Free Restraint (Xcite Romance) by Charlotte Stein

us – though I’m not quite sure why it has. It wasn’t there last night, when – after a nice meal at an Italian restaurant with plenty of normal hand-holding – we sixty-nined each other, on the bed.
    Or how about the night before that, when after a nice picnic by the lake and some perfectly pleasant chatter about our life goals, we decided to go skinny-dipping? Followed by a bit of vigorous alfresco fucking. 
    We’ve done nothing but fuck and talk all holiday, but now that we’re stood on the porch, waiting for the holiday to be drawn to a conclusion … now there’s nothing? Now we’re just silent and weird and unable to express a single sentiment?
    Though of course I know it’s disingenuous of me, to put those question marks on the ends of those sentences. I mean … come on. I know why we’re suddenly awkward, and it’s got nothing to do with the memories of all the filthy sex we’ve had. He’s not embarrassed, and I’m fairly certain he wants to see me again.
    But unfortunately, the reason that I know this is down to the one word he keeps saying with an alarming frequency, and the one word that I can’t. It’s there, I know it’s there, because on Wednesday James finally figured out what we were doing and actually said to me: Jesus, you’re not just fucking, are you?
    And my face had gone all red and that embarrassment I’d been dreading had welled up, shortly before he’d hooted and said: you’re in love with him! Mallory’s in lo-hove, Mallory’s in lo-ho-hove! 
    After which, that embarrassment had just melted away and been replaced by something else.
    Giddiness, I think it’s called. Giddiness and maybe a bit of shock, to realise that I probably kind of do. I didn’t feel it for Dave Trebecki, after a year together. And I didn’t feel it for Stuart Walker, after two.
    But I feel it for Artie, after three weeks. And he’s just patiently waiting for me to say it, I know he is. He even puts an arm around my waist and starts casually talking about going out sometime next week, maybe, if I want to – you know, just to take some of the pressure off.
    I don’t have to say it, after all. We can just go on another few dates, and have some amazing sex afterwards, and then possibly do something nice … like eating breakfast together in the morning. And then if he wants, we can spend the day after doing other things I’ve never really done before, that I know other couples do.
    James and Lucy are already doing them. They read the paper together the other day, and all I could think when I saw them engaging in an activity like that was:
    Artie would do that with you, if you asked him to.
    Because he would, he so would. He can’t always tell me to do something dirty or even suggest that he’s feeling horny, if I’m honest. But he seems only too happy to talk about normal, relationship-y things. It’s like he actually knows what they’re supposed to be. 
    As opposed to me, who only knows how to look up at him all awkwardly, then fumble out something like:
    ‘I do, you know.’
    Lucky, really, that he still knows what I mean. He’s like me, figuring out what’s being hinted out through near Morse code. He taps on the glass and I understand that he’s wanting something more than making out on the couch. I tap on the glass and he says:
    ‘I know.’
    Only he doesn’t leave it at that. He doesn’t let me get away with just loose signals and half gestures, because after all – I didn’t let him. I pushed and cajoled and talked him into it, and apparently he’s good enough to do the same for me.
    ‘But I think there’s another word for it, that’s slightly more specific than do. What is it again?’
    ‘Care?’
    He glances away towards the road, a half-smile just making its way around to the corner of his mouth. That hand he’s got on my back suddenly sliding ever so slightly beneath the material of my jersey.
    ‘Hmm, that’s a good effort. Not quite what I was looking for,