“Oh, X. You don’t know what you’re asking for.” The growl of your voice is the implacable slide of an avalanche.
“But I ask it anyway, Caleb,” I say.
And then you’re in me. A slow, sweet glide. My mouth falls open, and your eyes are wide, as are mine, and your hands cup my bottom, lower me onto you. I grip your neck, gasping with the dulcet ache of you, the molasses-slow piercing, until you are seated within me and I can’t even breathe for it, can only let my head hang back on my neck and whimper.
“Is this what you want, X?” you ask, and pin my spine to the glass. “Look at me, goddammit, and answer me.”
I open my eyes. My upper lip is curled in a snarl of ecstasy. “Yes, Caleb. This is what I want.”
But it’s not. Not only this. There is so much more, but I don’t have the words for it all.
Three short thrusts, my clit scraping against your hard, pumping shaft, and I come.
I collapse against your chest, feeling and smelling and tasting your sweat.
You move, carry me, still full of you; each step causes me to flinch and twitch and gasp and tingle, shooting bolts of after-spasms through me. And then you lay me down on my bed, on my back, and my legs hang off the edge. You stand between my spread-apart thighs, and you push, once.
I cry out.
You push in again, your hands gripping my hips, and I wail aloud.
You lean forward, and I feel you over me, feel your gaze. I wrap my arms around your neck, legs around your waist, and hang on. You crawl forward, drape me gently so my head is on the pillow, and now you’re kneeling over me. Still in me. Aching in me. I feel you shaking with need. Your eyes remain on mine, and you wait, utterly motionless now.
I arch my back, flex my hips, and thrust against you.
You groan.
Oh, that sound. Your voice, so often silent, rumbles a sound of wordless pleasure, and I thrill to hear it.
You dip your head, and I press my breasts to your mouth.
Something wild and hotter than lightning snaps through me at the touch of your mouth on my nipple.
I come apart again like an erupting volcano, thrust against you, and now you move, move, move.
We writhe together.
Your groans become loud.
Mine turn to cries, sobs of pleasure.
Your hand cups my neck, lifts me to you; the other curls around the back of my thigh near my knee and wraps my leg around your hip, and you push into me, and we meet each other there, thrust for thrust. I look at you and see your eyes wide and surprised, see emotion bleeding out of you. It takes the slashing rawness of this moment to make you show anything, but now I see it.
You don’t know how to do this.
No more than I do.
We are learning this together.
“Caleb,” I whisper, and I come.
It is a detonation of bliss, everything in me flying apart, and I exhale every molecule of breath I have left as I am wrenched by the orgasm, twisted, wrung.
And then, as the climax reaches its peak, you do the unthinkable.
You kiss me.
And you come, unleashing yourself within me, a hot wet gush, filling me, and you move frantically and you kiss me and grip my thigh with bruising frantic strength and your other palm grips my breast and thumbs my thickly erect nipple and I spasm with you, coming again, and now you see me, my eyes open as are yours, and this is a moment like no other, something huge and manic and terrifying and new bursting open and filling us both.
You come,
And I come,
And you kiss me,
And I kiss you,
And there is a thread between us, something real established.
Your forehead touches mine, and you are gasping for breath. Crushing me with your weight. “Jesus, X.”
You try to move off me, but I cling to you.
“Don’t leave, Caleb,” I whisper.
“I have to—I’ve gotta go.” You are not you anymore.
You are starting to close down. Perhaps, becoming more you. Or . . . less you. I don’t know. Is the real you the tormented being I glimpsed trapped behind the shadowy veil of your eyes? Or is the real you the brusque, icy, efficient, impersonal creature of tailored suits and expensive cars?
I grip your wrist with one hand, lock my thighs around your waist and hook my heels around your backside, keep you firmly against me, in me, even as you soften. With my other hand, I do something I’ve never done before: I touch your hair. Feather my fingers through inky strands.
“If you leave now, Caleb, all of this will be for nothing. You’ll undo whatever that was we just shared. That was sharing something. I saw part of you, Caleb.”
“Fucking hell, X. You don’t get it.” A rough growl, a curse from you, so uncharacteristic.
“No, I don’t. But . . . stay anyway. Relax, just for a moment.”
You are tense for a moment, a sculpture of granite. And then, slowly, you melt, soften, and you dip a shoulder to the bed, twist to your back. Gradually, as if completely unsure if you’re doing it right, or even what you’re doing, you lay your head down on the pillow beside me. Drawn out of me, your manhood is slack and wet against your thigh. I feel your essence leaking out of me, but I don’t dare move, don’t dare to even think of it. I lie next to you, hands stuffed under the pillow, on my side, facing you.
This feels like curling up next to a lion in its cage.
You reach out a hand, and I tense, cease breathing.
But all you do is touch me, a single forefinger stroking upward from my thigh to my hip, over my waist, up my ribs, to my breast.
“You are beautiful.” A murmur, as from the bottom of the turbulent dark sea.
“Thank you.” I shift to the side, drape my arm behind me so your tentatively touching finger can brush from breast back down to my hip.
I dare touch your bicep. The lion twitches, and I know I could be devoured in a split second.
A game of touches, exploration of mutuality: a fingertip to my nipple, my palm sliding from knee to jagged hip bone; tracing my backside, following the curve from outer edge of hip to inner crease and up my spine, my fingers on the furrowed field of your abs.
You do not speak, and I don’t dare break the magic of this. It is too fragile.
My eyes droop, weigh heavily.
Touch skates over me, hesitant and gentle and smooth and slow.
I drift, and drowse . . .
And sleep.
EIGHTEEN
I wake alone.
Silence.
“Caleb?”
Nothing.
Dawn streaks through the window. I look to the left, and see that my closet door is open. The racks are bare, not even a hanger in sight.
My throat seizes. I leap out of bed, headed for my library.
It is there, intact.
I return to my bedroom, to my closet. Empty. Totally empty. Even the bureau against the far wall of the walk-in closet is empty. I have not a single stitch of clothing left to me.
Back out to the living room. The couch is gone, the coffee table, the Louis XIV armchair. The dining room table is gone.
My front door stands open.
The elevator door is open, the key in the slot inside the car.
I am utterly confused.
Back inside, to the library. There is my chair and the table in the triangle between shelves. On the table is an envelope containing a stack of hundred-dollar bills, and a note handwritten in bold, slanting letters:
MADAME X,
THIS DRESS IS THE ONE I FOUND YOU IN. IT’S YOURS, FROM BEFORE.
I LEAVE YOU THE BOOKS, BECAUSE I KNOW YOU TREASURE THEM.
THE CAMERAS AND MICROPHONES ARE OFF.