“I...don’t think I can.” My voice is shaking—like my body.
His mouth comes down to crush mine, and he bites my lip before he whispers, “Don’t be stupid, Marley.”
I can’t even speak, can only gasp as his hand slips into my underwear and traces, feather-light, over my puffy slit.
He rolls a fingertip around my clit, and I groan as his mouth returns to mine. He kisses me gently before he starts to break away to speak between our harder kisses: “Don’t be stupid. I would use you so hard, you would ache for days. I’ve never hurt like this before, Marley. I’ll hurt you too.”
His eyes on mine are hypnotic.
His finger on my clit is heavy.
My voice quivers as I say, “I want you to.”
“That would be foolish. You’re not foolish, Dr. Daniels.”
“You don’t know.”
He drags his finger through my drenched slit, nestling it at my entrance. I rock my hips up toward him, but he shakes his head.
“This is a mistake. You understand that, right?”
Alarm rises in me, but it’s lost in want so thick it’s like a cloud.
I nod, and his eyes shut.
“Oh, Marley…”
“Please!”
And so he gives me what I’m begging for. Gabe stuffs two fingers in me, deep and probing, rips my panties clean in half, and starts to lick me so, so, softly. Even as his fingers fuck me hard, his devil's mouth is soft enough to make me cry.
When I get close, he licks around my throbbing clit and pulls his fingers partway out. He lifts his head and he says, “Do you want to go now?”
I can only mewl.
He fucks me with his tongue and fingers till I’m right there on the edge again, and then he nips at me and lifts his head, revealing hot eyes and a gleaming mouth. “Everyone knows fucking your ex is stupid, Marley. So I'll give you one more chance to go. Last call.”
And so, of course, I make the wrong one.
I lift my hips to try to put my clit in contact with his finger, which he drags from my cunt through my slit, rolling my own slickness over me, teasing my clit with just the slightest pressure.
“Gabe…please!”
“Please what, Marley?”
I groan.
“Please what?” he asks, as his fingers pump inside me.
“You know,” I say mindlessly. I blink my rolling eyes. “Please fuck me.”
“With my fingers? With my mouth?”
My eyes are wet as I blink up at him. “Anything,” I manage.
“Anything. And in what matter?”
I blink. “Any manner.”
So he turns me over, smears my wetness back between my legs—making me cry out as his finger strokes my pussy—and he rolls his fingertip around my tender bud.
I cry out in anticipation. Gabe sinks his fingers into my pussy.
“Do you really want this?” His thumb teases my clit.
“I do,” I hear myself cry.
“Okay,” he says darkly. “Only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
I shut my eyes and try to breathe, try to prepare for the invasion. When it comes, it’s so gentle, his fingertip so soaked, I groan. It feels so good, I shiver. As he pushes deep inside, my pussy clamps down on his fingers, and his thumb on my clit sends me to the stratosphere. I’ve never come so hard. As I do on his hand, and when I come into myself again, I feel him still inside me, the hand that fucked my pussy resting gently on my ass cheek.
“Ready?” he murmurs. I nod, and he’s out.
I’m dizzy as I blink around the room—a bedroom with blue curtains—and Gabe scoops me up and lays me in the bed, which smells like vanilla.
“Rest,” he says, and then he’s gone. I’m half asleep, I’m in a fugue state. Then he’s back and I can see he’s hard as lead inside his work-out shorts. I try to sit up, but he puts a hand on my shoulder and shakes his head.
I let him clean me with a warm towel, feeling something afterward that takes the sting away—a kind of warming cream. I’m on my side, and when I peer up at him, I’m so exhausted, I can feel my eyes roll back.
“Are you okay?” I manage, dimly.
He nods, reaching down to tuck his cock into the waist of his pants.
“Do you want me to take care of that?” I murmur.
Gabe shakes his head. Then he scoops me up—sheet and all—and carries me in front of him. I can tell our time is over—he’s taking me to my place—before we reach the front door.
I find myself too shy—to embarrassed, maybe—to look at him. But when he opens his front door and steps into the cool night, I think I feel him glancing down at me.
He moves quietly and efficiently up the stairs with me, setting me down and handing me my keys in front of my door. When I blink, he’s got his head ducked slightly. For half a second, his blue eyes swing up to mine.
“Thank you,” he says softly, already heading down my stairs into the inky darkness.
3
Marley
I awaken the next morning feeling like the universe has rearranged itself. After I brush my teeth, I blink into the mirror and I try to see back over time, to see all the Marleys that I’ve been since I was old enough to look in mirrors. Sometimes if I squint right, I can see one of the others: Mar the middle-schooler who wore pig-tails every day and was obsessed with Judy Blume; high school Marley with her bangs and pony-tail and somber face; Gabe’s first Marley, with her blunt bob hair and pert red lips and too-large eyes. And then the Marley I’ve been mostly since. The One Who Gets Shit Done. The One Who Doesn’t Make Excuses, Who Does What Is Reasonable and Right and Logical and Necessary.
I blink and blink and blink and blink because I know The New Marley, she does not let her ex finger her asshole. She does not. She walks down to the farmer’s market café and she has her whipped-cream-topped apple cider, and if she thinks about Gabe weeping on the first floor, she does so with only the most distant kind of curiosity, with only the most removed sort of concern. Because she knows he’s not hers, and she knows why that is a very good thing. And she is living her life on a straight line, goddammit; she is on an arrow, and her arrow knows the way and never dumps her off to fall through outer fucking space screaming a silent, oxygen-less scream. She knows she should ride this arrow straight into tomorrow, and if she does, This Smarter Marley understands that if not happiness, there should at least be peace. And this Marley, she needs peace. She requires it.
Therefore, clearly, this Marley is dead. She died the moment she wrapped her hand around the doorknob and pushed. She was buried under Gabe’s hot tongue. And when he carried her up the stairs—the outdoor stairs—wrung out and tussled, and he sat her on her doorstep, she was born again.
What kind of creature is she now? I blink at her neck, marked with green and yellow bruises. I look at her hair, just washed and half dry on her back and shoulders. I straighten her glasses.
I don’t know her motivations, her intentions, her limits, or her plans.