Page 91 of The Plus Ones
This orgasm is a jolt to the system. It shakes me to my core and shatters my soul and reassembles me into a person who can tell this man exactly what I’m feeling. Or I wish it would, anyway.
When he comes, he makes a sound that’s so masculine and primal and vulnerable, I hold on to him tight, soothing him so he knows I’m here with him, taking all of him into me.
He collapses onto me so beautifully, slick with sweat, warm, and emptied out.
I can feel his heart pounding against my chest.
I know we’re both thinking the same thing. It’s in the silence and the way we run our fingers through each other’s hair so tenderly but possessively. It’s in our labored breaths and the air around us. Maybe there’s some untranslatable word—Japanese or Swahili—that means all the things I’m feeling for him and I just haven’t learned it yet. I’ll find it. I’ll find some perfect thing to say to him that I’ve never said to anyone else before. He deserves it.
“I didn’t even come close to breaking this bed” is what he finally says when he catches his breath.
“You will. You’ll wear it down eventually. I have no doubt.”
23
Keaton
Roxy Carter and I have spent the last ten nights in a row together, in the same bed.
We still haven’t broken mine, but it’s not for lack of trying. Apparently the only thing stronger than my primal drive to screw the living daylights out of my very willing hot girlfriend is walnut wood, bed bolts, and expertly crafted mortise and tenon joint connections. Interestingly, she wanted me to go easy on her when we stayed at her place.
It has been fun and blissful, despite that awkward falling-in-love problem of deciding when to say “I love you” for the first time.Notsaying it right before coming has become the best kind of daily struggle. We still banter and talk like friends, but the quiet moments between us echo with unspoken words.
Incidentally, thereisa word for what’s happening, courtesy of the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego. I can never remember how to spell it and I have no idea how to pronounce it, but it’s a single word that describes the wordless, meaningful look between two people who both have a desire to initiate something but they’re both reluctant to start. It’s a beautiful and fragile time, not bad at all, and I have savored it.
But I have to leave for a three-day business trip tomorrow morning, so I’m planning on telling her tonight when we see each other.
My ex-girlfriend Tamara has been texting me every day for the past week, telling me that she’s moved back and asking to see me. I kept telling her I was busy—and I am—but I can’t put it off any longer. I don’t particularly want to see her, but there’s something I’ve wanted to ask her for years, and besides…I don’t want her showing up unannounced when Roxy’s with me. I agreed to meet her for coffee at a place near my office in DUMBO.
I text Roxy while I’m waiting outside the café, telling her that Jackpot and I can’t wait to see her tonight. I not only smile whenever I receive a text from her, I smile when I write to her. I’m fucking adorable. As soon as I’ve sent it, I look up and see a ghost crossing the street toward me. Not of the demon variety, but one who haunted me gently and tenaciously for a lot longer than she should have.
Tamara is about five years older since I last saw her, I guess. She doesn’t walk as quickly as a native Manhattanite anymore, and she’s adopted a more casual West Coast style, but she’s still as put-together as ever. I suppose, if things were different right now, she’d still turn my head. But she doesn’t. Or rather, I turn my head to look around the area to make sure Roxy isn’t there. It’s not that I feel guilty. I just don’t want any misunderstandings now that things are going so well for us.
Tamara flings her arms around me without hesitation—another sign she’s adapted to the LA lifestyle. “Oh my God, it’s good to see you.”
I pat her on the back and pull away. “Hey, you. Welcome back.”
“I amsoglad to be back—you have no idea. Have you been waiting long? I’m not late, am I? I’m not used to walking everywhere yet.”
“Just got here. Shall we?” I open the door to the café.
She touches my waist as she passes through the door. I used to love how relatively touchy-feely she was for a New Yorker, but now it just seems presumptuous.
The only free table is by the window, and I don’t realize until after I’ve sat down that Tamara was waiting for me to pull her chair out for her. I always used to. She doesn’t make a fuss about it, though. She wouldn’t. That’s why I liked her. Low drama.
We don’t say anything to each other until after ordering coffee from the waitress.
“You look really good, Keaton,” she says, leaning forward, like she’s confiding in me.
“Thank you. I just got back from vacation.”
“Really? Where’d you go?”
“Antigua.”
“I’d love to go there! We had such a good time at St. Barts. I still think about that vacation a lot.”
Yeah. I should have known that from all the nothing you wrote in your annual e-cards.
