At first, I believe him, so I let him go. Then I see his glazed eyes peek open, and I read what they are saying: more.
I touch him once more, tentative, then start riding him again. Here I feel more comfortable, spurred by the pressure I feel building in myself. The way it feels when I rub up against him there…it makes me crazy.
Pretty soon we’re both gasping. Dash’s hands are clasped around my hips, he’s pushing me and pulling, dragging me over him. I can feel the hard, firm pressure of him where I crave it most.
More!
I need something more.
Looking down at him, there is a moment where I make a choice. Then I’m pulling down my bathing suit bottoms. I rise off him and do it fast, then sink back on him.
“Am…?”
I arrange my dress around us. Then I unbutton his pants, looking into Dash’s eyes as my shaking fingers work his button, then his zipper.
“Ohhhhhhh.”
“I want to touch you,” I whisper.
His hands are on my thighs, his fingers gentle as they move toward where I want them. When his finger covers me, I cry out.
I’m dizzy, blind with need. I rock my hips so I’m pushing against his fingers.
Inside. I want them inside!
“Please…” It’s whimpered.
“You want me to touch you?”
“Yes!”
Dash’s finger slides inside, and my world sizzles like a bolt of lightning.
I don’t know… His fingers moving… I’m touching him, too, and…God, the way he moves. The jerky motion of his hips, the little gasps from both of us and deeper groans from him.
When he moves his fingers off me, I reach down myself and align him with me, so as I rock, I’m gliding over him. I know it’s naughty. Dangerous. But I can’t stop. I just can’t stop.
I want Dash’s heart and soul, but in this moment, what I need is Dash’s body. The humid air pulses and crackles in my ears. I hear the water lap the shore and feel the cotton of his boxers and the hot silk of his skin over that long, stiff rod.
I don’t dare to touch him too much with my fingers—I’m too shy, too tentative—but when I rub myself against that part of him, it lights me up so bright I just can’t stop. And so we’re thrusting, both of us bucking, craving something deeper, craving, and I know, I know what I can do…
I reach down, parting myself, making room, and then I guide his tip into the heat of me.
I see Dash blink once, his eyes going wide, and then he’s got me by the thighs. He murmurs, “love you,” soft and slow. I feel his fingers shaking. “Do it,” I beg. He blinks, shutting his eyes for just a moment. Then he thrusts—and all at once, I’ve entered heaven.
They say that it’s supposed to hurt. That there is blood, and women cry, but that’s not how it is for me.
All at once I’m filled. I’m whole.
Dash touches my deepest ache and makes it good. He makes my body sweat and scream and flinch and buck and rub against his. He makes my head spin so fast I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m saying. I’m saying “I love you.” He echoes it back and while it’s fast, it’s hard, it’s rough, I love it so much. There is nothing better in this world than Dash inside me, moving, grunting, sweating. I allow it. I allow him anything he wants, and so he takes and I give.
Then he’s finished. I’m still aching, so he claims me with his mouth, and I come apart into a million pieces. I am dancing in the moonlight.
Afterward, I’m wrapped in Dash’s shirt. He holds me in his lap, lamb-style, kissing my cheeks and chin and hair and eyes.
When we’re more steady, Dash uses his shirt and lake water to clean my hands.
“They’re not dirty,” I giggle.
“I want to take care of you,” he whispers. “We should go. Somewhere that has a bath.”
“I don’t want to let go of you.”
And so I don’t.
We lie there wrapped in moonlight, talking until the sky begins to lighten.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he says near the end.
“Shut up, Dash. I wanted it. I wanted that to be with you.”
“I’m still leaving.” He hangs his head.
“It’s okay.” It hurts me to say so, but I love him. I just want him to be happy. “All you have to do is call—and come see me.”
Sometime around six o’clock, Dash’s phone rings and he steps away to take a call.
“Alexia,” he sighs, kissing my cheek. “She got fucked up and someone took her home. I need to check on her. I won’t leave so soon anymore, though. I’ll hang around a few more days; I want to be with you a little longer.”
“Good.”
“Just let me run to my house? Take care of some things? Did you say you’re going to your friend Lucy’s house?”
I nod. “She texted. I could still go now, but I would need a ride.”
“I’ll drive you.”
He carries me to his truck, sets me on the seat, and buckles me. We stop at a small but clean motel, where Dash leads me inside, and he bathes me, rubbing me so that I come apart again.
I look down at him, hard and strained, but Dash just shakes his head. “Just you.” He kisses my hair, and we hold hands in the cool and dewy air as we walk back out to his truck.
At nine o’clock, he drops me off at Lucy’s family’s farm, half an hour south of Sandy Hill.
“I’ll call you in a few hours,” he says, giving me a long kiss, open-mouthed and drugging.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“If you don’t, you’ll wreck my world,” I tell him, trying to sound teasing. “Remember what I told you—about Mom.”
“I would never wreck you, Ammy. I’ll sneak over to see you or we’ll meet somewhere tonight. You have my word.”
By that night, his truck is gone. His word is worthless. And my heart is broken.
Six
Amelia
Summer 2016
It can’t be. It can’t be him!
My body feels electric; at the same time, numb. I can feel my fingertips trembling, feel my pulse gallop so fast my head feels like a balloon that might float off. When I try to breathe, my lungs don’t seem to expand fully.
I feel frozen like Lot’s wife—a pillar of cold, bloodless salt—as I behold his older face. His gorgeous face. With his dark hair long and straight, pushed off his forehead and falling around the collar of his shirt; his hazel eyes framed by stylish hipster glasses; and a coat of scruff over the hard lines of his face, Dash looks every bit the gorgeous artist.
My eyes meet his for just a fraction of a second before I jerk my burning gaze down: over his shirt—slightly tight, a charcoal Batman tee—and then his knee-ripped, old and busted jeans. Where someone fashion conscious might wear Chucks or Velcro-strapped designer sneakers, Dash is sporting black flip-flops.
I note a pencil tucked behind his ear and how damn wide his shoulders are before I have no choice but look him in the eye.
I know my face is flawless and impossible to read.