Almost Real

by Charlotte Stein

  “I hope so. I made it extra loud on purpose.”

  “Hey—it’s hard being this big. I never know what I might accidentally crush.”

  “I promise, any crushing you’ve done has been gratefully received.”

  “Are you…what do you…what crushing did you like?”

  Oh his confusion was amazing. She kind of hated it, but even so it was amazing. He went past italics and into some other sort of emphasis for his last word, some new kind that had multi-colors and spirals spinning off it. She could almost see his expression through three feet of cushions, and said expression pushed her close to gleeful.

  She had to wrestle her stupid smile down just to get out explanatory words.

  “Well, you know. When you pinned me down…on the floor of the gym…”

  “You enjoyed that?”

  “I’m honestly not sure how to answer that question. It sounds like you’re being genuinely incredulous, but I don’t see how that’s possible. I mean, you do remember what you did to me on the floor of the gym, right?”

  “I have a vague recollection.”

  It sounded as if he wanted to have a nonexistent recollection—though she hadn’t the slightest clue why. It didn’t seem to be about the alarm or his later panic. This was more a kind of disgust with himself, for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

  “I take it that means you don’t like what you’re recalling.”

  “That’s…I wouldn’t have phrased it like that.”

  “How would you have phrased it?”

  “I just wish I’d done things differently. Been less…aggressive.”

  She wished he could see her rolling her eyes. He needed every bit of disdain for this idea that she could muster. He needed it in a holographic, with surround sound.

  “Lord—you seriously think you’re some kind of manbeast, don’t you? I hate to break it to you, but you didn’t tear off all my clothes then brutally ravage my soft young body. In fact, you kind of did the opposite of that. You kissed my pussy more tenderly than most men have kissed my mouth.”

  “Oh fuck, don’t say that.”

  “Well it’s true—” she started to say, but only because she hadn’t grasped his meaning. No, no, she hadn’t grasped it at all.

  “I don’t care if it’s true—just don’t say the…don’t say that word. The point you’re making is fine and I’m grateful for it. But without the word.”

  It took her a second to understand what word he meant. Her mind was set to mild trauma and maybe convince Sergei he’s amazing. It wasn’t prepared for a sudden shock of excitement as she processed what he was getting at. He wasn’t bothered by the truth or otherwise of her statement.

  He was bothered by the rude word.

  He was so bothered that he was shifting around in this uncomfortable-sounding way, and his breathing seemed a little different. Not as harsh or uneven as she’d heard it before, but certainly on the brink of something. Oh yeah, it was on the brink of something. Why did she like that it was on the brink of something?

  “So maybe less…pussy-kissing,” she found herself saying, despite all her best intentions. Most of her just wanted to carry on having a normal conversation, but there was some other new part…some sly, strange new part that wanted to push. That wanted to see if it would get the same reaction again.

  And it did.

  “Yeah much less…yeah,” he said in a voice ripe with this unwilling, uncontrolled sort of lust. It just sort of rippled around the edges of his words, despite his best intentions. His intentions were to keep this on the straight and narrow, she could see. And she understood too, she really did.

  She just didn’t care.

  “Even though that’s what you did.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You kissed my pussy.”

  “Don’t.”

  “And then you licked me.”

  “I wanted to stop,” he said, only now his voice was this long, low moan. He was trying to contain himself, quite clearly. And maybe she was trying to contain herself too. But somehow she was saying pussy and licking, and he was responding in the best possible way he could.

  The bed was kind of moving, and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her.

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to…” he said, each semi-sentence trailing off into a kind of breathlessness she could hardly believe. It seemed impossible, but she knew what was going on even so. He was remembering, and oh he was liking it.

  He was liking all this—and so was she.

  “Lick my clit?” she suggested, the word like honey on her tongue. Clit, she’d just said clit, only he didn’t mind at all this time. There were no repercussions—other than the sound of him saying fuck and yes in response, followed by more of that delicious rocking. Oh God, the bed was rocking…and it was obvious why.

  “Are you…are you touching yourself?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  He was lying. He was lying. She could hear it in his voice—lust-roughened and so desperate—and feel it in that rhythmic movement. It was so strong now it was starting to turn her on for reasons other than the thought of it. The motion itself was having an effect, as though he was above her instead of on the other side of a pillow wall. He was over her and fucking her, despite every attempt he made to deny it.

  “I’m not,” he said again, but now she couldn’t resist pushing a little.

  “Not even a hand on an elbow or an earlobe?”

  “Why would I be touching my earlobe?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really thinking straight. I can hear and feel what you’re doing and it’s turned my brain to mush.”

  It was true. It was. She couldn’t even remember when she’d put a hand between her own legs, but her hand was there all the same. It was pressing and pressing her through the too-thick material of her pajama bottoms, and oh the things it discovered there…

  She was wet, of course, to the point where it had soaked through the material. And when she rubbed her finger over the seam of her sex, she could actually feel her clit. It was so stiff and swollen it made its presence known through a layer of cotton, which seemed utterly extraordinary for a number of reasons.

  The first was that it didn’t seem physically possible.

  The second was that they were just talking. They weren’t doing a single thing. In fact, he was still pretending he wasn’t even touching himself, never mind anything else.

  “I’m honestly not.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” she said, though she knew what would happen when she did. If she could hear it in his voice, then maybe, just maybe…

  “Oh fuck. Fuck. You’re lying.”

  “Only as much as you are.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

  “You’re lying by accident?”

  “No. No I just…I’m—”

  “Rubbing your cock,” she tried, and got what she’d been aiming for. He let out a long, low groan the second she spoke, loud enough to send vibrations through her body. Glorious vibrations that made her buck and moan right back.

  Not even his continuing denial dampened the sensation.

  “Uh…no…um…”

  “Go on, admit it.”

  “Not unless you do.”

  “Do you really think that’s going to hold me back? I’m so excited I could say pretty much anything right now. Cock, pussy, fuck, now. Was that good enough? I can do better. I’ve got my hand underneath my pajamas and I’m playing with my clit.”

  She wasn’t even making things up, for effect. That last little thrill had forced her into it, and now here she was just rubbing and sliding her fingers over the slippery surface of her stiff little bud as he cursed and wrestled with himself.

  “Christ.”

  “And I’m so wet I can hardly stay on target. I keep slipping through my—”

  “Stop, stop, for fuck’s sake that’s enough,” he hissed, but of course he’d forgotten one minor detail of this a
rrangement. Of course he had.

  “I don’t think it is. I’ve held up my end of the bargain—it’s your turn now.”

  “You know I’m no good at talking.”

  “Anything would do.”

  “I can’t think.”

  “Try.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Try harder.”

  “It’s impossible,” he finally gasped, but she knew he was on the edge of breaking. His voice was so strained she could hear its hinges creaking, and around it was the sound of his hand on his cock. Oh God, that slick, frantic sound was definitely his hand on his cock, sweeter than anything she’d ever known.

  He was letting go. He was definitely letting go. Just a little more…

  “Please, please now,” she said, and he gave it to her.

  Holy fuck, did he ever give it to her.

  “Oh baby I just want to fuck your sweet pussy until I come and come and come,” he gasped, and that was all it took. Her back arched clean off the bed, every muscle in her body tightened. For a long moment she couldn’t breathe as the pleasure took over, and if the sounds he was making were any indication he was going through the exact same amazing things.

  He choked out her name, as lovely as it had been shortened or spoken in earnest. In fact, this was probably lovelier. There was such abandonment in him in that moment, as though he barely cared at all about how he seemed or what this might mean. He only cared about the blissful sensation that was quite obviously surging through his body, just as it was surging through hers.

  It was only once it was done that silence took him over again. Or was it shame that took him over? Maybe they were the same thing. They certainly seemed like it, in the strange, still quiet that followed. She could practically feel him burning away with some terrible guilt or anger, so fierce it almost reached through the pillows.

  But that wasn’t the problem, at all.

  The problem was that she just didn’t have the first fucking clue why.

  Chapter Ten

  She could tell he wasn’t really eating. Not that she could say anything—she wasn’t really eating either. She’d been pushing the same pea around for the last twenty minutes, without any intention of doing anything with it. It was just a cover for her real goal—starting up another conversation.

  But so far it was proving impossible. She kept opening her mouth only to close it again, smile quickly fading once she realized how pathetic her potential words were. He didn’t want to hear about how the roof-patching robots were doing, or what she’d said to the local police about the “disturbance”.

  He just wanted to make a mashed potato sculpture in the shape of a spaceship. In a second he was going to reveal his encounter with an alien made of big lights and eighties techno music, and then she’d have to follow him up some mountain.

  Though obviously, some half-baked fantasy version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was not her real concern. No, her real concern was how difficult talking suddenly was, when it had been so easy the night before. Why had it been so easy then? Was it the darkness? And if it was, what the hell were they supposed to do about it?

  They couldn’t shut off the lights every time they needed to talk.

  No. No. She had to just go for it and hope for the best.

  “Are you mad about last night?”

  His gaze snapped to her immediately, in a way she wasn’t expecting at all. He’d seemed so intent on his potato modeling that she’d almost felt safe, as though he’d just ignore her. But of course he didn’t. He didn’t. He burned two holes through her body, instead. He made her weak with one look.

  Though in all fairness, his eyes always made her weak now. That winter frost was starting to thaw around the edges, revealing something so dark and deep she hardly knew what to do with it. He hardly seemed to know what to do with it. She could see him struggling now, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Was it just because of the question she’d asked? Or was it the very idea of having feelings that bothered him?

  How dare they accost me like this, she thought.

  And that seemed to fit.

  “Did I…did I forget to say those words out loud, or are you just trying to think how to answer?”

  “The latter,” he said, but he still didn’t add any explanation. Instead they just stared at each other silently for what felt like a thousand years. By the time he finally spoke things were getting close to a standoff—only the end wasn’t going to be gunfire. The end was going to be her blowing his head off with a kiss.

  Or vice versa.

  God, it really looked like it could be vice versa.

  “I don’t know how to say I’m not mad without it seeming like an endorsement of certain shit that went on. But I don’t want to say I’m mad because then maybe you’ll think I’m mad about everything. That I regret everything we talked about. And I don’t.”

  “That’s a great explanation without really saying anything at all.”

  “Look, I’m trying here. I don’t want to try, but I’m doing it.”

  “If you don’t want to then I won’t ask. I won’t say anything else,” she said, but before she’d even gotten to the next part, she saw the sudden softening in his gaze. The relenting, that went with her theory. “But I kind of suspect you do.”

  “Maybe I just don’t know how to… I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Being mad about sex stuff might be a good jumping-off point.”

  “I’m not mad about sex stuff. It’s more than that.”

  “Because of the thing you fucked up?”

  “It wasn’t a thing.” She could practically see the air quotes around that one non-word. She could feel the ring of contempt, as though so terrible an event could never be reduced down to those five letters. “I let feelings get in the way during my last active mission and two people died. They died, Margot. They ain’t coming back.”

  He glanced up at her the way she’d imagined glancing at him, in the dark—just waiting for some kind of condemnation that he had to know was never going to come. He’d accepted her story. He’d said the word friend as though it was something wonderful that she had done.

  She was never going to give him censure in return.

  She knew he didn’t deserve censure. He didn’t even have to finish saying…it was clear already. Maybe the issue had always been clear.

  “And you’re sure that this was the fault of your feelings.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “It’s not just that you don’t like having feelings. That you don’t like them so much you’re willing to build a pillow wall and make a mashed potato mountain and blame yourself for something you probably didn’t do just so you don’t have to have them.”

  It took a lot of energy to get the words out—and even more to deal with his expression afterward. As she spoke she saw his face falling and falling, until it was finally in some terrible place marked that can’t be it oh my God I think that’s it.

  “That… You have no idea what the circumstances were,” he said, but it was all just obfuscation and foolishness now. She knew, because she’d felt almost the same things he was apparently feeling right at this moment, the night before. Sometimes, the biggest shock of all was in suddenly seeing yourself in someone else’s eyes.

  And now she had to patiently maneuver him through that shock.

  “Well explain them to me, then. Was it like the other day? You were having sex with someone and failed to—”

  “I wasn’t having sex with anyone.”

  “So you were kissing—”

  “There was no kissing.”

  “Were there smoldering looks?”

  “No. No. It wasn’t the same as…it wasn’t like that with her. We were just friends.”

  He spread his hands as though the concept was just that simple. She should definitely understand what he was driving at, even if what he was driving at was utterly insane. God, he had to know how insane it was.

  “So people shouldn’t even b
e friends, then?”

  “Not when it makes you fuck things up. I let my guard drop, started doing…you know. Friendly stuff with her. Going to the canteen for coffee, hanging around her lab instead of doing my job. Next thing I know there’s a breach in a sector I’m nowhere near. Just like that, two people dead.”

  He snapped his fingers, like snapping his fingers explained all of that absolute nonsense. Was he serious? She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. It seemed like it, because there was a terrible crease of pain right down the center of his face, and his shoulders seemed to have dropped about five feet.

  But on the other hand…what the fucking fuck?

  “Sergei, do you seriously think that you getting coffee with someone was responsible for the deaths of two people?”

  “That’s not…I wouldn’t put it exactly like that.”

  “Then how would you put it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just think—”

  “You just think that you shouldn’t have friends in case you fail to prevent a disaster that couldn’t possibly have been your fault.”

  “There was more to it than that,” he said, but she could already see there wasn’t. It was in his strained expression as he tried desperately to come up with an explanation that made sense. It was in every muscle, so tensed with effort. And finally it was in his drowning, helpless gaze.

  I need you to save me, that gaze said.

  So she did her best.

  “So you were fooling around?”

  “What? No. God, no.”

  “You were wasting valuable company time.”

  “I’ve never taken a second over—”

  “Maybe you were pulling some kind of prank, or…”

  “Do I seem like the kind of person who pulls pranks? It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that, for fuck’s sake.”

  He smacked one bone-shuddering fist down on the table, but it didn’t scare her off. His eyes were still so lost. She could never fear someone so lost.

  She could only insist that they faced themselves.

  “Then what was it like? What exactly did you do wrong?”

  “I let personal feelings get in the way of my job.”

  “Because they were so deep, for this girl.”