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“I’m glad I’m here,” I tell her softly. “And I’m glad we made it back.”
Caterina, at least, remembers what today is. It happened during one of the hardest periods of her life, too—though not the hardest, by a long shot. She touches my hand gently, giving me a sweet smile, and goes back to her dinner.
I can’t shake my melancholy for the rest of the night. I head to bed early, lying there in the dark; my thoughts turn to Max again.
I’d known he was there, in the church, before he even spoke. I’d smelled his cologne, the scent of his skin behind me, and I’dknown.I’ve never felt as close with someone as I do with him, and yet, he seems determined to put distance between us.
It’s not fair.
His smile when I saw him today drifts back to me in the darkness, and I feel that deep, aching throb of desire that only comes when I think of him. I’ve never known what it’s like to have someone’s lips touch mine, to feel gentle hands on my body, but I brush my index finger over my lower lip, imagining it’s Max’s. Imagining that smile on his face as he leans in, his body slowly pressing against mine, chest and belly and hips and thighs, all his hard muscles against my softness. I let my hand drift down my body, over my softly curved breast, sucking in a small breath at the pinprick of pleasure I feel when my fingertip brushes over my stiffening nipple. Slowly, I let my fingers brush over the fabric of the tank top I wore to bed, imagining that it’s Max’s hand exploring me.
It’s not sex, exactly, that I fantasize about when I touch myself in the dark like this, picturing him. Thinking back to the mechanics of sex, in the one context in which I’m familiar with it, makes me freeze up every time. Instead, I think of the smaller sensations—the brush of hands over skin, the pressure of a fingertip, the heat of a palm sweeping over me. The sound Max might make, low and needy, when he presses against me, when he feels how much I want him.
Imagining him is the only way it feels safe to explore this, to slip my hand under the soft cotton of my panties and nudge my fingertip between my folds, rubbing it slowly over my clit as I imagine Max touching me, pleasuring me,healingme.
He would never hurt me. He would stop if I asked him to. He would take it slowly, arousing me until all I could think of was him, all the bad memories smothered under a blanket of heat and pleasure.
“Max—” I whisper his name into the darkness, arching up, my thighs spreading wider as I lean into the pleasure, tensing my muscles, heating my blood. “Max, please, let me come for you—”
I can imagine his rough moan in my ear, urging me on, his low groans of encouragement. I feel the tingling starting to spread under my skin, the hint of a more immense pleasure than what I feel even now, the promise of something that will make me come apart at the seams.
And then, just as my breath catches in my throat, my pulse leaping, it changes.
The low groan in my ear isn’t Max gently urging me on any longer, holding back his need until I’ve come. It’s the grunt of a man behind me, his hand hard between my shoulder blades as he bends me over a stack of crates, the splintered wood digging into my cheek. It’s pain and sharp tearing, fear sliding cold through my blood, chilling any possibility of pleasure as the memory of the one time a mandidtouch me comes rushing back. I yank my hand away from between my thighs, shuddering.
I bite my lower lip hard, trying to banish the memories, but they won’t go. Fumbling, I switch on the light next to my bed, letting light flood the room and remind me of where I am. I force myself to sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees as I swallow against the rising nausea.
I can’t do it alone.I haven’t talked to my therapist about this; too shy and embarrassed to discuss something as private as masturbation, but it’s just one more thing that makes me feel broken, as if I’ll never be normal. As if I’ll never get to know not only the kind of love, but the kind of pleasure and desire that had Caterina coming in late for dinner, pink-cheeked and smiling, her face flushed with satisfaction. If I can’t even give it to myself, how will I ever let anyone else?
And who would ever be patient enough with me to try?
5
MAX
Her soft, strawberry blonde hair falls around my face, tickling my cheeks and collarbones as her lips brush over mine, her soft, panting breaths warming my mouth. Her hands are pressed against my chest, delicate fingertips curved inwards against my skin, almost scratching but not quite. The hint of pain that could come, drowned out by the blissful, intoxicating pleasure of her riding me, tight and wet and clenching around me as she slides up my cock and down again, pushing me towards the edge faster and faster still. I can feel how close she is, and her tongue slides into my mouth as I feel her back arch, her hips pressing down into me as she tightens around me even more, hot and wet and better than anything I’ve ever felt—
“Come for me, Max,” she whispers against my mouth, her coffee-and-vanilla scent filling my nose as her hips move faster, and I know I’m lost.
I grab her, holding her down hard on my cock as I thrust up into her, hearing her cry of pleasure lost in our kiss as she starts to come hard, her breasts pressed against me, and I know there’s no holding back any longer, no more making this last—
I come awake with a gasp, my heart pounding and breath caught in my throat, hands clenched in sweaty sheets. My body is shuddering with the remnants of imaginary pleasure, and as I shift, I feel the sheet clinging to my thighs, damp against my skin.
Fuck.
Groaning, I sit up, pushing the sheet off of me as I glance at the alarm clock next to my bed. It’s five in the morning, and I’ve been woken up by a wet dream.
About Sasha, specifically.
The second time this week.
Shame, hot and fierce, floods me in place of the pleasure I’d felt only a moment ago.What the fuck is wrong with you?my mind growls at me, tensing my muscles as I switch on my bedside light and swing my legs over the side of the bed, looking down at my bare thighs. I’d fallen asleep naked, out of clean clothes after my trip, and too exhausted to throw in a load of laundry. Now, instead of damp boxer briefs, I’m treated to the sight of my cum-covered thighs, my cock still half-hard between them and dripping with the last of my shame.
This is wrong. A sin. Shameful.
In my days at seminary and later as a priest, we’d been taught that all sexual urges were something to battle. Self-pleasure was as much a sin as sex outside of marriage, a waste and a weakness. If we lost the battle against temptation—even if our bodies did, involuntarily—we were told to seek out the reason why our weakness had overcome us, to punish ourselves with ascetic behaviors meant to turn our minds to holier things.
I’d handled it a bit differently.
