by Sandy Lowe
Emma closed her eyes. Somehow it was easier to tell Lauren what’d happened without looking at her. She had to do it. Lauren had revealed her history and Emma owed her the same honesty. The only difference was, Lauren’s problems were actual problems, complete with a villain who was legitimately out to get her. Emma’s problem was ridiculous hurt from a thousand years ago, and her villain was a blond cheerleader.
Except, that’s not exactly accurate is it? The real villain is me.
“It’s silly,” Emma said.
“If it’s bothering you, I promise it’s not silly.”
Emma wrapped an arm around Lauren’s waist, wanting to slide her hand lower but not having the guts. “You know that game, seven minutes in heaven?”
“Where you go into a closet and make out?” Lauren traced lazy circles across Emma’s back.
Emma nodded against her shoulder, losing the battle with her curiosity and not so accidentally brushing a fingertip along the outer curve of Lauren’s breast. “When I was sixteen I was invited to my first party. I had my first drink. I played my first game of seven minutes in heaven.”
Lauren tightened her hold and shifted, giving Emma unencumbered access to her breasts. The move was intentional. Lauren had done it to distract her, to make it easier to talk. Feeling Lauren up while she explained “the catalyst for her clinical anxiety” according to her far too perky-in-the-face-of-insurmountable-odds therapist should’ve been weird. But somehow touch was just the perfect thing to ground her in the present so that the past could stay a memory to be retold, and not a moment to be relived.
“That’s quite the introduction to the joys of being a teenager,” Lauren said.
“You’re telling me.” Going with the tacit permission, Emma stroked Lauren’s breasts and had to hold back a whimper. Lauren was just as soft and firm and smooth and sexy as she’d imagined, her breasts small and perfectly proportionate to her slender frame. “I was really nervous to play. I knew I wasn’t very attracted to boys, even then, and the idea of being alone with one made me cringe, but I didn’t want to look like a loser.”
Lauren squeezed her shoulder.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, there wasn’t an equal gender split, and I was the last person the spun bottled pointed to.”
Lauren rubbed up and down Emma’s arm, playing her fingers along the bones in her elbow. “Who was the second to last person? A girl I’m assuming.”
“It was Jessica Norman.” Just saying the name out loud made Emma sick.
Lauren muttered a string of curses that began with crap and ended in motherfucker.
“I mean, at the time I couldn’t believe my luck. Even if we didn’t do anything, and I assumed we wouldn’t, I’d still get to talk to her. I’d still be the girl who got to play seven minutes in heaven with the head cheerleader and the prettiest senior in school.”
“Hmm.” Lauren was clearly unwilling to commit to an opinion on that.
“There wasn’t an actual closet, so we used a bedroom, closed the door and turned the lights off. It was summer and not all that late so even with the blinds closed I could still see her. I was so awkward for a few seconds, until she said, ‘Have you ever made it with a girl before?’ I about lost my mind. To my sixteen-year-old hormones, the way she phrased it implied that she had made it with a girl and was offering me a gilded invitation. I told her no, and she stepped closer and asked me if I’d ever thought about it. If, maybe, I’d end up with some crazy stories to tell my boyfriend one day. Maybe that would get him off. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I wasn’t connecting the dots because my head was rushing and my heart was pounding and Jessica Norman was about to kiss me…”
She paused to take a breath, the memory of that kiss flooding her senses, working its way under her skin and into her blood. A kiss that had shown her who she was and then destroyed her.
“Did she kiss you?” Lauren asked.
“She did. She made the first move. There’s no way I could’ve done it because my feet where cemented to the floor and my hands glued to my sides. She kissed me.”
“To make her boyfriend hot.”
Lauren was already putting it together. Somehow that made Emma feel like even more of an idiot. She should’ve known.
“Yup. What I didn’t know was that the other kids had turned off the lights in the hallway and cracked open the door. They were watching.”
Lauren cradled her so closely Emma was cocooned, the physical closeness managing to wrap itself around her emotions too. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t think they did it to be mean. It’s just teenagers, you know? They don’t think with their heads when two girls are possibly going to make out.”
“That’s no excuse,” Lauren said.
“Jessica was kissing me and…” Emma’s words petered out, no match for the memory that was far too close to the surface. She stopped talking and cupped Lauren’s breast, marveling at the curve that fit so perfectly into her palm it seemed to have been made for just that purpose. Emma didn’t know if she believed that God was a man, but God sure had a thing for breasts to have made Lauren’s so utterly perfect.
“What happened next?” Lauren stroked up and down her arm
“I lost all reason. I don’t even remember most of it, honestly. Just the hot rush of ohpleaseyes and kissing her back. Amping everything up. Sliding my tongue into her mouth. She made a sound, probably shock, but I took it as encouragement. God. It’s so embarrassing to admit, but I was having my first lesbian kiss, and I thought it was the most fantastic thing in the entire world. I wanted to kiss her forever, and if the wetness in my panties was any indication, I wanted a hell of a lot more. I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know I was supposed to go slow, or ask for consent, or not act so desperate. I’m pretty sure I climbed her like a tree. We ended up on the bed, maybe because I dragged her there, or maybe because she wanted to make it look good for her friends, I don’t know. When the seven minutes were up, I was gasping and so hot I could’ve come in my jeans.”
Emma was surprised she’d managed to tell the story without tears. The wound was old, and she was fresh out of waterworks. But the pain that leaked into her brain, into her body, into her desire, remained. Now every time she felt that way again, turned on, needy, wanting to be touched, the pain found her and reminded her of all the ways need could get you in trouble. Get you ridiculed. Hurt someone you maybe could’ve liked.
“When it was over, I wasn’t any the wiser. I had no idea everyone had seen or that I had done anything wrong, until an hour later when I went looking for Jessica. To ask her if she had ever made it with a girl. If maybe she’d consider making it with me. She was in the middle of a group telling the most hilarious story, waving her arms while everyone fell all over themselves laughing. The time wasn’t right for a serious conversation, so I stayed back. But I couldn’t help overhearing what she said. Overhear her tell everyone I was a nympho. I’d attacked her. I’d moaned like I was cheap and desperate, and wasn’t it all just so funny? Could they believe I was such a slut that I went around begging for it from straight girls?
“I just ran. I ran and ran and ran until I was home and then I cried myself to sleep and didn’t go to another party until prom.”
“Emma. I’m so sorry.” Lauren said her name as if she were in prayer, holding her and stroking her back.
“I’m a freak,” Emma said softly. “You don’t understand. I go from zero to six billion faster than the blink of an eye. I want so much that I can’t stop, can’t help myself. I don’t ask. I don’t consider the possible outcomes. I just want and want until the other person has nothing left to give.” Emma let go of Lauren’s breast, her gaze glued to the corner of the nightstand where she wouldn’t have to look into Lauren’s eyes and see the judgment she knew would be reflected there. “When you were touching me just now, I had to close my eyes. I had to tense up and try to think of something else, so I didn’t come too soon.”
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nbsp; “Emma.” Lauren tilted Emma’s chin so their eyes met. “There’s absolutely nothing freakish or fucked up about wanting someone or needing to come.”
Emma’s stomach twisted like a pretzel. Lauren wasn’t just looking at her to drive her point home. The intensity in her eyes communicated all the things they’d left unsaid. All the things they didn’t say because they didn’t even know each other that well, and this couldn’t be anything more than a one-night stand.
Let go with me.
I need you too.
You’re safe here.
She didn’t know how to handle all that. Couldn’t process what it might mean. Everything was too close. It was only supposed to be one night, but Emma’s heart didn’t know that, and she had to protect it the way a mother protects a child whose boundless enthusiasm makes them run into a busy intersection. When you were a heart at risk of being broken, you had to be stopped for your own good.
Emma shrugged. She wasn’t proud of it. It was an insult in the face of Lauren’s heartfelt expression. Not that it really mattered in the long run. They might be talking about it, but sex wasn’t even in the same zip code as this conversation. No one was getting laid tonight, and the disappointment floated down to settle itself on top of all her other emotions, blanketing them in sadness. With nothing left to lose, she didn’t bother to sugarcoat the truth. “It’s wrong to get so lost in your own needs that you’re not aware of the other person’s. To lose sense of time and place and reality. To be selfish. That’s wrong.”
“Is that what you think? That giving in to your desire is selfish?” Lauren asked like it wasn’t as obvious as the sky being blue.
Emma scoffed. “Isn’t it? Just look at the difference between us. You’ve bent over backward to give me everything I’ve asked for. You’ve been open and honest when you didn’t really want to be, just so I’d feel comfortable. You kissed me when I asked you, you talked me through our confessions to give me a chance to adjust, and then, the moment I got too far inside my own head, you were considerate enough to back off, to make sure I was okay, and to ask that we talk about it, even when I lied and said I was fine.”
Emma ran out of breath as the words tumbled out of her mouth, crashing into each other like marbles rolling downhill. “You are always aware of me. Hell, you seem to know what I’m feeling even before I do half the time. You always know what’s going on around you, and what I need. But I’m so wrapped up in what I feel that I all but forget the other person has feelings. That’s the epitome of selfish.”
“Emma.” Lauren cradled Emma’s cheeks in her palms. “You’re an idiot sometimes. A sexy idiot, but still.” With that, she captured Emma’s mouth in a slow, coaxing kiss.
When their tongues touched, Emma gasped, but unlike all the other times they’d kissed, she wasn’t struck by overwhelming arousal. No. This kiss wasn’t sexy in an allow-me-to-demonstrate-just-how-talented-I-am-with-my-tongue kind of way, though Lauren would earn a five-star review. This kiss was physical and intimate and powerful, but at the same time it didn’t feel like sex. It felt like…Emma didn’t know exactly. A single word couldn’t do it justice. Like Lauren was reaching inside her to unlock all the doors she kept shut tight, flooding them with light. Like Lauren was wrapping all her insides in a tight hug. Even now, with the shadow of her past looming over them, she wanted Lauren to touch her and never stop. She wanted the comfort and the desire she knew Lauren would deliver in spades.
“Listen to me,” Lauren said against her lips. “I want you. I want to bring you pleasure. I want to make you come. Do you understand? When you’re with someone you trust, with someone you’re sure wants you, it’s okay to let go. It’s okay to indulge in the pleasure for no other reason than how good it feels. Who I am, and what I want, does matter to you, Emma. You know it does, because who I am is the difference between right now and the way Jessica fucking Norman abused the trust of a younger, naive kid. What she did made it not safe.”
Emma looked away. Lauren was trying to make her feel better by blaming it all on Jessica. Sweet of her, but what Emma had done made it not safe too.
As if reading her mind, Lauren continued. “Should you have clued in that she didn’t intend for it to go so far? Should you have checked before hitting the bed? If you’d known you were supposed to do that, then yes—knowing what’s right and choosing not to do it, makes it wrong. Not knowing means you learn and don’t make the same mistake. You were sixteen, and it was your first kiss. It wasn’t perfect for so many completely fucked up reasons, but none of that is on you. You learned the hardest way possible to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to intimacy. That it hurt you so badly, that you’re so worried it will happen again, tells me that you’ve never let it happen again. That you’re not selfish, and you wouldn’t override someone else’s feelings for your own pleasure. You didn’t know because you were innocent. You know now. That’s enough.”
“Wow,” Emma said, “that’s some speech.”
Like a speech that could change my life.
“Am I wrong? Being unreasonable?” Lauren refused to allow her to lighten the moment.
“Wrong? No. I suppose not. Not when you lay it out logically like that. But the way I felt when Jessica touched me, the way I feel when you do, it’s not logical. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to rationalize it. I just don’t think.”
Lauren leaned back and gave her a long, silent look Emma wasn’t sure how to decipher, though she didn’t have to wait long for clarification.
“That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” Lauren said.
Emma pushed up. “What?”
“Bullshit,” Lauren repeated. “You don’t think? Is that what you’re asking me to buy? That you just lose it and don’t think?”
Lauren shoved a hand through her hair. It was too long for her to reach the ends, so half got messed up while the rest lay flat, giving her the bed-head, she should’ve gotten from rolling around, not having this conversation while stark naked. Lauren either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“All you do is think. Overthinking, holding back, wishing and stopping and wanting, but not allowing yourself to let go. It’s all thinking.”
Lauren sat up too and tapped two fingers to Emma’s temple. “It’s all up here,” she said, softer now, “when it should be down here.” Lauren placed her hand flat against Emma’s pelvis. “Emma, you’re so consumed with some ridiculous definition of normal that Jessica put in your head, you can’t get past an innocent teenage mistake. You think you’re fucked up because you get aroused and need to be touched? Well, allow me to be the one to tell you, that’s normal. Hell, baby, when a woman is holding you, kissing you, naked with you, that’s the damn point. That my touching you makes you need to come is the best compliment I could’ve received. Knowing I make you hot makes me feel like the sexiest, most desirable woman in the world. It feels good for me when you get hot. It’s going to feel even better when I can make you come, because the thing you’re so afraid of is the very thing that makes sex intimate. You’re vulnerable getting naked with someone, when you need something from them, and don’t want to stop, when you let go and show that person a side of yourself not many see. That vulnerability makes sex hot, not the friction.”
Emma swallowed, but the knot in her throat didn’t budge. She stared down at her hands, at Lauren’s hand still pressed against her. Lauren made sense, Emma knew that, but she was wrong. Vulnerability might be hot for the person you were in bed with, but for her, being vulnerable, being exposed in a way that went deeper than skin, deeper even than every molecule she had, deeper in that way of getting inside your head and twisting you up, wasn’t hot at all. For her that kind of vulnerability was terrifying. More terrifying than boogeymen and vampires and the Cupcake in a bikini put together.
Emma bit her lip. “Can you tell me about the kink club?” She was as surprised as Lauren appeared to be when the question popped out of her mouth, but the idea had intrigued t
he hell out of her ever since she’d read a stupid article someone had forwarded her about Lauren and Caroline at Kink’s. Maybe she’d be more comfortable with this idea of sexual vulnerability if it went both ways. If Lauren could be vulnerable, too.
All the expression on Lauren’s face slammed shut like she’d swung a door to block it out. “This isn’t about kink.”
“Oh.” Of course Lauren didn’t want to talk to her about kink. She couldn’t even have a damn orgasm without falling to pieces first. Why would Lauren believe she could handle kink?
Lauren stroked her hand across Emma’s pelvis. “It’s not the right time for that conversation.”
“We’re naked in bed. Is there a better time for kink?” Emma smiled but the joke fell flat when Lauren didn’t smile back.
“That stuff is a lot to take in. You’ve had a difficult night already. I want to make this easy for you, not harder.”
“I could say the same for you. Sharing your story wasn’t easy, but you still managed to listen to mine. It wasn’t too much for you,” Emma said.
“I don’t want to freak you out, not when you’re already struggling with how you feel.”
“That’s a cop-out,” Emma said. “You’ve managed to turn me on sixty-seven times tonight, I’m getting used to it, and it feels pretty damn awesome. But you’re asking me to be vulnerable with you. To give in and let go. That’s what vulnerability is, right? Is it so wrong that I want you to be vulnerable with me too?”
Lauren hesitated. “What would you say if I said your nervousness turns me on?”
“I…” Emma had no idea what to say next. She didn’t have to come up with anything though because Lauren took over.
“I’m not saying that I want you to be anxious. I don’t. And nervous is different from worry and pain. I absolutely don’t want you to feel that way. But that you’re so responsive when I touch you, that part of you tries to hold back… It turns me on. I know that eventually you won’t be able to help yourself. Eventually, you’ll come, and that you started by holding back, makes coming a surrender.”