Friday, October 10, 2008
THE ONLY THING I wanted was to be with the man who had his arms around me. It was the only thing I'd been able to focus on since the moment I saw him that afternoon.
What was it about that guy? He was like a bad penny. Always popping up. If he were a penny, I would have put him in my pocket and called him lucky.
It was only five or so, but I wanted my bed and I didn't want to go alone. I asked him warily, “Can we go to my room?”
He pulled away from my lips, but what I'd just asked him didn't seem to register. He looked distracted by his own thoughts.
“Hmmm?” He queried running his nose up the side of my neck audibly smelling me. “You smell the same. You taste the same,” he said into my hair and he kissed my head.
“So do you. Did you hear what I said?”
He pulled away to look at my face, now that whatever he was thinking wasn't distracting him anymore.
His curly hair was longer than when I'd last seen him. His big fat curls messy and playful. They suited him. On anyone else they would have looked silly.
“Come up stairs with me,” I repeated, but I didn't ask the second time. I was past requesting what I wanted.
A fire lit in his bright eyes and all humor left his features. “You know what will happen up there, Blake. I thought you only wanted to be friends.”
“We just kissed in public. I think it's a little late for that. Let's call this what it is and not beat around the bush. I want you. You want me. We have some unexplainable attraction to each other. So, are you coming upstairs to f*ck me or are we staying down here and getting shitfaced? It's your call.” I wasn't planning on laying it all out there like that, but we didn't have time to be shy. It was like the universe was handing me my favorite drug. And I was past pleasantries.
It had been months since I felt him inside me. Months since my body felt like it did. Months since I wanted to touch more than be touched.
I explained, “This doesn't have to be some romantic thing. It's anatomical. You're body wants my body and mine wants yours.”
“Is that all that wants me? What about your ring finger, honeybee? Who does that want?”
Shit. My engagement ring. Wasn't that twisted? I felt ashamed of my engagement ring. Shouldn't I feel guilty about the thing I’d just said and the invitation I’d given to a man who wasn't my fiancé? But still, it was this ring that caused me to feel wrong and for all the wrong reasons.
“Don't do that,” I told him.
“Do what? I thought we were telling it like it is?” The hard set of his face wouldn't crack and I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or if he was serious. He looked serious.
“Maybe you're right. I shouldn't have asked. Forget it, friend.” I shrugged his arm off my shoulders and took a drink of my beer. I was irritated. I felt petulant. I felt like throwing a tantrum.
He grabbed my chin and held it front and center, his voice was low when he said, “First, don't call me friend like it's a swear word. It's mean. Second, we're going up stairs and we might miss the whole f*cking party. Third, you're going to take the ring off. It isn't fair to the guy to f*ck me while you're wearing it and I don't want it scratching up my back. Aly will see it. Get your purse.”
He pulled away from the bar, pulled a few twenties from his pocket and started for the lobby.
He had just said so many raw things that left my mind scrambled, but the one word I heard loud and clear was “Aly.”
I met him at the elevators where he waited for me. Casey stood facing the stainless steel doors and didn't even look at me when I came to be by his side. He knew I was there, though, because as soon as I stopped on his left, he reached his long muscular arm out to press the up button and the door immediately opened.
We stepped inside.
“What floor, Blake?” he asked, but it didn't have even the slightest hint of sweetness that I was so used to.
“Eleven,” I said on an exhale.
He pressed the button when I didn't make a move to do it myself, being that I was closer to the panel of numbers.
The joking fun Casey from earlier was gone. The Casey that wrote on mugs and sent me pictures of animals getting it on and crazy random facts, wasn't there anymore.
In place of him was a man who seemed taller, more rigid than my friend Casey from San Francisco. His posture changed from relaxed to guarded. His tone was one of a man about to take what he wanted. The change happened instantly at the bar after I called him friend. And I felt a little sick that my frustrated and shameful mouth was to blame for the switch.
His mind and silly personality drew me to him, but this new persona said no more f*cking around and that ignited something deep within me.
The man I stepped onto the elevator with made me both boil with serious desire and want to run. His shoulders were set firmer, his spine straight. He changed into a different version of himself. I didn't want the old Casey to go, but in a way I'd pushed him into this. Playful Casey had a menacing air about him now that called to some part in my body that knew it deserved punishment.
I would try once to get back my friend, get back the smile I daydreamed about. If he didn't accept my plight, I would let him have it his way.
Or maybe he was just giving me my way. Only I knew that hindsight would tell me soon enough.
“You are my friend, Casey,” I offered as soon as the blurry reflection in front of us mirrored a mercurial man and a nervous woman.
He didn't answer.
The elevator began to move with almost no sound. We were alone. Just me, Casey, and a tension that made me sweat.
I wanted to look up at him, but anxiety froze me, eyes straight ahead. My index finger toyed with a piece of skin that framed my thumbnail; I itched to bite it.
“Why don't you keep saying that, Blake? You're only trying to convince yourself.” His unwavering timbre vibrated my bones and every molecule in my body heard his message.
He didn't like being called my friend.
The lift slowed its climb as it approached my floor not stopping to let anyone on or off on our ride up. When the doors opened the sun almost blinded me. The hallway in front of us was long and at the end of it was an all glass wall. Through it was the sun setting over downtown Atlanta, the flaming dusk setting precisely in the center of our view. He didn't hesitate to walk straight out of the lift and then he paused, waiting for me to do the same.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
His expression was blank, but I could see a hurricane brewing in his eyes. If I were being honest with myself, I would have admitted to feeling the tiniest bit of fear. The facts told me that I'd only met this man a handful of times and had some long-distance conversations with him. Yet there I was taking him to my room, even though he didn't seem familiar.
He wasn't drunk, neither was I.
I didn't know what was going to happen. It was adventurous and scary as hell. My instincts told me Casey wasn't malicious and that I wasn't in any real danger. It was thrilling. It was arousing. It was fascinating seeing a new side of him, even though I didn't like the reason for its appearance.
“What's your room number?”
“1128,” I said and walked straight past him and into the sun.
He followed close behind and I, for once in my life, didn't have to dig for my room key. It was in the pocket of my jacket, which was slung over my purse. I slid it into the card reader and the green light flashed and the lock clicked.
The tension made everything more vivid. The beep of the lock. The smell of the recirculated air-conditioning that hit me in the face as soon as I stepped into the dark room. There were black-out curtains, which were closed, blocking out the fiery sunset behind them.
I could feel him just behind me.
I only made it in five or six feet before the sound of the door shutting caused me to jump. The darkness in the room seemed blacker than normal. Instantly I heard him kick off his shoes, then the tale-tell sound of a southward zipper. Pants hit the floor and spare change rolled out of a pocket. I made out the rustling of shirts pulling away from skin.
Then I felt his radiating heat, his breath on my neck, and my heart touched my insides, both front and back.
“Where are we doing this?” He sounded much cooler than the heat pouring off him felt. His hand reached around my middle and pulled me back into him. “You were right. My body wants your body. Do you feel that?” he asked as he dipped to grind his hips into my backside. “Take your clothes off.”
There was no sweetness to the request. No tenderness in the sentiment. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, I saw a chair to my right and I went to it, pulling away from his touch. I didn't say a word, automatically doing as I was instructed.
Something about it felt fair. Felt right. I didn't deserve his kindness. I was a cheater. I was a liar. I was a bitch who called someone a friend to be spiteful.
I undressed and I'd never felt more naked—more exposed—despite being cloaked in darkness where he couldn't observe my body. I could barely see his naked form and he loomed like a brooding statue. He wasn't moving, and I couldn't even tell if he was watching me. I could only see his flesh in contrast to the pitch black in my hotel room.
“The ring, too.” Systematically, I slid it off and it made a tinkling sound as the metal hit the top of the table next to the chair. He reacted to the sound like a runner would a starting block at a race. The second my ears registered it, I felt him. His bare skin against mine. I was malleable. He was solid and unyielding. His thighs hit me in the ass and they felt as hard as stone.
His hands found my hips and walked me forward until my knees hit the bed. Casey leaned in closer and said, “This is what you wanted, Blake. This is anatomical.” He turned me around then pressed me forward until my hands came out in front of me to steady myself on the bed.
“So that's what you're getting from me. This is only my body.” His hand again wrapped around my middle and cupped my sex. After rubbing back and forth over my tender, hypersensitive skin he said, “I suppose this is what you wanted, you're already so wet.”
I hadn't paid any attention. Was I really aroused? For the past ten minutes I'd been held hostage by my screaming mind, I didn't even notice how his behavior was affecting me physically.
Just as he slipped a finger between my slick skin, I panted his name, “Casey?” He must have heard the alarm in my voice, too, because he eased up the pressure and stilled his hand.
“Yes,” he said evenly.
“Are you angry with me? I don't want to do this when you're mad. I don't know you that well. I know we've met, hell we've already had sex. We send each other messages, but I'm a little scared.”
“You're scared? Of what?” he asked. His voice was still level and calm but it didn't sound as sharp as it had.
I admitted. “You. This. Do you want to hurt me? I don't know you like this.”
Before he spoke, he took a deep breath as if to collect himself. “I don't know me like this either.” His hand moved smooth strokes over my skin, in a more sensual way. “You drive me crazy,” he said as he stood me up and turned me back around, his other hand never pausing, gently kneading my breast.
Being face to face, I felt compelled to reach out for him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and reeled him in closer to me.
“You give off mixed signals. I'm always trying to read you,” he admitted. He sounded as frustrated as I was.
Heat spread to my outer limbs as a building need grew inside me. I didn't say anything.
He continued, “But see, I guess you like this too.” He kissed my collarbone and sucked. “You call me a friend, then invite me up for more than friendly activities. You act like you only want something physical from me, yet when I don't speak to you and hide myself from you, you become submissive and turned on.”
His mouth continued lower until he was kneeling in from of me, gripping my breast and softly biting at my nipple with hooded teeth. “Now, when I dial it back and touch you like I've been dreaming about, you practically melt in my hand,” he said.
Both of my hands found his head and I ran my fingers through his curly hair and onto his scorching shoulders.
His voice had softened, but it was still laced with turmoil when he said, “I only want to give you what you want. You just have to tell me what that is.” His mouth kissed my hipbone. Then Casey drew a deep breath through his nose. “You smell so f*cking good.”
Oh my God. I felt equal parts uncomfortable and worshiped at the same time. No one had ever shamelessly, and very obviously, inhaled me so, so intimately.
He slid a finger back into me, and pressed his tongue right over my *, applying a masterful amount of pressure to it as his touch languidly relished me. “You taste so good, too.”
My knees went weak and I held onto him. I felt them beginning to quake every so often from the nerves in my thighs short-circuiting from pleasure.
“So, Blake. What's it gonna be? Just my body?” He stopped everything abruptly, but I felt like I still might go off, if only he would blow across my incendiary flesh. That's all I needed to tip these sensations over the edge.
“Or do you want other parts of me, too. The me parts. The Casey parts. It's up to you, honeybee.”
I didn't want to answer. Admitting things to him felt like a trap. One that I'd set for myself.
“I don't deserve all of those parts,” I said out of breath. “It's not fair.”
Casey's mouth pecked light kisses over me and then he gripped my hips on either side, lifting me onto the tall king-sized bed.
“It's fair if you really want them,” he said as he bent down and spread my legs. I leaned back on my elbows, initially, but since I couldn't see him I let my head fall back and hang.
“I don't know what I want,” I confessed.
An “mmm” sound came low and throaty from the man between my legs who was acting more and more like the Casey I knew. The Casey I'd started feeling something real for, even if I didn't know what that something was.
Between his seductive cajolery he spoke against me, “It's not the best possible answer for me, but I think that it's the truth. So, let’s start small. Short-term.” He braced himself over me and his face hovered close to mine. My legs spread open around him, desperate to surround his hips and pull him closer to me.
“What do you want from me this very second?” he asked.
“A kiss,” I said, repeating his initial request in Chicago. We'd only kissed briefly in the bar, and I was aching to feel his lips on mine.
“I like that answer. I want that, too.” Then he kissed me deeply. My toes curled from that kiss. Then he pulled away and continued, “And what else do you want from me right now? And don't say I don't know. It shuts me out. And if you do, I'll shut you out, too.”
I needed a quick answer, so I said, “Touch me.”
He chuckled at my cursory reply and tsked, “You can do better than that, college girl. Try more than a two word sentence. Tell me what you want.”
I wanted it all.