Free Faking It by Elisa Lorello

you so ashamed of?"
    My head stayed tilted toward the floor and I took a few seconds to find a voice with which to answer him. "My inexperience."
    "I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. At least you're learning something now. You're willing to own your experience. And besides, it's not like you had much encouragement growing up."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I mean, you were told that you were off limits, and that sex was some big taboo, a secret, and you were not worthy to know about it."
    I had never realized that. Suddenly I saw my childhood through new lenses.
    "And that's a bum wrap," he continued. "It's bad enough that society teaches us that a woman's body is supposed to be a thing of service. You had a double-edged sword. Your brothers, although well meaning, sent a message that you were to serve no one. And both notions are dead wrong. They punished you for being who you were, for being attractive to and pursued by others. They probably thought you were too good for the average guy, but you took it to mean that you were the one who wasn't good enough. I'll bet you were vivacious and even sexy as a girl, and your family snuffed that right out of you."
    He reached out, gently touched my chin with his hand, and lifted it, to find tears streaming down my cheek. He moved his hand from my chin and smudged the wet line across my face. I tried to look at him, but couldn't.
    "You're a very sexy woman, do you know that?"
    I shook my head.
    "You wanna know something else?" he asked.
    I felt like a little girl, and he was soothing away a scrape on my knee or exonerating me from the vase I broke. "What," I nearly whimpered.
    "You turned me on before."
    I sat up a bit.
    "Really?"
    "Hell yeah."
    "How? What did you like?"
    "I liked the way you stroked my hair. It's been a while since a woman's done that to me." He took my hand and held it, touching each finger. "I like the feel of your hands. You've got these delicate fingers. I'll bet men like your gentleness."
    If they did, they never told me.
    I looked at his hand, and moved my own so that his was now in mine.
    "I like hair that I can run my fingers through," I said, looking at his dark brown layers. "I like your hair."
    Womanhood rushed back in and took over, and my voice lowered to a soft, round tone. "And I loved the way your hands felt on my neck," I added.
    He smiled and looked down--I could swear he was blushing. I moved close enough so that our legs were touching, and leaned in to him. "Do you want more?" I asked. He laughed lightly and very slightly moved back, and I recoiled in secret mortification when I assumed that he thought I was kidding.
    "So," I began, sitting straight up, recomposing myself and resuming a scholarly voice, "is the purpose of foreplay to have better intercourse?"
    "Depends on your audience," he said with a wink. "Actually, I think the purpose of foreplay should be pleasure, plain and simple. Stop worrying about it so much and the intercourse stuff will take care of itself."
    "Again with the pleasure--you're a hedonist, you know that?"
    "It's my job," he said earnestly.
    "Are you saying that your clients enjoy the foreplay more than the actual sex?"
    "That is the sex."
    "What do you mean?"
    "I don't go all the way with my clients, Andi."
    If I had a dollar for every jaw-dropping moment with Devin, I could've bought his friggin' loft.
    " You don't? "
    "Nope."
    "But you're an escort! What are they paying you all that money for?"
    "To please them."
    "And you do that without actually..."
    "Inserting my penis?"
    The words made me wince.
    "There are lots of ways to get laid, Andi. In fact, most female orgasms don't happen during intercourse."
    "Actually, that I knew."
    "Have you ever had an orgasm?"
    "Yes and no." Despite my hope that the conversation would end there, he was clearly waiting for me to continue. "I never had one with a man. I mean--"
    "You mean, you did it yourself?"
    "Yeah," I said squeamishly.
    "That's pretty common. So, how did the