Free Curve Ball by Charlotte Stein Page A

has revolved. Like he is me and I am him. How many years have I spent aiming those same words at him, in my head? Too many to count. Too many to ever admit to, consciously or otherwise.
    And now he’s saying them to me, as though they were on the tip of his tongue, all along. It almost makes me angry – like I should pay him back, for all the times I’ve longed to hear it and never have. But then, when I think about it, what am I paying him back for?
    He never knew.
    He still doesn’t know.
    He’s just holding his breath, waiting for a no I’m never going to give. But it’s that possibility in his mind – that I might not, that I don’t, that I’m uninterested – that makes it easy to answer.
    I’m not some fat chick he’s taking for granted. I’m something else. Something I’ve never even contemplated before.
    Something worthy.
    ‘I want you so much,’ I tell him, and the look of insane relief on his face opens up a whole world for me. A great big worthy world where I’m beautiful and desirable and not the one who has to wait, or pretend I don’t have feelings.
    It might just be for now, but I don’t care.
    I’m taking it with both hands.
    ‘Do you want me?’ I ask, without the slightest doubt that he’ll answer me in a way that doesn’t hurt. It’s a startling sensation – this lack of fear, this ability to say whatever’s on my mind – but it’s a welcome one. It rubs against all the excitement and the arousal, until I’m a dirty-mouthed ball of flaming fire.
    When he nods in this deliciously desperate, near mute-way, I counter with this:
    ‘Do you want my hot little cunt around your cock?’
    Even though I’ve never used the word “cunt” before. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken it aloud, and it sounds alien and near-brutal in my mouth.
    But brilliant, at the same time. It makes his eyebrows jump almost into his hair, and his body does this little weird jerking thing. As though the word came out of me and punched right into him. And once he’s processed what I’ve just said, he shoves out his own words.
    ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘ Fuck yeah.’
    Though that doesn’t quite cover how he sounds, when he says it. He sounds like he would punch a bear, if a bear got in the way of this happening. He sounds so fierce I’d be frightened, if I wasn’t so turned on.
    As it is, all I can manage is more lusty rambling.
    ‘Come on then, baby,’ I say. ‘Come on and have me.’
    Though I’m not sure I expect him to actually do it. It feels like a dare, I think – until he produces 700 condoms from the back pocket of the shorts I recently yanked off him. And then it feels more like something that’s really going to happen. He’s going to fuck me, I realise.
    I’m going to fuck Steven Stark.
    But first, I get to watch Steven Stark put a condom on – which is actually much sexier than it sounds. Usually I get one in the eye before the whole thing’s done, or maybe the guy’s too anxious, and three hours of wrestling with latex sort of puts him off a bit.
    This isn’t the case with Steven. Of course it isn’t. He’s some sort of condom expert, obviously. He’s put on so many of the things in his long, lurid sex life that he could do it blindfolded during a doomsday countdown. I think he actually does it one-handed, and so quick I’m not sure it’s happened.
    I have to hold him off with one foot on his chest, just to double check.
    Though doing this has some unintended consequences. Let’s put it this way: he isn’t pleased that I stop him in his tracks. His lips part and those eyelids of his get even heavier, until he’s looking at me like I’m a gazelle trying to leap away from him, on the plains. And then he says, ‘Oh, so you want to play it like that.’
    Which isn’t all that good for my libido.
    I think my libido swoons, and slides right off the bed.
    ‘What do you want me to do? Beg you?’
    Oh God, wake up, libido, wake up! He’s saying things you’re gonna want