It is four in the afternoon, but my kitchen is flooded with early morning light. Seated at one of the barstools of my island is Julian. He’s dressed comically in a white undershirt and my favorite leopard print robe, with sleeves that only reach halfway down his forearms, and is blowing over coffee in my favorite “Boss Bitch” mug. His getup tells me that we have been sleeping together for long enough for him to feel comfortable borrowing my clothes, but not so long that he’s earned a drawer in my dresser. Strange as the sight is, it feels familiar and comforting in its banality.
Except he should not be familiar, because Julian has never been inside my apartment.
“Interesting,” he says, lowering his mug to the counter. “You’ve got the real thing out there right now, but you’re still in here with me.”
“What?” I ask, discombobulated, and Julian smirks.
“I’m just saying that I was right,” he says. “Youdolike me more.”
I’m still looking at him with confusion when suddenly my vision tips, and I find myself slipping into darkness. But this is not the bottomless darkness of sleep, but something more dynamic, with shifting light and heightened awareness. It takes me one heartbeat to realize that it’s because my eyes are squeezed shut, and then another to realize that I’m not at home at all.
The instant I do, I’m wracked with a thousand sensations at once—shuddering, electrifying aftershocks, the feeling of being catapulted out of my own body, pleasure that pulses through me in waves. I’mcoming, I realize, though I’ve never come like this, all at once with no clear buildup. The rasping cry that pierces the air is from my throat. My arms are wrapped around a strong neck, holding on for dear life as my knees buckle underneath me, and searing, soothing kisses are raining down the side of my face.
“Shh,” Julian says. “It’s okay. I got you.”
There’s a sloppy, slurping sound, and with it, an absence. Julian’s fingers, withdrawing from where they’d been. Inside me. He brings them to his mouth and sucks.
“Oh god,” I say, stuck somewhere between pleasure and consternation. Hazily, the memories return, patchy and disjointed; I went to Julian’s apartment…to check on him? To yell at him for ignoring my texts?
The rest is a blur. The surface behind my back is unyielding, not plush, and we are upright—a door? Julian crowds my vision, his body blocking my view of the space, but I can tell by the furniture that it’s likely his bedroom. He’s still mostly dressed, as am I; my panties are still on, just shoved to the side, and my leggings are halfway down my thighs.
Another memory returns to me, one that makes my face turn even hotter. Julian asking me if Iwant this, me answering by dragging him back to my mouth. Pushinghimagainst the door, only to be flipped back against it myself after Julian decided he was done being manhandled.
“What are youdoingto me?” I gasp, still catching my breath. Julian smells intoxicating, a mixture of soap, sweat, and sex that, despite everything, I want to wrap myself in.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he says. He reaches behind him, unlatches my hand from its vise grip around his neck, and lowers it to his bare chest. Under my palm, his heart is galloping.
“That’s…” He bends to kiss my neck, and I bite down on my cheek, trying to maintain focus. “That’s not what I mean.”
Julian hums, only half interested in helping me reach the epiphany I seek.
“What do you mean, then?”
I try to divert my focus from his overwhelming presence to the lightness of my limbs, the fact that my head no longer throbs and my body no longer aches. I know better than anyone that healing is a slow process, done over days to weeks to months, not instantaneous. But this isn’t the first time this has happened, is it? It feels like something out of a fairy tale: Julian touches me, and I become whole again.
“I mean that I feel good,” I manage, clumsily converting my jumbled thoughts into speech. “Why do I feel good?”
Julian chuckles, then brushes his lips over mine in a caress.
“Should I be insulted?” he whispers.
“No, no,” I say, shaking my head. Julian gives me an indulgent smile, then, unceremoniously, drops to his knees and drags my underwear over my hips. “No, I don’t mean it like…oh.”
Julian presses his face into the valley between my legs, and I reflexively tilt my hips forward to give him better access. He rolls the pearl of my clit around his tongue before probing deeper, and whatever ideas I’d been formulating are gone to the wind, chased away by a desperate need to stay standing amidst this siege. And that’s what it feels like—like he’s waiting me out, unbuilding me brick by brick. When he pushes his fingers inside me again, my body welcomes his intrusion as much as it pines for more. They curl, find a spot that makes my toes clench.
It seems impossible that I could be having a second orgasm on the heels of the last, but Julian is relentless, employing mouth and nose and hands to drag me, caveman style, to the cliff edge. When hethrows me over, I have to bite down on my tongue to keep from crying out. It doesn’t work—the moans escape my throat like they’ve been sucked out, filling the quiet evening air with illicit song. I become boneless, my teeth chattering, knees buckling, and Julian tightens his hold to keep me from crumpling to the floor.
What could be seconds or minutes or hours later, I finally stop shaking. Julian places a reverent kiss on my mons. He rests his head against my thighs and sighs, kneading my ass like a sculptor working clay, and the waft of his breath against my still sensitized skin sends shock waves skittering down my legs.
I drop my head backward against the door, chasing down the breath that he’s stolen.
“This is so unfair,” I groan through gritted teeth. “Do you have amanualor something?”
It’s supposed to be a joke, but Julian doesn’t laugh.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he says, in lieu of an answer. His voice is unexpectedly ragged.
“It’s been maybe two months,” I tease.