Good

I’d touched myself lots of times, but this was different. It felt different when another person did it, and it especially felt different with no hair. It’s like my nerve endings multiplied by a trillion. I could feel every single slight movement of his fingertips, and there was no way to alleviate the intensity of his touch. Plus, I didn’t want to.

 

I spread my legs a little more to accommodate his hand. He teased my tender flesh and rubbed me rhythmically, watching me squirm and arch my back and shake my head from side to side like I was telling him to stop. But I wasn’t telling him to stop. I’d swear at him if he did.

 

“May I kiss you, Cadence?” he asked.

 

I nodded, closing my eyes, waiting for the first touch of his lips on mine. But I kept waiting, feeling the bed shift, thinking he was teasing me, asking me silently to beg for it.

 

“Please kiss me,” I said, eyes locked shut, immersed in sweet darkness.

 

I felt something warm and wet between my legs, and my eyes flew open.

 

“Oh my God!” I cried, and looked down at Mark’s face between my legs.

 

He raised his head. “You said I could kiss you.”

 

“On my lips!”

 

“I am,” he replied, grinning like a fiend.

 

“Oh. My. God.”

 

“Relax, Cadence. You can lie back down,” he said. “Unless you’d like to watch.” He ran his tongue over me while his eyes stayed glued to my face.

 

I fell back onto the pillow, unable to watch because it was too intimate. I should have watched. It was happening to me, after all, but I covered my face with my hands instead, moaning into my palms, pushing my hips up, instinctively inviting him to continue. I had no control over my body. It did things apart from my will. It encouraged him to lick and nibble and kiss. And when all of those things stopped abruptly, I screamed. I had no control over that either.

 

“Don’t stop, damnit!”

 

 “Can’t I just look at you for a moment? Greedy thing,” he mumbled, then drew in his breath sharply. “You have the sweetest little *, Cadence. You could drive a man insane with it.” He slid his finger inside me carefully. I felt myself stretch around him, my breathing coming in rapid pants. And then he forced another finger inside.

 

“No!” and I pumped and twisted my hips, trying to get his fingers out. They hurt.

 

“Shit. I’m sorry,” he said, and withdrew his hand. “I’m really sorry, Cadence.”

 

I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged myself protectively.

 

Mark sighed. “I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry, Cadence.”

 

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not mad or anything. I just didn’t realize it’d hurt like that.”

 

I suddenly wondered if Mark would have the willpower to stop if I decided right as he was entering me that I didn’t want to have sex. I thought he would, but I also thought that stopping might kill him, and I realized in that moment the kind of power I wielded over him.

 

“What would you do for this?” I asked. I pointed between my legs.

 

Mark looked at me confused, so I repeated my question.

 

“I’m not trying to be coy or anything,” I said. “What would you do for it?”

 

“Anything,” he said. “I’d turn my life inside out.”

 

So I was right. I did wield power over him.

 

“Well, I’m not ready to be turned inside out yet,” I said playfully.

 

“Again. I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking.”

 

“It’s okay,” I said. I bit my lower lip. “Mark?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Will you go down on me again?” And then I added, “But only if you want to! I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to.”

 

Mark laughed hard.

 

“What?”

 

“Oh my God, Cadence. I’d do that all day if you’d let me,” he replied.

 

I blushed and lowered my legs, letting them fall open, inviting him to taste me.

 

“I want you to tell me what feels good,” he said. “What you like. Okay?”

 

“Just do whatever you want,” I replied.

 

“No, Cadence. I want this to be spectacular for you. So tell me what you like and what you don’t. I wanna give you what you want.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He ran his tongue over my opening. “Do you like that?”

 

“Yes,” I breathed.

 

He did it again, slower. “That?”

 

I shifted. “Yes.”

 

He plunged his tongue in me. “That?”

 

“YES?”

 

“I’m confused,” Mark said.

 

I moaned.

 

He nipped my clit softly. “What about that?”

 

“Ohhhh.”

 

He drew my clit into his mouth and sucked gently, making my toes tingle and throb. “Hmm?” he asked, continuing his work.

 

“Ahhhh.”

 

He found a rhythm and continued sucking, teasing me with his tongue every now and again, making me go rigid with anticipation. I was about to blast off into space, and this was my only training class. He hummed between my legs, the vibrations making me think absurdly of rocket boosters. They kept switching on, one after the other, and now there was no way I could exit the cabin. Or my seat. I was buckled in, and the countdown had started. I tugged on Mark’s hair, but he didn’t let up. I didn’t want him to. No, I did want him to. No no, I did not want him to. Three, two, one. Liftoff, and ahhhh . . .

 

I screamed, arching my back, holding on to the captain’s hair, feeling the atmospheric pressure change. My ears popped, and I screamed again, tingling bursts all over as my body ripped in two. But then the cabin pressurized, normalized, and I felt my body pulled towards the ceiling. I floated on exhaustion and zero gravity. I loosened my grip, heard a faint “thank you” in the background, and drifted into sweet stupefaction.

 

 

 

I awoke some time later to the smell of sizzling bacon. My stomach contracted angrily, and I lay paralyzed, waiting for the cramp to subside. I needed food. Now.

 

I threw on my pajamas and headed for the kitchen.

 

“Good morning. Again,” Mark said, flipping the bacon pieces.

 

“How long did I sleep?” I asked.

 

“Thirty minutes or so,” he replied.

 

“You knocked me out.”

 

“I know. I’m pretty proud of myself for that.” He handed me a cup of coffee.

 

I smirked. “Yeah, I bet you are.”

 

“Sugar and cream,” he said, pointing to the dining room table.

 

I plopped in a chair and dressed my coffee. I watched Mark move about the kitchen, preparing what looked to be a breakfast feast.

 

“Do you like to cook?” I asked.

 

“I learned to like it,” he said.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“When you live by yourself, you either learn to cook or you eat out all the time and get fat,” he explained.