Sex Says

by Max Monroe

  I nodded as though that was completely expected. “Selective amnesia. Sometimes she forgets, but I just take her home and fuck her to remind her, you know?”

  “Yeah…” he muttered, still confused. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with his proximity to my woman—let’s face it, she is—but I had to give him a little credit. He was obviously the best prospect of the three, choosing Lola as his target in the first place, and he didn’t let his baser instincts distract him to the point of becoming a robot.

  Still, fuck him.

  “That’s actually where we’re headed now.” I turned to Lola. “Ready, honey?”

  She bit her lip and turned back to Jen and Abby. She didn’t even bother to include Simone, and somewhere deep inside, I smiled. I never understood the compulsion to pretend to be friends with someone you hated.

  Oh, shit. A thought struck me like lightning. Maybe that’s what I’d forced her into with me.

  It wasn’t like me not to consider both sides. But I’d been so fucking drawn to her.

  I considered her closely as she leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Sorry, guys. I gotta go.”

  No. She likes me. She has to.

  “Lola! You’re leaving with him?” Abby questioned disbelievingly.

  “Yeah.” She glanced at me before turning back to Jen and leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. The crotch-coverer groaned. “I am. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  Jen’s eyes were like lasers as she pointed her order. “You better call me tomorrow, Lola Sexton.”

  “Oh, shit. Lola Sexton, like the columnist for the San Francisco Times?” the half-chub asked.

  Shit. Time to abort. A little like a piece of gum on a cracked chair, the lies weren’t going to hold much longer.

  “Let’s roll,” I told her, but she was already moving, dragging me along behind her.

  “Through the bar,” I ordered. She immediately rerouted to comply.

  Our food was already sitting there waiting, thanks to my buddy Freddy behind the bar. I swiped the bags while still in motion and lifted my free hand in a wave.

  “Just put it on my tab, okay, Fred?” I asked, and Freddy answered from the other end of the bar with a salute.

  Lola looked back over her shoulder with a laugh. “You come here a lot?”

  “I told you they have good burgers and fries.”

  Truth was, I knew people all over this city. Connections, acquaintances, people who owed me favors. Freddy was just the beginning.

  I walked her out the door with a hand to her back and straight to a Mercedes at the curb. She turned surprised eyes in my direction and grabbed the handle on the door.

  “A Mercedes?” she asked as I watched the door open without incident. I raised my eyebrows and bit my lip as she climbed inside and got settled.

  As soon as she was in, I rounded the car, looked both ways and then crossed the street to my Corolla at the other curb. She’d been looking at her lap, but when she looked up and found me missing, the crazy way she jerked back and forth looking for me cracked me up.

  Finally, she spotted me climbing into the driver’s seat of my car and scrambled for the door handle of whoever’s car she was in.

  All she did was struggle for the first several seconds, floundering like a fish on land—an island it’d never been to, at that. When she finally found it and engaged the handle, she jumped out way faster than she’d climbed in.

  I rolled down my window as she crossed the street.

  Straight to my door, she moved at a jog and punched me right in the arm when she got there.

  “Ow,” I said with a laugh, but secretly just happy it hadn’t been the jaw. “What was that for?”

  “I hate you!” she yelled, but that didn’t stop her from rounding the car and climbing into the passenger side.

  “How could you let me do that?” she railed. “I could have gotten arrested! What if the owner had come out and found me in their car?”

  “Relax,” I consoled, still laughing. She, however, wasn’t entertained by my amusement. I reached over to rub her thigh, and she jerked away.

  “Oh, come on. It wasn’t a big deal, and I didn’t say anything. You just assumed.”

  Her head shot to the side, the glow from the restaurant creating a scar of light all the way from her eyebrow to the bottom of her cheek. “Because that’s where you led me!”

  “I was headed this direction, across the street,” I explained.

  “Well, you didn’t stop me.”

  “That’s because it was funny,” I admitted, cranking the key and the car to life.

  “I really hate you,” she said again, but there was no fire in her voice. Only a soft, sweet swell of affection.

  I stopped what I was doing and leaned over to touch my lips to hers. She let me.

  “You really don’t,” I whispered there, and the moist tip of her tongue traced along the flesh under my own.

  “Ugh,” she huffed, realizing belatedly what she was doing, pushing me away and forcing her eyes open. “Just drive.”

  “Your wish” —I told her honest, unguarded eyes— “is my command.”

  I sat on my desk chair and smoked as Lola paced the room barefoot, grabbing a fry every time she passed the container. We’d already consumed our burgers, and apparently, having been fueled by the food, the entire evening was finally coming to a head in her mind.

  “I mean, what is that?” she ranted. “Why the fuck do women do that? Why do they have to be someone else when they’re trying to impress a guy? Like, I’m just not getting it.”

  I smiled, and she pointed at me angrily. “Don’t you smile at me.”

  “What?” I asked with a laugh before taking another drag. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Bullshit. You’re the one who filled my head with all of this crap. Now I can’t let it go!”

  Apparently, my words and perspective were doing the impossible inside her brilliant mind: making sense. I had to admit, I got a certain amount of sick satisfaction out of watching her mentally, and quite physically, battle herself over agreeing with me—Reed Luca, the devil himself—about anything.

  Bringing the cigarette to my lips, I took a pull and winked before blowing the smoke in her direction. “You’re welcome.”

  She lunged. I hadn’t been prepared, content to watch her pace my living room until the end of time—as it seemed she would use all of that time—but I found a way to get there quick.

  Attack was her intention, but I caught her by the chin an inch from my face and held her there until her eyes met mine.

  She trembled, and it all started to make sense. Lola’s anger was only a front for emotion, for arousal, and for a whole hell of a lot of agreement with me in every goddamn way possible.

  She wanted me, and I always wanted her.

  Neither of us needed any more foreplay. We needed connection. And we needed it fast.

  “You need a release, huh, LoLo?” I asked on a whisper.

  My fingertips flexed on her jaw while she took a minute to consider all of the options. Give me what I want, and get what she so obviously needed? Or run from everything because she couldn’t stand the idea of needing it at all?

  It didn’t take long, just one simple reminder squeeze from my fingers at her jaw, and she nodded.

  “What do you need?” I asked softly. Her eyes closed and her head tipped back, opening her throat further. I moved my lips to her ear. “What do you need?” I repeated, skimming the skin with more than my breath.

  Her nerves made the column of her throat flutter.

  My hand slid down her throat to the base, spanning the very top of her chest, and her eyes came back to mine. “You need a smoke?” I asked, and she shook her head.

  My hand flexed at the bottom of her throat, squeezing slightly as I brought the cigarette to my lips one final time.

  Dropping the butt in the ashtray to my right, I asked her again. “What do you need?”

  The tip of her
tongue rounded the rim of her lips and left them wet in its wake, but an answer still didn’t come.

  “You gotta tell me,” I told her, knowing that I wasn’t just speaking for her. I was actually buzzing inside, coming apart from the inside out with the need to know how to please her.

  She leaned forward and raised the volume on the already playing music on my laptop. “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails was just starting. My pulse sped up to throb in time with each beat.

  Pushing back to standing, Lola had the same idea but on a grander scale, moving her body to the music and removing one piece of clothing at a time. Transfixed, I didn’t move from the chair—couldn’t. I was a captive of her movement, a prisoner of her provocation, just watching as she littered the floor of my living room with article after article until there were one hundred percent more clothes on the floor than her body.

  My own body awakened at the sight and the feel of the moment. It wasn’t just watching her, and it wasn’t just skin. Lola’s eyes looked harder, and her breath came and went in bigger gulps. There was a cloud around us, powerful and noxious, something we made by looking into each other’s eyes and seeing more than the color.

  Slowly, so fucking slowly it hurt, she sucked her middle finger all the way into her mouth and back out again. Down, down, down her body, she left a trail of moisture until it met her clit. A pause. And then one perfect strum.

  I had to force myself back into the chair.

  “Me or you, Lo?” I asked, and she moaned, playing with herself.

  Oh, fuck.

  My ass left the chair, and she noticed. Her eyes met mine with a shake.

  “Uh-uh-uh. Sit back down.”

  Difficult as it was physically, I did as ordered. Because this moment was bigger than anything I could conjure in my mind and bigger than Lola realized in her own.

  Her body went back to dancing, her eyes went back into her head, and her hand went back to her clit. Each movement was deliberate and measured and close to snapping my control.

  I slapped at the desk blindly, searching for my pack of cigarettes—because, holy fuck, I need another one.

  One hand played with her nipple while the other shoved a finger inside, and I wanted to die. Die because I was in heaven, and I was in hell, and Lola was the sexiest, most erotically confident creature I’d ever encountered in my whole entire life.

  Sweet Jesus.

  She built the pace as the song climbed and moved her breast-fondling hand down to her clit. In and out, in and out, strum, strum, strum.

  I was literally going to come in my goddamn pants.

  She gasped once, twice, and the song demanded she get there, forced the issue, building and building and then holding it there until I thought I’d lose my goddamn mind.

  All at once, the tempo dropped from the top of the cliff, and she went too in one big rush, moaning and crying out with an intensity that made me snap the cigarette in my hand right in two.

  The hot ash end fell right in my lap. “Shit, shit! Fuck!”

  Unbothered by me and my jumping hysteria, she slid her hands to her throat as she breathed and rode from one end of her climactic wave to the other.

  I put out the burning end and stared. She was magnificence in one tiny, confident package. Something deep in my chest ached to tether itself to her and this moment.

  Her head came forward, and her eyes came to mine—and then she stalked me.

  I couldn’t do anything more than sit there as she leaned into my body and put her lips to mine. Not deep, not inviting—just a teasing touch.

  “That,” she declared as she pulled back, smug satisfaction written in every line of her face. “Was a sexual act just because I felt like it.”

  My head jerked.

  “Sex can be just sex.”

  She found solace in her decree, but all I found were lies. Lies to cover all of the things she was actually feeling, and lies to make herself feel validated again. Lies to find truth in all of the things she spent her time telling the people who read her column. Lies to find truth in all the discrediting things about our relationship she was telling herself.

  My eyes narrowed as she backed away and picked up her clothes, donning them in order.

  When I finally got my voice back, she was at the door.

  “You’re wrong,” I told her, my voice steady as a steel beam.

  She turned, one eyebrow raised in question.

  “That was our most emotional experience yet.”

  “It wasn’t,” she protested easily, turning the knob, but I crossed the room quickly and stopped her with a hand on the door and my chest at her back.

  Lips to her ear, I said everything she already knew. “It was.” It was trust and intimacy, and it was both of those things on a level most people are never blessed enough to comprehend. “And, Lo?”

  She turned only slightly to look me in the eye.

  “It’s just the fucking beginning.”

  Things were falling apart.

  They were doing it in an orderly fashion, following the goddamn story arc like they were supposed to, but in no way was the conclusion coming together like I’d planned.

  First, I’d thought if I fucked Reed that my need to want to fuck him would go away.

  But I had fucked him.

  And I still wanted to fuck him. Again. And again. And again. Although, I doubt it could still be considered just fucking when I liked him as much as I did. I was starting to agree with him, for fuck’s sake.

  As a means to combat these very uncomfortable feelings, I’d had the brilliant plan to play a little game of show-and-tell with no verbal telling whatsoever. I’d just shown him how well-versed I was in the act of masturbation in the name of proving to him that sex really could be just sex. I’d thought it would make me feel better. I would be victorious. And I wouldn’t want to cuddle and gab like a couple of lovesick fools after sliding down his body like a fire pole.

  So, I had diddled and I’d strummed and I’d finger-fucked myself in front of him. Unfortunately, the instant the waves of my climax had subsided, my plan went up in forest fire-sized flames. I’d put on a good face, put my clothes back on, and headed home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d looked—fucking enraptured as he watched my exhibition with hooded, heated eyes. The way his breath had caught as my hips swayed and my fingers slid down past my belly. Mostly, the way his electric gaze hadn’t objectified me but took me in, savored, appreciated. I’d never felt the way Reed made me feel—not even close.

  And now, I was still thinking about him while doing laundry in the basement of my apartment complex.

  I was starting to see a theme.

  I couldn’t fuck or finger-bang him out of my head. Not to mention, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around his words: “That was our most emotional experience yet.”

  I tossed a purple bra into the designated “colors” basket and leaned a hip against the washer. My gaze might have been scanning down the rows of washers and dryers, but my mind was fixated on trying to dissect his words.

  Our most emotional experience yet?

  I mean…we hadn’t had sex. Hell, he’d stayed completely dressed and just watched my little show from his desk chair.

  At your command, my mind reminded me. I told it to shut up.

  I might as well have been alone in my apartment. It was merely a one-woman show that just so happened to have an audience…Right?

  Once my laundry was successfully separated, I poured detergent into the washer and filled it with a load of whites. I slid my laundry card into the machine, adjusted the settings, and hit the start button.

  I focused my mind on the simple task of filling three more washers with my dirty clothes. This was why it was brilliant to do laundry at midnight. No one else was down here, and I could hog four washers at one time without getting the stink-eye from the other tenants in my building.

  I stacked my empty baskets and set them on the ground, and just as the sounds of whooshing waterfalls f
illed the room, Reed seeped back into my brain.

  Goddammit.

  That was it. I refused to beat my head against the wall trying to understand what the fuck he meant. I slid my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and angrily typed out a text. My finger hit send a minute later.

  Me: Our most emotional experience yet? I call bullshit. The only emotion I felt was happiness, and that was because I was literally pleasuring myself to climax.

  I didn’t even have time to put my phone back into my pocket. The screen lit up with a notification of his response a mere minute later. I leaned against the washers and crossed my feet at the ankles. I had a feeling I might as well settle in for the circle of crazy conservation I had just unleashed on myself.

  Reed: 24 hours. I’m impressed.

  My face scrunched up on its own accord. Impressed? What in the hell was that supposed to mean? And did he always have to talk in existential riddles? I wasn’t even good at the Sunday morning crossword in the New York Times. Riddles weren’t my thing. And Reed’s Riddles might as well have been a mental Rubik’s Cube.

  Side note: I really suck at Rubik’s Cubes, too.

  Me: Huh?

  Reed: I thought it would take you at least 36 hours before you graced me with your opinion.

  I rolled my eyes. I did that a lot when it came to him. If I weren’t careful, he would push my already bad eyes to blindness.

  Me: That wasn’t our most emotional experience. There was no “our” in that experience. It was just me. Getting myself off.

  Reed: In front of me.

  I started to type out a sarcastic retort, but the bubbles started to move across the screen and then another text came through.

  Reed: You were bared, exposed, so beautifully vulnerable…

  Reed: In. Front. Of. Me.

  Well, fuck. When he put it like that…

  Reed: Last night WAS the most intimate moment we’ve shared together.

  Me: No, it wasn’t.