by Rose, Katia
“Hey.” Dylan calls my attention back to him. “You okay?”
He’s still holding my hands with each of his. He brings one up to his lips, and my breath catches in my throat as he places a soft, slow kiss on each of my knuckles. We’re standing in the dark, but I can make out enough to register the tenderness on his face, the patience. I’ve never felt this much trust in someone before. The only thing he’s concerned with is making me feel safe.
That’s all it takes to have me craving him with even more intensity than I’ve felt all night.
“Take me to bed,” I whisper, and I don’t wonder if it’s the right thing to say. I don’t get embarrassed. I don’t start doubting myself.
I just follow after him as he leads the way.
The lamp on his bedside table casts a soft orange glow over the room when he switches it on. I’m standing at the foot of his bed, and I can feel his eyes on me as I take in the contents of his room.
“Whoops. I didn’t make the bed. Not so nice and clean in here, is it?”
He’s trying to sound teasing, but I hear the slight tremor in his voice. I feel that tremor echo all through my body.
“Tsk, tsk,” I chide, keeping the joke going. I don’t trust myself to say actual words.
The room is simple, with just a bed, table, and dresser. All the furniture is black. There are a few photos on the wall, but I can’t focus on the images long enough to process them before my eyes fall back to the bed. His sheets are dark blue, a tartan blanket thrown over them, and even standing here, I can tell they still smell like him. When I wake up here tomorrow morning—if I wake up here tomorrow morning—I’ll smell like him too.
The mattress sags slightly when Dylan settles himself on the edge of the bed. I meet his eyes.
I take a breath.
I lift my shirt over my head.
“Fucking hell,” he curses.
The words sear my skin with the fire I’ve been craving. He could have said something sweet. He could have called me beautiful. He could have gotten up and pressed soft kisses to my skin.
I don’t want that right now. I want him to keep looking at me like that, like I’m damning him and saving him all at once, like I’m something he’s scared to pray for, like I’m something he wants to pray to.
I reach for the clasp of my blue bra behind me and unhook it before pulling the straps off my shoulders one by one. By the time the bra finally hits the floor, I can see the rise and fall of Dylan’s chest even from where I’m standing. The cool air of the room hits my bare skin, a tremor-inducing contrast to the heat of his gaze as his eyes roam my chest.
I don’t cross my arms or look away. I let him take me in. He looks almost pained as he traces patterns over my body with his eyes, like it hurts him not to follow those same dips and swirls with his fingers, his tongue.
“Dylan,” I murmur, “touch me.”
I move closer, and his knees spread as I step between them.
When his hands grip my hips, I can feel the power in the room shift. I’m his. He’s mine. I’m his again. The scales rise and fall as his touch roams up my back, his mouth trailing along my stomach. His tongue darts beneath the waistband of my jeans, and I moan as I twist my fingers in his hair, completely lost to him. Then I’m guiding him higher, taking him where I need him, and he’s once again here to offer whatever I ask for. We continue like that for so long I can’t decide what I like better: being at his mercy or having him at mine.
Then his tongue flicks my nipple for the first time, and I know I’ll be his for as long as his mouth is on me. I can’t hold back a moan when he slides his hand to my other breast, rolling my nipple between his finger and thumb as he continues licking the other. I moan louder, again and again, when he starts to suck and pinch me so hard it hurts.
“Your skin tastes so fucking good,” he mutters against my breast before he starts kissing me everywhere, frantically, all along my stomach and chest like he’s scared I’ll disappear. It’s overwhelming, and I gasp and reach for his hair again, doing my best to stay standing.
He shifts back on the mattress before pulling me down on top of him. This contact, the closeness of him, the thump of his heart under mine—it’s exactly what I need. We kiss furiously, like we’re enraged with each other, livid that we could possibly want one another so much.
I let out a frustrated hiss when my hands find the neck of his t-shirt. It needs to go. Now.
“Off,” I mutter against his lips before sliding my tongue into his mouth again.
His hands palm my ass, squeezing and kneading it, making me grind against his body in sheer desperation before he flips me onto my back. He sits up enough to tug his shirt over his head. I drink in the sight of his bare chest. He’s wonderfully real, real and here and ready to give me all of him, unafraid of his own flaws and accepting of mine.
He tugs at the button of my jeans. “Off.”
We both grin at the repetition of my order, and he braces himself above me as I shimmy out of them. When he lowers down onto me again, I wrap my legs around him, exploring the planes of his back with my palms. The rough denim of his jeans against the aching skin of my inner thighs is driving me crazy.
“I need you out of these,” I beg, sliding my heels along the backs of his thighs.
“Agreed,” he mutters where he’s busy kissing my neck. “We need to get naked. Now.”
I let out a breathless laugh, and he shifts off me so we can tear ourselves out of the rest of our clothes. When I glance over and see his cock for the first time, hard and thick and straining for me, I lose it and lunge for him.
“Shit, Renee. Oh, fuck.”
He continues calling out curse words as I take him between my lips and work my mouth up and down his length. I don’t go slow. There are no teasing licks or flicks of my tongue across his tip. I just take him deep and hard and fast, showing him how much I want him, how desperate he’s got me, how crazy he’s been driving me all night. The shyness is completely gone now. I want to show him everything he makes me feel.
One of his hands gathers up my hair. I had an elastic around it at some point, but that’s long gone. I hum a little as I keep going, and he groans when I wrap one of my fists around his base. I twist my grip back and forth as I keep sliding my mouth up and down, and it only takes a few seconds of the motion before he’s pulling my head back to stare at me with bleary, lust drunk eyes.
“Renee, that feels...Jesus Christ, you have no idea. If you keep going, I—”
“I want to,” I cut in. “I want to keep going.”
It’s the truth. I’m doing this as much for me as I am for him. The heat of him in my mouth, the way he gasps my name every time I go deeper—it might be the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever felt.
Dylan shakes his head. “I can’t even tell you what it feels like to hear you say that, what it does to me, but I want you on me more. I want...”
“What do you want? Tell me. I need to hear it.”
His voice drops an octave, and a darker need than I’ve seen all night slips into his eyes. “I want to fuck you.”
“God, yes.” All the air seems to be squeezed out of my lungs. “Fuck me.”
It only takes a few seconds before he’s grabbed a condom out of his night stand and ripped it open to roll it on. The sight of his hand sliding down his length is hypnotic.
His jaw drops and his eyes fly wide open when I slip my own hand between my legs. I’m completely soaked, twitching with need for him. Shimmying up his body, I position myself over his cock and lock eyes with him as he holds himself in place.
“Renee.”
I don’t know if it’s a question, but I answer the only way that seems right.
“Dylan.”
We both gasp when I take him inside me, not hesitating or stopping until I have him as far as he can go. I forget how to breathe. I forget how to think. I forget everything except how good this feels, until some distant part of me remembers to move, and then my whole world
is burning. I thrust myself onto him again and again, until his face twists with something close to agony and his hands find my hips, squeezing so hard it hurts. I collapse down on his chest and cry out against his neck as he drives himself inside me.
I’m a mewling mess by the time he flips me onto my back and starts to fuck me so hard the bed bangs against the wall. I have to bite down on my hand to keep from screaming.
“Renee, I—Oh, fuck.”
My name on his lips brings me back enough to realize he’s getting close. I cling to this moment of intimacy, to the sight of him falling apart inside me. I feel him stiffen, feel his whole body go rigid for that tense second before ecstasy overwhelms him and he says my name again, breathes it like it’s the last word he’ll ever say.
I take him in my arms after he falls forward onto my chest. We lie still as a few minutes pass, long enough that our hearts no longer sound like they’re racing toward cardiac arrest—though their pace is still far from normal. I feel him twitch inside me, and my muscles flex around him in response. He groans.
“Dylan, that was—”
He puts a finger on my lips. “I’m not done with you.”
He leaves to get rid of the condom and pauses in the doorframe when he comes back.
“God, you look like a fucking miracle.” He shakes his head as he takes in the sight of me lying naked in his bed.
I don’t have time to prepare for what’s coming before he’s kneeling on the mattress in front of me, spreading my legs apart to stare at the most intimate part of me. I watch his face, and I don’t feel ashamed. How could I when he’s staring at me like I’m just that—a miracle?
“Oh my god.”
My whole body arches at the first stroke of his finger up my length. He teases me, dipping inside me and circling my clit before repeating the process so many times I’m sure I must be going insane.
I have to bite my hand again when he finally fits two fingers all the way in and starts to fuck me with a slow, steady rhythm that hits me just where I need him. I can feel myself squeezing him, urging him on.
I give up all restraint and really do scream when he bows his head and latches his mouth onto my clit. I’ve been staring up at the ceiling, but one glance at him between my legs like that, pleasuring me in the most intimate way possible, completely devoted to making me fall apart, has me right on the edge.
“Dylan, you’re going to make me come.”
He groans and slides his free hand up my body, caressing my stomach before cupping my breast. I’m so close, so fucking close, and as the thrashing desperation takes hold, I grab his hand and move it so his fingertips are brushing my throat. I want the pressure there. I want him to take everything he can from me.
His tongue sweeps over just the right spot, flicks it again, and then again, and then I’m calling out his name one last time before I throw my head back and feel my spine curve with the force of my release.
He keeps going even after I come, dragging my orgasm out in rolling waves that leave me shaking and gasping. When I finally can’t take it anymore, I tug him up towards me, and he gathers me in his arms.
“You’re incredible,” he whispers, stroking my hair as I tuck my head under his chin. “You are the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, Renee.”
I believe him. Lying here with him like this, I believe him. I am incredible.
* * *
“How did you know?”
It’s sometime in the depths of the early hours before dawn. Dylan and I agreed to stop checking the time a while ago. We drifted off to sleep at some point, woke up hungry for each other again, and now he’s spooning me and stroking my stomach in a way that’s getting me in the mood for a round three I’m not sure my body can take, so I ask the question to distract us both.
“Know what?” he replies.
“About the marshmallows. I keep wondering. It was way too specific for you to have just thought of it on the spot. How did you know to do that?”
“You don’t think I could have come up with that?” he jokes. “I’m a resourceful guy.”
“But really,” I insist, “how did you know?”
He lets out a sigh, and his hand goes still, resting on my rib cage.
“My mom used to do that with my brother,” he explains. “He has ADHD, and it was really bad when he was a little kid, before they had his treatment all figured out. I don’t know how my mom did it: raising the two of us, working full time, dealing with the ADHD all on her own. She never yelled at us. Never. Some of the moms in my neighbourhood were the kind who’d just scream and scream at their kids, about anything and everything, but not my mom. When my brother was acting up really bad and she was on the verge of losing it, she’d make him sit at the kitchen table and do that thing with the marshmallows. Sometimes she’d do it with him. It helped them both. I even caught her doing it on her own once, years later when I was a teenager.”
He chuckles at the memory.
“She sounds like a really amazing woman,” I whisper.
I feel him nod. “She is. The best. She’s a fighter. She doesn’t believe in limits. She was always pushing to be better than what life gave her, and she raised me and my brother to believe in doing the same. She’s the whole reason I wanted to go to college. Not that it...worked out, but she made me feel like I could be anything. She didn’t let me believe anything else. She’s a fierce lady, my mom.”
“Sounds like it.”
There’s something more in his tone than nostalgia. There’s pain there, but I can’t figure out the cause.
“What did you want to go to college for?” I ask.
He chuckles again. “You’ll laugh.”
“I will not!”
“I’ll remind you of that when you do laugh.” He trails a finger between two of my ribs. “I wanted to go into radio—like, I wanted to work at a radio station, preferably as a host. There was this program in Ottawa I was looking into.”
“Why would I laugh at that?” I grab his hand and squeeze. “Dylan, you’d be great at that. You’d be amazing.”
He stays silent for a long moment before he squeezes me back.
“Thanks.”
“How come you didn’t go?” It feels like a loaded question, heavy with some weight only he understands.
“Things, um...They didn’t work out like that.”
“Was it because of money?”
He doesn’t answer, and I know it was more than that. The reason must be bigger. Darker.
“You don’t have to tell me tonight,” I whisper, “but you can trust me, you know?”
“Thank you,” he says again. I don’t miss that it isn’t really an answer.
I want to know him, all of him. Whatever this pain is, I want to do what I can to take it away, but I won’t push him. Not tonight. Not after what we’ve just shared.
“Hey.” I give him a nudge with my elbow. “Just think. If you’d gone to Ottawa, you never would have ended up with me in your bed tonight.”
“What a travesty.”
“Just trying to put a positive spin on things.”
He strokes my hair. “Ah yes, my little ray of sunshine.”
“I meant it, you know.” I can’t help getting serious again. “What I said at the cafe that day.”
“And what pearl of wisdom are you referring to?”
“With you,” I remind him, “the glass is always half full.”
He pulls me in tighter, and he doesn’t let go all night.
Seventeen
Dylan
JUXTAPOSITION: The parallel placement of two opposing themes, concepts, or people within a literary work for the purpose of comparing or contrasting
“Stella, if you wanted fries, you should have just ordered them.”
Stella doesn’t even glance at me as she picks another sweet potato fry off my plate and misses her mouth three times before finally managing to take a bite. Her eyes have been glued to our waiter since we walked in here.
“J
ust give him your number already,” Owen urges before reaching for one of my fries as well.
The fries were free. These two just decided to be idiots and get salads instead.
It’s been longer than I care to remember since the three of us met up. We used to hole up in Owen’s apartment for hours and hours planning spoken word workshops, and I’ve spent countless evenings hanging out with them at slams. Owen and I both took the youth team to nationals for two years in a row. The easy way we joke with each other—and apparently the way we steal each other’s food—makes me realize just how much I’ve missed them.
I’ve missed this part of my life. I thought I’d be able to handle keeping up with my commitments to the poetry scene, but since taking the manager job, I’ve been dropping them one by one. I haven’t even made time to hang out with two of my closest friends for months. Stella was thrilled with the cat-themed gifts I finally gave her today, but I know that’s not enough to make up for neglecting someone I care about.
“He’s so dreamy.” She’s practically drooling as she twists in her seat so she can watch the waiter disappear into the kitchen. “He’s also so small. I’d probably crush him. I can’t give him my number.”
At six foot one, she makes a fair point. Stella is the definition of a gentle giant. She’s the sweetest person I know. She transitioned a few years ago, and seeing her perform her first poem as a woman was one of the most emotional moments in Montreal slam history. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.
“Maybe he’s into that,” Owen jokes as he pushes his newsboy cap up higher on his head.
He is the only man under sixty-five who wears a newsboy cap completely unironically. We’re the definition of a mismatched trio.
“Is erotic crushing a thing?” Stella asks, finally focusing back on our table when the waiter doesn’t seem to be returning anytime soon.
“Stella, baby.” Owen pats her on the shoulder. “Everything is a thing.”
“Jesus, guys,” I complain, “at least let me get my lunch down first—and no, that is not an invitation for you to steal more of my food.”