I am breathing hard as he feathers his hands against my ribs, inching his way down. He kisses my belly, then lower, lower, hitting the top of my pubic bone. I arch my hips, wanting. So much wanting.
He looks up, and I meet his eyes.
“I can’t wait to make you feel good.” Then his face is between my legs and he starts with a kiss. A soft, fluttery kiss against my wetness, and I fling my hand over my mouth to capture the sound I’m tempted to make. Because oh my God, this is the softest and most incredible thing I have ever felt. Then he places another kiss against my center, and I can feel it everywhere, like a blinding wave crashing through me. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I am sure everything good in the world is happening here, right now, in my body, as he layers more hot, wet kisses between my legs.
The press of his tongue is firm and insistent as he licks me, and I want to die from the pleasure. This rush, this thrill, this ecstasy—this is the true high. He works me up and down, and I am floating, falling, drifting along this rapturous path as he swirls his tongue across me, making me even hotter. I had no idea it was possible, but everything he does sends me higher and higher. Soon I gasp in pleasure. And I don’t try to stop the sounds I make.
I don’t cry out, but I start to moan, keeping my voice low because I don’t want anyone to hear me. But I can’t help myself—I have never felt anything like this. This never-ending bliss, this sweet devouring as he unravels me. Sparks soar from the center of my belly to my chest to my fingertips. He’s licking me as if I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted. I hear him groan hungrily, and I think he likes doing this to me as much as I like having it done. As I thread my hands in his hair and hold on tight, I know this—he’s the best thing I have ever felt. My belly tightens, and I feel as if I’m about to shatter into a million diamonds.
“Oh,” I moan, and he cups my ass and buries his face between my legs. Then the quickening intensifies, and I can feel it for the first time—like a wave slamming into the shore. Pleasure spins wildly through me, and I pull his hair and rock into his face. A long moan escapes me as I come for the first time from another person.
The orgasm rockets through my body, leaving no inch of me untouched, as if I need to be wrapped in it, to feel it everywhere as I experience desire and pleasure and want for the first time. And I know what everyone is all in a lather about.
This is why everyone wants some.
I get it now. I understand. It’s like a cocoon of bliss, of pure, sweet, exquisite agony. As if my whole body was lit up and sparklers were shooting through my veins.
And it’s the last time too.
Tomorrow I start love and sex addiction rehab.
6
Trey
She is blissed-out beyond any and all recognition, and I am filled with a dumb sort of pride. I did this to her. I guess she could lie about me being her first, but why would she lie? She didn’t act like she was some pleasure hound; she didn’t sidle over on the bed, lower her lashes, and practically purr at me like other women have. She seemed all fluttery and nervous, like everything was new. Judging from the look on her face, all rosy and happy, and the heavy way she’s breathing, she can still feel the aftereffects. I curl up next to her, wrap my arms around her, and plant a kiss on her cheek.
“I loved making you come for the first time.”
She turns to me, that shy look on her face again. “I loved what you did to me too.”
Minutes later, we doze off.
Sometime after that, I can feel the empty space where she was. I yawn and open my eyes to find her tugging on her shirt and pushing her arms into her jacket.
“You can stay the night,” I say, glancing at the clock. It’s four in the morning.
“I should go. Tomorrow is a crazy day for me.”
I nod, acting cool. “Yeah, me too. Big day here.”
If she only knew why. But she won’t. She can’t.
Then she leans over and kisses me, and I can feel the goodbye on her lips. It’s a last kiss, meant to linger, meant to carry on long after she leaves.
“Should we…” I say, but let my voice trail off. I can’t ask for her number because I can’t do this again. If I had her number, I’d call her, see her, try to find her. I’d want more of her, and I can’t have any more.
She shakes her head. “Sometimes I think things happen for a reason. Like, I was meant to come to your shop tonight and get this tattoo. And I think if we’re meant to run into each other again, fate will make it happen.”
Her words feel both like a brush-off and like the truth. Like some kind of hopefulness. Maybe I will see her again someday when I am ready, when I am better, when I can have a girl like her in my life.
“Yeah. I believe that too.”
I get out of bed, walk her to the door, and cup her cheeks in my hands, looking deeply into her brown eyes for the last time. “This one’s for the road,” I say.
Then I kiss her, and it’s a kiss full of regret and hope at the same time.
Or maybe it’s a kiss with no regrets because tonight was everything it should be. One last night, one last chance, one last first kiss before tomorrow.
When I start love and sex rehab.
7
Harley
I’m a sex addict and a virgin.
I know everything about sex and I’ve never done it, though I came close last night.
I know nothing about love.
I know men.
I can size up a guy in seconds. I know if he wants my sweet and innocent side, or my sophisticated persona, or if he just wants me to shut up and nod while he talks about his day, because some just want to talk. I know how he likes it, how he wants it, and I know by the end of the hour or two if he’ll request me again.
But those days are behind me.
The past is the past.
This is now.
That’s what I have to believe as I walk into a church in Chelsea off Ninth Avenue to repent. It’s a fading white church, rather plain looking, unmarked by flying buttresses or soaring angels. The white brick is streaked with gray from soot and dirt and New York itself breezing by over the years. There’s a requisite steeple on top, unassuming, but still there pointing to the sky, and a small plaque outside the doors that declares its nondenominational-ness. Every flavor of fucked-up is welcome.
On some nights, you can find the alcoholics. On others, the former drug abusers. On another night, this place is home to those trying to kick the gambling habit. And tonight? I will spend the next hour with people like me, who are addicted to love and sex, sex and love.
Some to both. Some to only one.
I know both in ways I never wanted to. But in ways I still long for too.
That’s the problem.
I am twenty years old and I have kissed twenty-four guys, which amounts to three guys per year since my first kiss at age thirteen. I kept a running list of their first names and how they rated. They were all zeroes or ones. Those names on the list are all the reasons why I’m pushing open these wooden doors, the brown paint cracked and peeling.
Fitting. I am cracked and brittle too, hardened by all the things I’ve seen—and most of all, the things I’ve heard—over the years.