can use this.â
In the dark, I didnât know what it was or what its utility would be.
âItâs lotion,â she clarified. âDonât guys do that? On themselves?â
I took off my boxers and applied the lotion to my erection as I straddled her lower body. With my left hand on her breast, my right took care of myself. Iâd never done this in the presence of anyone, but it felt oddly natural.
Then she did something that surprised me: she rubbed under her shorts, her eyes shut, her breaths quickening. As she continued to worry her clitoris, I stayed silent until my denouement, when I startled myself with a squelched grunt. The seed that had been buried in innumerable shrouds of Kleenex now, for once, ended up on another human being.
Sara kept going until her own climax, a small affair that seized up her core muscles before releasing them like a bout of pleasurable indigestion. She reached on top of her bedside table for the white T-shirt sheâd worn that day and mopped up her stomach and rib cage. Dropping it on the floor, she put her RAISE OHIOâS MINIMUM WAGE NOW ! shirt back on, then curled her back against my chest. I slung an arm around her.
âConfession,â she said. âIâve never done that before.â
I didnât say anything, just breathed on her neck.
âHave you?â she asked.
âMmhuh,â I said.
Her heartbeat was palpable to my cradling arm. âWell,â she said, âI hope youâre not intimidated by my extensive erotic record.â
A humble, self-deprecating remark that, a couple of weeks earlier, would have made me banter back with wordplay, maybe compel me to recant my statement and tell her the truth. But now, after Iâd captured you pre- and post-shower, Saraâs inexperience only reminded me that we were two virgins and that you were adventuring elsewhere on campus. People like you didnât mutually masturbateâyou had sex. No, even that was putting too chaste a spin on it. You fucked.
Citore drocer, I thought.
âThatâs all right,â I said, offering neither any real assurance nor a lighthearted follow-up to put her at ease. My arm remained around her, but it suddenly felt like it wasnât mine anymore, a prosthetic limb.
Another silence as her wheels turned for the phrasing of her next question. âDid you have a girlfriend in high school?â
âHeidi,â I answered.
âWhen were you together?â
âTenth grade on.â
âWhenâd you break up?â
âThis summer,â I said. âShe wanted to stay together for college. I didnât.â
Sara processed that revelation for some time. âWhat was she like?â
âShe was nice.â
âWas she pretty?â
âWell, she was the lead in most plays. I guess that says something.â
âWhoâs prettier, me or her?â Sara asked, then quickly laughed. âJust kidding.â
I yawned loudly. âIâm actually kind of tired. Mind if we go to sleep?â
âOf course,â she said.
As I dozed off to the white-noise machine, I stroked Saraâs arm, mentally elongating it until it reached your lithe proportions.
The one way to guarantee I sat by you in Prufrock would be to wait for you to enter the room first, tricky to engineer, since you were consistently late to class. The next Tuesday I stood outside the door in Harvard Hall, pecking at my phone. As the students trickled in and you still hadnât shown, I grew anxious; Iâd yet to be tardy for any classes, and though they didnât take attendance at the lectures, I didnât want to blemish my self-monitored perfect record.
When I heard, through the door, Samuelson begin his lecture, I gave myself a deadline: three more minutes.
Five minutes later I was about to go in, when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I stole a look down the hallway to confirm it was you, pocketed my phone