How Not To Fall (11 page)

T
he next thing I know, it's Monday morning.

I've been woken by the sound of the shower.

Ah shit.

On the bright side, I got, like, nine hours of sleep—but on the dark side, it's Monday morning, which means Charles has work, and I have to wait all day for home base.

I hear the shower turn off and realize belatedly that I could have snuck in there with him. Then I hear him move through the apartment, hear water run, hear the coffee grinder, and at last there's the smell of coffee, which pulls me from my bed like an invisible hand. I pull on my clothes—they're waiting for me on the dresser—and find Charles in the kitchen.

He is dressed in his usual blue Oxford and khaki pants. He looks exactly like Charles.

Charles, whom I've spent two days and nights touching in every—almost every—way I can imagine.

And Charles, the postdoc in my research lab, scruffy and bedraggled with his wet hair and button-down shirt.

I spent twenty-something months fantasizing about all the ways he might seduce me or that I might seduce him, planning all the things I might do, if only he would take me to bed, dreaming of what his skin would feel like and taste like. And he turned out to be so vastly much more than my imagination could capture. He is beautiful in ways I didn't anticipate, kind and funny and gentle and erotic and demanding and surprising.

And there he stands . . . making toast.

And I'm still a virgin. Mostly. Sort of.

“Hey,” I say, and he turns.

“Hey,” he says with a grin.

“I fell asleep,” I say.

“You did,” he says. “You snore charmingly.” And he seems perfectly content.

“I don't snore!”

“No, you don't. You barely moved all night, and you didn't make a sound. But you were charming.”

I say, “I'm sorry we missed out on home base.”

He looks at me, surprised. “Did we miss it? Was that my only chance? If I had known that, I'd have woken you up, charming snore be damned.”

I smile and look at the floor. “I just mean, I'm sorry I have to wait all day while you go to work. Unless”—I rub at a spot on the floor with my toe—“you wanna be late?”

“No, siren, back to your shoals,” he says, and his toast dings. “What will you do today?”

“Clean our apartment, probably. My parents will be here Thursday, and our place is enough of a shithole without a semester's worth of scuzz all over it.”

“You know just what to say to turn a man on, young Coffey. Your parents and scuzz in the same compound sentence. How are you getting home?” He sucks marmalade off his thumb.

“I rode my bike here,” I say.

“Right. How about I text you around noon, and we can make a plan for tonight?”

“What's to plan?” I say. “I come over, you fuck me.
Finally
.”

“I thought you might like to do something . . . I don't know, special, I suppose? It's not nothing, letting someone put their body inside your body.”

“You've already put your hands inside my body, and your tongue. Is it really such a big deal to put genitals in?”

He comes over to me and puts his hands on my neck. He kisses me—our glasses tap against each other. “Yes, it is really such a big deal,” he says, and he wraps his arms around me. He says into my hair, “It's a big deal, Annie.”

 

All morning I can feel that hug, feel his body on mine. I feel his lips and his hands, like a phantom limb. I clean my kitchen and vacuum the living room and remember his body and his voice and his heat.

Margaret isn't home—she's spent the weekend in Indy with Reshma. They're talking about moving in together after Margaret graduates, and I find myself wondering how that's going. She hasn't texted me at all—but then, I haven't texted her either. We're both having pretty important weekends. I send her one message—

 

 

And she answers:

 

 

So, she's pretty excited.

I take a long nap that afternoon—much longer than I intended when I “just put my head down for a second” after having lunch around eleven—and I wake up to a series of texts from Charles:

 

 

And an hour later:

 

And an hour after that:

 

 

And an hour after that:

 

 

And finally:

 

 

That last text was about fifteen minutes ago. I look at the time. It's four thirty.

I call him.

“Hey,” he answers softly.

“Oh my god, I've been asleep for almost five hours. I'm so sorry,” I begin. “I just woke up and saw your texts. You must think I'm a total crazy passive-aggressive bitch. I can't believe I fell asleep.”

I hear him exhale into the phone. “Nothing of the kind. You're all right?”

“Yeah—I mean, I have a nap hangover and I'm totally embarrassed about the ways sleep is trying to prevent me from losing my virginity, but otherwise, I'm great.”

He laughs, just a rhythmic breath into the phone. “Good.”

“How about you?” I ask. “Everything good today?”

“Yep. Everything good.”

“Good.”

There's a silence. Then he says, “I got you something. A present, sort of.”

“Ooh! What is it?”

“It's a surprise, you ninny,” he says. “Come over and get it if you want to know.” He's smiling; I can hear it. I'm smiling too. My heart's beating very fast, considering I'm just sitting here, smiling into my phone.

“I haven't even showered yet today,” I say, “so it'll take me a minute to get ready. I'll be there in maybe an hour? Little less?”

“In your own time,” he says. “Unless you'd prefer I come to you, instead.”

“Oh hell no, I haven't cleaned my bedroom yet, and anyway, your bed is way bigger and more comfortable than mine.”

“So . . . beds are definitely on the table?” he says. “Like bread, for sharing?”

I laugh, surprised and touched that he remembers, and I wonder if it's possible that Charles Douglas might feel now some of the trepidation I felt that day in March.

“Definitely on the table,” I say, and then, my smile trembling and my hand shaking as I hold the phone, I add softly, “Charles.”

“I was worried I'd hurt you,” he says in a quiet rush. His voice sounds as unsteady as mine. “It's so important to me, Annie, that I not hurt you.”

“You haven't hurt me.”

“I'm glad,” he says in that same unsteady voice. “I feel this compulsion to apologize to you anyway.”

“What for?”

“I don't know. For . . . not deserving to be the person you share this with?”

“Don't I get to decide that?” I say.

“Yes.”

“Well, I'm choosing you.”

After the slightest pause he says, “You honor me.” The formality of his words, the intensity of his voice, make me believe him.

“I'll be over in an hour,” I say.

 

I shower. I repack my backpack with clean underwear and a change of clothes. I bike the few miles to Charles's apartment. There's an elevator up to his floor. When I rode it on Friday, it felt fast. Today it feels slow.

I knock on his door, just like I did on Friday. He opens it. Last time we did this, we were both smiling goofily. Tonight I'm trembling, and his face is serious.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.” His face eases a little. Like last time, he lets me in and takes my bag from me, but then he puts his hands on either side of my jaw and kisses me hello. It's more than a kiss hello, though.

When he breaks away, he says, “Before we begin tonight's proceedings, I'd like to offer you . . .” He pulls a shiny key from his pocket. “It is a key to the flat. I offer it without expectation or demand, but with the hope that the next several weeks will bring us both a great deal of pleasure, and that your free access to my bed will facilitate that.”

I take it, warm from his pocket, and put it in my own pocket, trying to smother my smile.

“Listen, if at any point, tonight or ever, you want to stop, you must just say so and we will. The
least
doubt or hesitation. I can think of nothing less desirable than taking to bed a woman who isn't quite sure she's having an excellent time.”

I nod. “Okay.”

He's looking at me seriously, uncertainly, his hands on my triceps. “Are you interested in dinner? Would you like . . . I don't know, anything at all?”

“Just you,” I say.

“Well then,” he says with a wry smile but in a serious voice. “Annabelle Coffey, it would be an honor and a privilege for me to sully your maiden virtue this fine evening.”

I break into a maniacal grin. “When do you want to start?” I ask.

“No time like the present,” he says, and leads me by the hand into the bedroom.

H
e leaves me standing next to the bed, to pull the curtains. Instantly the room is in almost total darkness, only cracks of late-afternoon sun sneaking through breaks in the curtains.

While my eyes are still adjusting to the dark, he stands before me and brushes my hair from my face. “I don't suppose this is how you imagined it at all.”

I shake my head.

He begins to undress me and says, “How did you imagine it? Tell me.”

I raise my eyes to the ceiling, feeling awkward, my cheeks flushing. “A lot of ways,” I confess. “In the lab, on your desk, was one. I imagined you, like, couldn't control yourself around me. Um. On the edge of the sink in the Soma bathroom was another one. Again, you simply could not contain your lust. It turns out in reality you can control yourself pretty well.”

“You'd like me to be out of control for you?” My shirt is gone, and he's kneeling in front of me to pull my shorts and panties down slowly over my legs.

I bunch my lips over to one side and shrug. “They're just fantasies.” I step out of the clothes tangled at my ankles.

“And this is real.” He stands and puts his hands on my face and kisses me, and it is real. Charles is kissing me and I'm naked and this is happening.

“You're trembling,” he whispers into the kiss, but I can't respond. I clench and unclench my hands helplessly, unable to do anything but receive his soft, slow kiss.

“I don't know what to do,” I say at last.

“Anything you like,” he answers.

“How am I supposed to know what I like?” I say desperately.

He seems to understand. “Pretend we're still on third base, and we'll see how we go.”

That makes it easier, a little. I untuck his shirt and put my hands on his back. “I like your skin,” I say.

“I like yours,” he says.

I begin undressing him with the same industriousness with which he undressed me, and I say, “So, how have
you
imagined it?”

“A bit like this,” he says softly, slowly. “Here, in the dark, two naked bodies. You, bewitched and joyful. Me, wise and skillful.” He's making fun of himself.

“I think I am bewitched,” I say, standing before him. We're both naked now, with nothing but a foot of empty air separating us. He reaches out, puts a hand on my waist.

“Are you cold? Unsure? You can change your mind.”

“No, I'm just . . . I don't know why I'm shaking.”

“Come to bed,” he says.

We lie down together under the covers. He puts his arms around me, kisses me, but the shaking is getting worse. “Sweetheart,” he says, and just takes over for me. He kisses me all over, touches me all over, and with his hands and his skin and his mouth and his hair, his eyelashes, he touches me softly. He takes his time, and every sensation feels amplified. When he touches my vulva, I'm still trembling, but I press my body up against his hand, press my own hand over his.

“Yes,” I say.

He kisses my neck and breasts as he moves his palm over my clit. I run my hands over his skin. The more aroused I get, the more my body shakes—my legs and my abdomen and my fingers. “I can't stop it,” I tell him.

“Don't try,” he says.

So I don't. I just let it, I let my body be what it is and do what it's doing. My arousal grows, and the tension grows, and I grip the edge of the mattress over my head as my muscles shudder and vibrate. Charles's mouth on my breasts and rib cage is warm and soft, and his hand is warm and firm, with steady, circular pressure. I can feel the tip of his finger just entering me.

“Charles,” I say, and I'm surprised I sound worried.

“Annie,” he says. “It's so beautiful, what your body's doing.”

“Is it?”

“You are astonishing. You are breathtaking.”

His mouth is moving lower, down to my belly and my hips. I feel his lips on the trembling insides of my thighs, I feel his hands over my trembling stomach, I feel him licking me, licking my clit, and my body shudders and shakes. I widen my thighs, straighten my legs, point my toes, but my legs just keep shaking. I put my shaking hands in his hair. He's still moving slowly, taking his time as he licks me, and he doesn't make me come, only brings me near the edge, where the trembling escalates and escalates. It's not the quiet vibration it was when I walked in the door, but an uncontrollable, muscle-twitching shudder that wracks through me in waves like a fever.

“Charles.” My voice is trembling as much as the rest of me now. He comes back up to me, lies beside me, and I wrap my shaking arms around his neck.

He kisses my mouth softly and murmurs, “Pretty girl. Beautiful girl.”

“I don't know what to do,” I whisper.

“Would you like to come, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” I breathe through the shuddering.

With firmer pressure on my vulva and a wet slide of his finger deeper into me, Charles kisses me with his tongue in my mouth. My fingers, shaking, grip at his skin. His body is so quiet and strong beside mine, his touch so sure. He knows my body now; in three days he has learned me, and he gives me exactly what my body wants.

“Oh god,” I say in a high, weak voice.

“Oh god,” he answers, and his voice sounds like a prayer.

I can't breathe. In a series of cresting pulses that seem to calibrate all my shaking into one shared wavelength, my body pulls me up to a peak of tension, my whole body vibrating, my arms gripped around Charles's shoulders, my hands fisted, my eyes squeezed shut.

“Oh my god,” I breathe.

“Oh my god, Annie,” he says.

With a singing cry, I fall off the edge, my body rolling wildly against Charles's solid, still form, his hand still pressed firmly against my vulva, his mouth now pressed against my ear. He's saying things, I can't hear what, but he's whispering to me about beautiful and come and darling and yes and yes and yes, while I stretch and press and writhe against him.

And at the end of it, when I fall into release and land in the soft, warm bed with Charles warm next to me, at last all the tension is gone. My body relaxes, sunk into the bed, pliant, sure, still. I feel in love with my skin and my breath. I feel in love with the dark. I feel perfect. He's perfect. Tonight is perfect. I run my hands up and down his back and turn my face to his, whisper his name, kiss him.

As we kiss, I say, “I don't know how to say it. Do I tell you I want you? Should I say I'm ready? Should I try to make it sexy like, ‘Give it to me, big boy?' What do I say?”

“That'll do for now,” he says with a half grin I can hear, and he moves on top of me. He takes my hand and guides it down between our legs. “Show me where,” he whispers, still with that half grin lingering in his voice.

“How should
I
know?” I ask, fumbling a bit with his penis in my hand. I try a few places and shift around, and his face is doing remarkable things, but at last I have him lined up where he goes . . . I think. I put both my hands on his shoulders, searching the dark for his eyes, and say, “Okay. Ready.”

“Me too,” he whispers. He kisses me so, so gently.

And he pushes just a little.

There's a little sting, but mostly, it's pressure.

He watches my face as I'm watching his, and says, “Okay so far?” and I nod.

He pushes a little more. It stings a little more, but overall, it's nice. I feel opened and slippery. He pulls out a bit then, and then pushes deeper. He does it again, his eyes on mine, and then again.

“What's it feel like?” he whispers.

“Like you put your penis in my vagina,” I whisper back, and we both laugh, and I can feel it inside me, the way he moves as he laughs, and I'm sure he can feel me, too. He kisses me, his hand against my face, and pushes deeper still, then pulls out again, and deeper still ... and again. And again, deeper.

“Whoa,” I say.

He stops. “Hurt?”

“No, just ... deep. Big. Just ... lots,” I murmur incoherently. “Is that all the way?”

He kisses my eyebrow. “Not yet. Do you want all the way?”

“Yeah,” I whisper.

He makes an odd
hhunh
sound through his nose and then pushes deeper into me. He says, “Sweet holy fucking Jesus, Annie. You're so—” He doesn't tell me what I'm so. He's breathing hard, and his arms are trembling on either side of me.

“Icebergs and baseball,” he mutters against my throat.

“What?”

“What you're supposed to think about to delay orgasm,” he pants, and then he laughs, “I don't know anything about baseball.”

“You know about the bases,” I giggle—and I feel my pelvic floor muscle contract around Charles. He flinches and makes another
hhunh
noise, higher pitched this time, and then thrusts into me, three quick, deep, sharp movements, not painful, but not particularly pleasurable, either, then he strains and pushes inside me while he grunts and moans, his face squinched above me. Then all his muscles relax and he sinks, his face against my neck.

“Oh god. Well”—he pants—“you wanted me to be out of control with you. That, my dear girl, is what out of control is like. Fuck. God. I haven't done that in a decade. Oh Christ. I can only apologize. I will make it up to you, sweetheart, I promise.”

“Wait, that was it? You came?”

“I came, but don't believe for a second that that is it.” He lifts his head and looks at me. He's laughing and pink in the darkness, and he says, “God, how embarrassing! I'm supposed to be the experienced one who shows you how it's done.”

“Is it weird if I take it as a compliment?” I ask.

“Oh, it is a compliment,” he says vehemently. “Undeniably. You are without a doubt the sexiest woman I have ever met in my entire life. I had rather hoped, on that account, to make a better showing, you know, so you could look back on your first time with the kind of bone-melting fondness that makes all the other blokes perpetually jealous.”

All the other blokes.

“And instead you'll just giggle and tell them, ‘He tried.' I did try,” he says, laughing and kissing my neck.

Then he kisses a path down my neck to my chest and my breasts, saying, “Oh, Annie, god, you feel so good. You feel so good. God, you just feel so amazing. Ugh, listen to what you've done to me! You reduce me to the most facile, imbecilic . . . That's all the adjectives I can remember. The rest of them are gone. Whoosh!” He laughs and gently, slowly pulls out of me. He leaves his hands to explore my breasts as he kisses down to my belly and my hips and then—I pull my knees in, feeling awkward as his lips approach my vulva.

“You can do that?” I say as he puts his lips on my clit. “Even though you already . . . I mean, it's, like, really goopy now, isn't it?”

“Oh yes,” he says, and he pushes my knees apart with one hand. “It's really goopy.” And he buries his face between my legs. I feel the combined sensation of his soft, wet, warm tongue against my vulva and his slightly stubbly cheeks against the insides of my thighs. But before I fully register what's happening, he's coming up again and kissing me with a mouth covered in our combined fluids. And it is fucking
hot
. I put my hands on his neck and suck on his tongue, drawing the taste of him and me into my mouth. I'm full of want and pleasure and uncertainty.

His hand is on me now. I can feel the slickness of his palm against my vulva and just the tip of one finger at my entrance. He tugs circles against my pubic bone. He kisses behind my ear and wraps a hand around the back of my skull, pressing his lips to my ear, but even with his mouth so close, I have to listen hard to hear him. He's saying, “I love making you come. I've been imagining your face at orgasm for ages. When you came that first time Friday night, when you said you were nearly there and then you ground against me, I nearly came with you. I wanted to lay you on your stomach right then, pull your jeans down to your knees, pin you down by your hair, and fuck you.”

“Yes,” I pant.

“I wanted to tear off your clothes and bury my face in your pussy, make you come a thousand times.”

“Yes. God.” It's his voice as much as his words that's building the heat inside me. His voice, and his hand still tugging wide-open circles on my clit.

“I wanted to drag you to the bed and fuck you until you couldn't think, until you couldn't see straight or construct sentences or move.”

“Yes,” I breathe.

“You'd like that? You'd like me to fuck you all night?” Charles is saying. “Until you can't move or think or see, until all you know is my cock inside you and my body over you and my tongue in your mouth, my voice in your ear telling you to come?”

“Yes.” My hips are starting to move in a rhythm to match his movements.

“I'd like to be inside you again,” he says. “May I?”

“Yes, please,” I whisper.

He's lying on his side and I'm on my back, and I'm expecting him to get on top of me again, but all he does is raise my knee and slip the head of his penis inside me with a dark groan, and now I have this leg in the air and I don't know what to do with it.

“Uh,” I say.

“Feel all right?” he asks. “Pain?”

I shake my head, still uncertain.

“Put your hand on your clit, sweetheart,” he says. I do, and turn my eyes to his to ask if I'm doing it right. He wraps one hand around the back of my head, his forearm a pillow for me, and presses the other hand under my jaw. He puts his forehead against mine, eyes open, and begins to fuck me, moving just a little, not coming all the way into me.