt indifferent toward.
Peter was a boob guy while my boobs didn't care much for Peter. He was too rough, and no matter how many times I had corrected him, he continued kneading like he was making sourdough.
Dylan doesn't touch me like that. Dylan listens. He knows what I like.
I imagined a steamroller flattening any thought of Dylan. Squashing his image and hands and tongue from my mind. This was Peter, my boyfriend, and he was going to make me feel good—he always did. It might’ve been different, and it might've lacked the blazing fire that flickered wildly in my core whenever I was with Dylan, but it wasnice. There was nothing wrong with nice. There was nothing wrong with Peter or this.
His grabby, kneading fingers slipped from underneath my shirt to find the waistband of my underwear.
“God, I'm so horny,” he muttered against my lips before sliding his sloppy, wet tongue back into my mouth in time with his fingers dipping between my legs.
“Mmm,” I responded, though I couldn't say the feeling was mutual.
I wasn't in the mood. Of course I wasn’t. But I wanted to be—IwishedI were—but my body was incapable of responding sexually when my mind was busy and sick with worry and guilt.
Peter still didn't know about what had happened with Dylan, and despite Dylan's warning, I was going to tell him—I had to. I couldn't keep something like that from him. But it wasn’t easy to break someone's heart. Especially when that person was good and caring and didn’t deserve to feel the pain of knowing it just wasn't enough.
“What's wrong?” he whined, his mouth against my neck as his fingers pushed in and out, meeting resistance with every movement.
“I …” I stared at the ceiling and swallowed at a sudden wave of emotional distress. “I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
Taking a deep breath, I began, “Peter, I, um …”
But his thumb circled and his fingers pistoned while I was getting ready to tell him I had been on my knees for another man just hours ago. I couldn't utter the vile words when he was desperately trying to make my body do something it wasn't going to do.
With a frustrated huff, I reached down to grab his wrist. “Stop,” I demanded.
He pulled away, an instant look of rejection and hurt on his face. Like refusing his clumsy ministrations was the worst thing I could possibly do.
Just you wait…
“What's going on, Lenny?” he asked, moving back to his side of the bed and putting distance between us.
It was almost like he already knew.
I sat and pulled my knees to my chest. A thousand words ran a circuit around the room, and I struggled to wrangle the right ones and string them together. It should be simple. It was a simple thing to say—I was with another man tonight. But the situation was more delicate than that. I wanted him to understand. I wanted him to get it in any way he could, and in my worry-sick, convoluted mind, I believed I could find the magic words to make it happen.
Instead, I just sat there, staring ahead at the dresser that held all of my clothes and wishing I had never seen Dylan that night.
Or maybe it was that I wished I'd never started dating Peter.
