is the last time he’s going to hook his hands into the curves of my hips, and tug me back on his eager prick; the last time he’s going to put one big hand on my back to steady me; the last time I’m going to hear him tell me harder. Fuck back on me harder.
Because I don’t obey him. I’m not greedy for his cock – I’m greedy for Sean’s. I’m impatient for Sean’s orgasm, sucking and licking and pawing him in places he’s embarrassed about me going. When I dig my nails into his firm round ass cheeks, he sways like someone drugged. He stutters out a no, don’t, when I do what Ryan taught me to – slide my hand back around and worm a finger to that soft smooth stretch of skin behind his balls, and press and rub until he’s quaking.
Oh, there are so many things I’m going to teach Sean. He’s ripe for my tutorials: pressing against his perineum just as he’s struggling to come, a slick finger in his ass to make him squirm and blush, stopping and starting and teasing and starting again to make his orgasm extra lush.
My orgasm is going to be extra lush too. Especially when Sean groans that he thinks he’s going to come, and Ryan tells him no, wait.
Ladies first.
And then he fucks into me hard until all I can hear is the firm wet slap of his thighs against my ass, the thick head of his cock butting against just the right place over and over. One long finger pressing firm to my clit, until I cry around this mouthful of flesh.
‘God, you made her come just like that,’ Kay says, in the breathy voice of someone newly infatuated.
But she’s not wrong. My clit swells against his rubbing finger and the tingles already threading through me grow until they’re fit to burst. And then he says that’s it, baby, come on, and I obey like always. I suck hard and eager on Sean’s prick and shudder from head to toe.
Of course the moment I do, Sean cries out. His hand goes to the back of my head and he urges his cock as deep as it will go, spurting over my tongue warm and thick. I remember the first time I ever went down on Ryan and he babbled on through the whole thing – how good and hot my mouth was and how – oh Jesus – he was going to do it in my mouth.
But I think, for Sean, even the sound he made and all that grasping of the back of my head was a lot. Coming in front of people he’s not dating is a lot. Everything’s a lot. And I’m pretty sure Ryan knows that too, because his next words are like he’s read my mind.
‘See,’ he says, as he strokes my back. ‘She likes it when you talk to her.’
And there’s such a strange fondness in his voice, a warmth that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him. I suppose I should be offended that he’s talking over me, that I’m she, and yet I’m not. I want to say to Kay the same thing: be good to him. He likes it when you spoon up against his back.
He likes it when you suck him long after he’s spent, and he likes taking baths together. He likes fingers in his mouth when he’s having sex, and blindfolds are his kink of choice.
Though, in truth, I don’t know if I want to say. I know so well that he likes all of those things, but maybe I won’t tell you, Kay. Find out your own things. Could be that they’re different. I certainly intend to find out what’s different about Sean, all on my own.
Already there’s something different. He doesn’t want to kiss me with a mouth full of his come. But he does want to spoon against my back, and bury his face in my hair, and so it is that I get to lie there and watch, as Kay finishes off my once-was-boyfriend.
It’s been a year and a day since I last saw Ryan. I know it has, because Sean tells me as we’re driving up to the campsite. Number three thousand and eighty-five on the list of things I’ve learned about Sean in a year: he’s very good at timekeeping. Ryan was always awful at remembering days – he’d throw me three birthday parties a year to make up for the one he forgot.
‘Is your mind somewhere else?’ he asks, as we come to the turn-off.
‘Not really,’ I reply, but I’m lying. It is. Currently my mind happens to be on why I still compare Sean to Ryan, even after all this time. It’s something I think about a lot lately.
‘Nervous about seeing your ex?’ he asks, and he does it in that faux-jovial way he has when he’s nervous or trying to be someone he’s not. He thinks people want humour, lightness, not his crazy intensity.
And maybe they do. Maybe they do. Some people do, some of the time.
‘No,’ I say, even though I can feel my heart fluttering against its cage.
I don’t know why it’s doing that. There weren’t any heartbroken arguments, no awkward goodbyes. We jiggled the puzzle around – all four of us, even Sean.
In the morning, Ryan had just said to me: You going with him, then?
And I had replied: Sure.
And then all of our things in swapped-around cars, Kay giggling: This is crazy! This is crazy! I love it!
What’s in all of that to make me nervous? I’ve always wondered if Sean felt odd about leaving Kay just like that, but even the thought of him secretly continuing to love her all this time doesn’t make me nervous. I don’t think he did, anyhow. He told me once that he had never felt the need to say it to her, and if you don’t say it …
Ryan used to say it all the time. It never lost its meaning, either, which I guess is pretty odd.
When I see him at our usual camping spot on the hill, I think about him saying: You really like Sean, huh? You like that whole weird repressed scientist schtick he’s got going on. Yeah, I can see it in your eyes. I can see it when you look at me.
And I had said: no, no. No, never when I look at you.
Just as we pulled into the campsite, where Sean and Kay were waiting.
* * *
He’s almost the same. Wearing the same clothes – goofy T-shirt, smart trousers, hair at odd angles, unshaven.
Kay’s not the same. She’s all creased up and pissed as hell, and the first words he says to me are: I cracked wise. And then he shrugs – yeah, that’s Ryan. He’ll say something and offend the shit out of someone and then shrug.
Only later, I think at her. Later, he’ll come to you with hot chocolate or a Kinder egg or something else suitably ridiculous, and tell you how much he didn’t mean it.
It’s just the way he is. It’s a defence mechanism, a shield for his tender insides. A test, to see if you honestly and really do love him and can put up with his craziness.
But she doesn’t stop being pissed all through putting up the tent and all through dinner, and he doesn’t bring her a present. Maybe that was just for me. Something completely different to how he acts with any other person, just for me.
I bet with other people he never said sorry.
* * *
I wake up in the middle of the night with Sean’s mouth pressed to the turn of my throat. I guess he’s come a long way since we started this whole thing, because that may just be his erection rutting against my thigh.
I smile at him through the darkness, and he looks at me all sweet and eager – so much more open now. Cheeky, even. A little more sure of himself, too. He even talks to me when we fuck, halting words that don’t quite reach sexy.
But they’re good just the same.
I let him tug my pyjama bottoms down, and climb over me. I’m already wet, of course, though he doesn’t seem surprised to find me so. Sometimes he is, as though he can’t imagine why I’ve been thinking about sex.
But I think he knows why I’ve been thinking about it now.
He gets on over me, even so. He slides into me,