Chapter 10: The Office, After Midnight

My hand moved before I gave it permission. Down my stomach, under the waistband of Carrie’s baggy shorts, under the cotton of my panties, to the place I had been pretending was not paying attention to the evening. I was already wet. That fact arrived with a flare of embarrassment so sharp I almost pulled back. I did not pull back. I slid two fingers along either side of my clit and held still, breathing into the pillow, listening to the house. Distant dishes. A laugh from the kitchen that might have been Kevin. Nothing close. The office door still half open, which should have stopped me and instead made the whole thing tighter, meaner, more awake.

I pictured Andrew the way he had looked when he said I looked good. Not the compliment. The face under the compliment. I put that face over me on this sofa and slowed everything down on purpose, because speed was what Justin had done, and I was done letting Justin set the tempo of my own fantasy. In my head, Andrew kissed me first. He did it softly and without any rush. His mouth was warm, and he cupped my jaw with his hand and guided me to him. I rubbed a slow circle and felt the circle catch. A small sound slipped out before I could swallow it. I bit the pillow and kept the circle going.

He would be gentle with me. I needed him to be gentle in order to keep going. I built it that way on purpose. I imagined his hands mapping the smallness of me without flinching from it—his mouth on my throat. The long dark hair falling forward when he leaned down. I imagined telling him to go slow and him actually doing it, which was a kindness so unfamiliar it made my throat tight. My fingers moved in that same unhurried rhythm. Sometimes I dipped one inside just to the first knuckle, just to gather what was there, and the sound it made was wet and unmistakable in the quiet room. A soft slop. Obscene in the small office with Carrie’s dad’s books on the wall. I froze when I first heard those noises, afraid someone passing down the hall might hear me, and then did it again because the sound was proof my body had not clocked out with my dignity.

The fantasy deepened because I let it. I imagined myself on my knees in front of him, which was a position I knew from Justin and had never liked, and I changed the terms. In this version, I wanted to feel the weight of him on my tongue. I wanted to look up and see the tattoos on his forearms while his hands stayed light in my hair. I imagined taking him slowly, learning the shape of him without being shoved onto it, tasting the salt of his skin, breathing the scent of his body and hearing the sounds he would make when I got him deeper than I meant to. My hips shifted on the sofa cushion. The blanket rasped. I worked my clit faster and then forced myself to slow down because slow was the point and because I could feel how fast the ending wanted to arrive.