I push off the dresser and come closer. “It’s exactly like shit puked up in here.”
“See? I’m not lying.” She turns the camera to the room and pans slowly across the furnishings. I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. Tucking my face in against her neck, I kiss her soft skin. She tilts her head, allowing me better access, and I kiss her soft and slow, licking, sucking, and gently sweeping my teeth over her tender flesh until she’s panting. She tastes like salt and coconut body cream. A little moan escapes her, and for a beat, I forgot she was still filming.
“Say goodbye, Stones,” I say.
“Goodbye, Stones,” she says with a chuckle, and tosses the phone down on the bed.
“You turned it off, right?”
“What? You don’t wanna cross ‘make a sex tape’ off your bucket list?”
I laugh and reach for the phone. “Not today.” I glance away from her lips to the screen and sure enough, it’s still recording. “Sorry, kids. This is a private show. Besides, we’re already in enough trouble. I don’t wanna spend whatever time we have left in a jail cell for contributing to the child pornography epidemic.” I wink and hit the end button, and toss the phone on the bed.
“Pornography, huh? What makes you think we’re getting naked at all?” she asks.
“Er ... nothing. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
She laughs and pushes me back on the bed, and climbs on top. “I’m kidding. We’re totally getting naked. I’m going to shower first though.”
“O-okay.” She climbs off my body and across the bed. She grabs the toiletries and sterile dressing kit for her PICC line from the duffle bag and heads into the bathroom. I fold my arms behind my head and stare up at the ceiling, puffing out my cheeks and slowly exhaling.
“Styx?” Alaska pokes her head around the doorframe.
I turn and look at her. “Yeah?”
“It’s normal that I’m terrified, right?”
I grin. “Yeah, I think that’s perfectly normal.”
“Are you—”
“Yeah. I’m terrified too.”
She exhales a huge sigh and covers her face with her hands. “Oh, thank God. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“I won’t.”
She disappears from view and the door snicks softly closed behind her. I try to calm my trembling limbs, but I can’t so I get up and remove my clothes. Then I realize that’s kinda fucked up. What if she doesn’t want to? What if she thinks I’m being presumptuous? What if she takes one look at my chemo body and runs for the hills?
I get dressed again, as quickly as I can, and then I lie on the bed, but that’s too presumptuous too, right? What the fuck? How do guys do this shit?
Breathe, Styx.
Just fucking breathe.
Condoms! Shit. I need condoms. I pinch the bridge of my nose and wish the blood would drain from my dick just long enough for some to filter back to my brain. Where did I last see condoms? My dad’s truck.
I grab the room key and run outside. Where the hell did I park? I run through the lot, half-crazed out of my mind, then I spot Dad’s truck where we left it at the front of the hotel. I should move it in from the main entrance, so the cops don’t drive by and see it.
I jump in and park it at the back of the lot, far from the street. Then I rummage through the glove box, in the trash lining the truck floor, and behind the seat. They’re nowhere to be found. Shit. Did Alaska throw them out the other day? I search my memory. No. She put them back inside the car. So where the fuck are they?
Christ, she’s gotta be finished her shower by now. I jump out of the truck and head for the office. The lady is still watching her soap opera. There are no condom vending machines, despite this being a place that looks like its patrons desperately need protection. “Er ...” I clear my throat. “Have you ... do you guys sell? Um ...”
“If you’re looking for condoms, you’ll find none here. The nearest you’ll get is the drug store a block away.”
“Shit.”
“Maybe you should just abstain.”
“Thanks. That’s sound advice.”
She grunts and I pull my baseball cap down on my head and leave the office. I walk back to the truck and jump in. I don’t want Stones to feel pressured, but I also want to be prepared. The last thing either of us needs is an unwanted pregnancy.
Then it hits me. I won’t make it to have kids. Let’s face it—stage three is pretty much worst-case scenario, and the only way to go from here is to slide right on into stage four. All the poking, the prodding, the tests and chemo—it’s not for us. It’s for them. It’s to ease their collective conscience. The doctors, our parents, hell, even Carissa, they’re all invested in our treatments, in a cure, because it makes it easier to go on living knowing that you fought like hell for a kid whose time was cut way too short.
Alaska and I know differently. We’ll both leave this Earth without making our mark on it, and when our parents die, we’ll be forgotten. There will be no one to remember us, no one to carry on our genes or our legacy. This is it. This is all we get. A road trip to Disney, stolen kisses, the illusion of freedom, and our first time in a “brown” motel room. Now. All we get, all we’re promised is now, and I intend to make every goddamn second count.
I turn the key in the ignition and peel out of the lot, my tires screeching on the blacktop. I tell Siri to find me the nearest drug store and I head there and back in record time. Of course, everything felt so slow as I waited in line with a basket of prophylactics, lube, candy, Advil, Gatorade—to keep our strength up—and a bunch of cheap flowers that has seen better days. I could swear every old lady in the state of California was waiting in that line as I paid for my items, but fuck that noise. YOLO, right?
After I park the truck, I grab my goodies and the room key, and head back to the shittiest motel room on the planet to be with my girl. When I slide the key in the lock, Alaska is on the bed, wrapped in a towel, her knees drawn up to her chest, and her face wet with tears. My heart hammers against my ribcage. Fuck.
I drop my loot and run to her side. “Stones, what’s wrong? What can I do?”
“You left me,” she says in an accusatory tone. “Do you not want to have sex with me? Fuck, I sound like such a girl right now, but you ... just tell me. I can take it. If my scars and my chemo paunch are repulsive to you, I get it.”
“Stones, stop.” I take her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “I already know every inch of your body, even though I’ve barely touched you. Even though I’ve never seen you without your clothes. You don’t have a paunch. You’re fucking hot.” I shake my head. “You’re beautiful, perfect. And I definitely want to have sex with you. Trust me on that. I can’t breathe knowing you’re naked under that towel, and I want you so bad.”
“Then why did you run?”
“I wanted it to be perfect.” I glance at the room around us and laugh. “As perfect as it can be in a shitty hotel like this. I wanted to be prepared. I didn’t want to have to stop halfway through to look for a condom, and when I went out to the truck, I couldn’t find them.”
“You went to get condoms?”
“Yeah. I know that might seem kind of like I was expecting something, and I’m totally okay to wait if you are—”
A line forms between her brows. “You wanna wait?”
“No. Stones, I wanna have sex with you. I want it—I want you—so bad, but only when you’re ready. I just want everything to be right.”
She sniffs and her lips tip up in the corners. “What else did you buy?”
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush, and I stand and walk over to my discarded items. I pick up the bag and dump it out on the duvet. The flowers are even worse for wear now that they’ve been hanging on the brown carpet with whatever flesh-eating viruses live within the fibers, but I hand them to her and she smiles. “You got me cheap drug-store flowers?”
“I did.”
“They’re perfect,�
�� she says, thumbing the bruised petals. She lifts a stem that no longer contains the head of the rose and laughs. “Especially this one.”
“Who doesn’t love a thorny stem, right?”
She sets the bouquet down on the dresser and picks up the bottle of lube, carefully reading the description. Her brows pinch and she bites her lip. “And this?”
“I heard it goes better with lots of lubricant.”
“You’ve really never done this, have you? You weren’t just lying to make me feel better?”
“Nope. Still a virgin.”
“I find that so hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because if I hadn’t been a self-absorbed idiot, if I knew the real you—if I’d spoken to you before—I would have jumped your bones.”
“You hated me.”
“No.” She shakes her head with a coy smile. I want to taste that smile, kiss it from her lips, and steal it for my own. “I didn’t hate you. I wanted you to think I did, because you were a total dick at our second chemo session. Besides, what’s the point in falling in love with someone who’s dying?”
I don’t know if she means herself or me. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. “I think there’s a point. Why wouldn’t you want to live the time we have left?”
“I’m scared, Styx.” Her eyes widen, as if she can’t believe she just admitted that out loud. She’s quiet for a beat, and then she licks her lips and whispers, “I’m so scared of dying. I’m scared of the nothing that comes after.”
I crawl up the bed toward her. My knees straddle her thighs as I cup her cheeks in my hands. “Me too.”
I kiss her lips, her eyelids, and the tears on her skin. She wraps her arms around me so tight that it hurts my ribs, but I don’t dare move. I tuck her hair behind her ear with trembling fingers. She tilts her face up, and I press another gentle kiss into her lips. Stones opens for me, and I tentatively dart my tongue inside. She moans against my mouth and pushes in deeper. I lean into the kiss. Placing my hands on the mattress, I shift my weight, settling between her legs. Alaska fumbles beneath the pillow and I hear the crinkle of a packet. I break away to look at the object in her hand. I laugh. The long string of condoms dangles from her fingers and I take them from her. She had them all this time, and like an idiot I searched that truck for twenty minutes.
“Let’s ... let’s not use my dad’s condoms. It’s fucking weird to think of my old man sticking it to a woman other than my mom.”
“But it’s not weird to think about him sticking it to your mom?”
“Gah! Jeez, stop.” I drag a hand across my scalp. “Do you want my dick to go soft?”
She laughs and then bites her lip, looking up at me. “Is it ... is it hard right now?”
“Yeah, Stones. It’s always hard around you.”
Her breath catches as she seems to consider this. Her mouth opens and quickly closes again, as if she was going to speak but thought better of it.
“What? Tell me.”
The air leaves her lungs in a rush. “Will you show me?”
“Only if you show me yours.”
“I asked you first,” she counters.
“What are you? Five?”
“Yes. Never doubt my ability to perfectly emulate a pissed off toddler. Now show me. Please?” She whines, and I come up on my knees before her. I unbutton my jeans and unzip the fly, but her tiny foot reaches out and she pokes my chest with her big toe. I have to fight the urge to tilt my head for a better look because I know she’s naked under that towel. “Shirt first.”
My lips curl in a half smile. And I grab the fabric and pull it over my head. I look down at her as her eyes rake over every inch of me before lowering to my erection. She sits up, reaches out, and runs her hand over the denim straining against my cock. I inhale sharply. She strokes me again, and then glances up at my face.
Stones unwraps her towel and lets the ends fall on the bed. She leans back and lets me study her. My eyes drink her in, from her smooth tan stomach to her perky upturned tits, the rosy nipples that form hard peaks as I watch. And then finally to the trimmed hair between her legs.
I run my hands over her thighs and spread her wider so I can see everything. She’s beautiful, pink, wet, and waiting. I explore her soft flesh, grinning when her body jerks as I touch her opening, and her clit. She likes that last one a lot, so I concentrate my efforts there, and within a few seconds, she’s panting, her legs are trembling, and sweat is beading on her brow and between her breasts.
I want to taste her. I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, but I’ve watched enough porn to get the gist of it, so I slide down on the mattress and lower my head between her legs.
Her hands dart out to cover herself. “What are you doing?”
“Tasting you.” I dart my tongue out and force my way between her fingers.
“I don’t ... are you sure?”
“Stones, it’s all I’ve wanted to do since we met.”
“What if it’s ... what if I don’t taste—”
“Would you just shut up and let me eat your pussy?”
She balks, her mouth gaping open, and I use her shock to my advantage, darting my tongue between her fingers once more until she moves her hands and allows me complete access. I taste her, bury my face in her pussy and fucking breathe that shit in. I’m nervous as hell. I have no idea how to do this shit properly, how to make a woman come, and I regret my inexperience because her first time should be perfect. She deserves that. A guy who knows how to fuck, how to make her orgasm. I don’t know how to do either of those things, but I don’t care if it takes all night. I’m gonna try my goddamn best.
I concentrate my efforts on her clit. Sucking, rather than licking—thank you, Pornhub, for that little “how to eat pussy” tutorial. She seems to like that a lot, and within seconds, she’s panting, her body jerking, her fingers scratching and clawing at my scalp, holding me in place as she moans. Holy fucking shit. I’m gonna send a goddamn gift basket to CunnilingusDude81.
When she stops writhing, I come up on my knees and climb off the bed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I tear off my jeans and discard them on the floor. Then, with some hesitation, I slide my boxers off too. Her eyes widen at the sight of my cock, jutting out before me. Stones climbs to her feet and crawls across the bed. Her hand wraps around me, and I suppress the urge to grip her hair and tug her head back, exposing the line of her throat. She holds my cock and gently runs her hand along my shaft. A moan escapes me, and then, when she lowers her head and takes me in her mouth, hollowing out her cheeks and sucking me hard, I blow my fucking load right down her throat. Without warning.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Stones chokes.
I cringe, and rake my hands over my scalp, fighting off the post-orgasmic glow, and the desire to both slit my fucking wrists in shame and pass out on the bed. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She glances at the mattress with a nervous chuckle. “Guess I don’t need to ask if I did it right.”
I take her chin between my thumb and forefinger and tilt her face up to mine. “I am so, so goddamn sorry.”
“Styx, it’s fine. An eye for an eye, right?”
I lean down and kiss her lips, forgetting that she just swallowed my cum. I taste myself on her, and it’s both hot and a little bit repulsive. And salty as fuck.
She climbs back up the bed and reaches for the pack of gum on the nightstand. After unwrapping a piece, she folds it in half with her tongue as she takes it in her mouth and chews. She offers me one, but I shake my head. No way am I getting rid of the taste of her.
Several minutes later, Stones removes her gum and sticks it to the nightstand. I crawl on the bed, sliding into the space between her legs. Then I kiss her, deep, hard, as passionately as I’ve wanted to since the first day I saw her at school. It isn’t long before my dick is hard and she’s panting again as I slide it through her wet lips.
“Do it. Fuck me, Styx.”
“Yeah?” I pant, just as breathless.
“Yeah.” She peppers my face with kisses.
I lean up and grab a condom from the bed. I rip into the foil and sheath myself.
Stones hands me the bottle of lubricant. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to use but a huge glob covers the tip of my dick and drips onto the towel beneath her. She cringes, but her expression quickly turns from disgust to longing as I coat the condom in the sticky fluid, stroking myself. I close my eyes, my throat bobbing as I swallow hard and relish the sensations.
“You’re beautiful.”
I open my eyes and grin. “Guys aren’t beautiful.”
“You are.”
“You just love me for my cock.” I lean forward, grasp my dick, and run the head over her clit to punctuate my words.
“And your flapping mouth.” She grins, but the smile quickly fades. Mine does too. “Will you go slow?”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
“Okay, just ...” She wets her lips and exhales a shaky breath. “Be gentle?”
I nod and rub her clit until her breathing picks up speed, then I settle between her thighs and enter her as gently and slowly as possible. The breath catches in her throat. The exhaust fan in the bathroom continues its lazy rotation, the low thud the only other sound.
“Did I hurt you?”
“It’s fine,” she whispers. Tears betray her words. They creep out of the corners of her eyes and roll across her face, marking the pillow.
“Shit, Stones. Do you want me to stop?”
“No, don’t stop. I can take it. I’m no stranger to pain. I’ve had chemo and a metric fuck-ton of needles, remember?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I study her gaze as I hold my weight off her body. “Fuck. The last thing I ever want is to hurt you.”
“I’m okay. Just do it,” she says, but she cries harder with every thrust.
This sucks. Jesus, this sucks so fucking much. I hate hurting her. I hate that it feels so good for me, regardless of how much pain I’m causing her.
I rest my forearms either side of her head, gently stroking back her hair and kissing away her tears as I thrust in as shallowly as I can. Stones shoves me deeper with her heel on my ass. She cries out and I kiss her face.
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