Page 11 of The Rent Just Went Up

“Well, that was incredible.” He smiles, looking somehow even more charming than he’s looked all night. “You’reincredible.”

“No, you are,” I giggle, pointing a flirtatious finger back at him. He just grins and gives me a boyfriend-style peck on the cheek. I can feel his cock flex inside me as he does so.

“Are you okay, Erika?” he asks.

“Of course I am!” I smile, still swept up in the post-orgasmic heat that’s encompassing my entire body. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, cocking his head to the side. “There’s just this look on your face…”

You should tell him. This is a good time to tell him.We both just shared something incredible, and if I don’t tell him now, he’s going to feel like I am hiding something from him—or worse yet, that I lied to him. Let’s just pray he doesn’t hear the news and decide to leave me.

“Well, Malcom–”

“Mal,” he corrects me with the sweetest smile known to man. I smile back and take a deep breath.

“Well, Mal, I…I’ve never done that before.”

Mal opens his mouth but pauses a moment. “Never donewhatbefore?”

“That,” I reply, making some kind of silly wash-the-dishes motion with my hands that encompasses the both of us. “I’m a virgin—Iwasa virgin. Until just now.”

6

Malcom

My dad was completely devotedto my mother. He did everything for her, and not in aoh, he’s one of those guyskind of way either. He didn’t follow her around like a puppy, he didn’t let her walk all over him or just take his credit card to the mall to make her day, and he didn’t wake up in the morning to make her breakfast every time they had an argument as a way of admitting he was wrong even when he wasn’t just to keep the household stable.

He was just agood man.He was handy, and when he wasn’t at his job at the mill moving lumber, he was at home fixing up the house. And boy was it a fixer-upper. My parents didn’t have a lot of money when they first got together, but my dad assured my mom that he would put so much work into the thing that it would be just as nice, if not better, than all the other houses on the block.

My mom mostly just took care of me and my sister, Nikki, but would occasionally volunteer down at the library.I need to get out of the house, Frank, I would hear her say to him. They hired a babysitter named Kay, who we both really liked, and we thought everything was great. We thought everyone was happy.

But what do you really know about your parents’ marriage when you’re just a kid? You don’t even really know what the wordcheatingmeans. So when my dad came to my sister and me that night, that rainy night, and told us that Mom was leaving, neither of us knew how to process it.

“A virgin?”I ask, feeling as though I’ve just been fed the answer to a trivia question that I’m not sure is correct. “That’s what you just said, right?”

Erika nods, and my mind goes into full-processing-power as I try to decide whether or not she’s back into her spitfire-mode and is just fucking with me again. But then I think back to that moment when I entered her and pressed inside. She was tight—incrediblytight. And at first, I thought she just had the pussy of a goddess.

But then there was that little extra bit of pressure, then the pop and it giving way.Christ was that her cherry?Did I really just claim this girl’s cherry?

“Yes, Mal, that’s what I said.” Erika looks up at me, her eyes filled with nothing but sincerity. I see nothing to suggest she’s fucking with me right now. No reason to believe I should suspect dishonesty.

“But…why didn’t you say anything before?” I ask. Erika shrugs, the suggestion of a smile on her lips. “This is how you wanted to lose your virginity?”

“I don’t know, actually,” she replies. “I know I didn’t want to lose it to Chris—that asshole I was dating who cheated on me.”

Something akin to a laugh forces its way from my lips, and I nod in complete agreement. “Yes, that seems like a wise choice to me, but—”

“Why—are you upset you took my virginity, Mal?”

“No!” I say quickly, wrapping my tender princess up in my arms. “Absolutely not.”

“Good,” she says. “See, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you. I’d heard some guys don’twantto take girls’ v-cards.”

Again, I have to laugh. I shake my head. “That’s not it. I just wanted to make sure everything was rightfor you.”

Erika giggles. God, she truly is beautiful. What are the chances, I wonder, of her and me being at the bar on the same night tonight? I feel something inside my chest when I look at her but quickly push it away.No, not that, you stupid son of a bitch.

“Oh, it was great for me,” Erika says with a smile and a laugh. “You really know what you’re doing.”

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