Nervous

by SM Johnson

  His hand on my cock just then was too much.

  It had been too much minutes ago, but now I was undone. I came before I realized it was happening, and my noises were a gasp and a grunt, a plea on top of a sigh that morphed into a drawn-out, high-pitched whimper.

  I could have been embarrassed after that, should have been, maybe, but although Avery’s eyes were gleaming, his smile was almost shy. He left me for a moment, then returned to soothe me with a warm, wet washcloth. There was a moment when we both giggled as he wrangled with the knotted red fabric of my bindings. When I was free, he smoothed my hair out of my face, turned me onto my side, and wound the bedsheet around me. He cuddled up against me, my back to his chest, a perfect snuggle except for the sheet between us.

  chapter fifteen

  bodyscan

  I woke up too warm, disoriented, and in a state of near panic. My heart was a wild, terrified thing in my chest, a fierce staccato I could feel inside my head, too full, too fast, a rushing disconnection from anything that might be real.

  Within seconds I remembered I was in Avery’s room, Avery’s bed, and it didn’t really help, because remembering sent a sudden layered collage of humiliating images through my mind because once again Avery made me feel worlds of pleasure without receiving a single touch in return.

  I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t know how to do this. I wasn’t a person who should ever be attempting to navigate a sexual relationship. So awkward. Such a mess. All my nerves seemed activated with sheer discomfort and I wanted to flee the bed, but didn’t dare move for fear of disturbing Avery.

  Tool kit. I needed my anxiety tool kit, which was a list of mental exercises I could use to help me contain myself, to calm my nervousness and stop a panic attack. An actual list was in my wallet, which was… on the floor somewhere, still in the pocket of my pants. I tried to visualize the list, because I like words, and sometimes I can see them in my mind clearly enough to read. And suddenly it was right there.

  Breathe.

  The Big Five.

  Mindfulness.

  Body Scan.

  I stopped at that one. A body scan might help me stay in this bed.

  I thought about my feet. My toes were comfortable, not too warm or too cold. I could feel the sheet tangled around one ankle, but the other was free, and it rested over what was probably Avery’s leg. I moved that foot, just an inch higher, and could definitely feel the silk slide of Avery’s skin along my shin. We’d both rolled over in our sleep, because my groin and belly were pressed against Avery’s delightfully rounded backside. The sheet was still between us, and my dick wasn’t all the way hard, but wasn’t all the way soft, either. It was in a state of waiting readiness. Neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, because although I was aware of it, I felt no anxiety about it at all.

  My chest was against Avery’s beautiful back, and again, comfortable. Without the sheet it might have been uncomfortably sweaty, but no. He felt solid and real against me, and when I paid attention to my own chest, I could feel the rise and fall of his breath and even the slow and steady beat of his heart.

  My right arm was tucked under my head, but my left arm had found its way free from the sheet, and was flung over Avery’s side. Avery’s arm was over mine, pinning my fingers flat against his chest. He had a hand curled loosely around my wrist.

  I caught my breath, because I had never touched him like this, and a small, niggling part of me worried he wouldn’t like it.

  I held myself still, picturing his tattoo, wondering which part of the phoenix was beneath my fingers. The graceful wings? The long, flowing tail-feathers? I moved my fingers the tiniest bit, trying to guess, and discovered a startling texture. Not smooth skin, but a raised bit of…something. A scab from a scratch or cut? Or maybe a scar?

  I realized I was no longer panicking, though my heart was still beating faster than Avery’s. Curiosity killed the cat, and yet…

  I moved my whole wrist, letting my fingers explore with the gentlest possible touch.

  The texture I could feel beneath my fingers must be hidden by the tattoo. Was this why Avery didn’t want me to touch him? He didn’t like this stretch of textured skin, an imperfection that was invisible to eyes but discernable to fingertips?

  Avery sighed in his sleep, gripped my wrist tightly for a moment, but then settled without truly waking.

  I relaxed and closed my eyes. Pressed a little kiss to his upper back without really intending to do it, and allowed sleep to capture me again.

  I woke up when Avery jostled me as he slid out of bed. My eyes searched for a clock, and discovered it was nearly ten in the morning. Avery pulled a t-shirt over his head, then leaned over the bed and ruffled my hair. “Good morning, sleepy head.”

  I blinked up at him, and could feel my lips curve into a smile. “Good morning to you.”

  This was the nicest way to wake up in all the world.

  Avery made coffee and I toasted bagels, and it was a simple, companionable breakfast. “What do you normally do on Sundays?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I try to never have a plan for Sunday. It’s my day to rest and re-group and prepare for the busy week ahead. I like to be as lazy as I can manage, and even try to ignore my phone. It’s actually the one day a week I might watch something on television on purpose.”

  His smartphone was, in fact, noticeably absent. He wasn’t an every-six-second phone-checker, but his phone was usually near his right hand, and from my point of view, he seemed to check it several times an hour. I had a dumbphone, but only because it was cheaper than having a landline. In my normal life I stayed home as much as possible, so anything fancier seemed ridiculous. I had the phone, a tablet, and a laptop, which seemed like excessive amounts of technology for a person like myself.

  “What do you watch?” I asked. I knew very little about television. If I got run down and sick, I might poke the cable channels for something to watch, and I’d found shows that I enjoyed, but I wasn’t great at sitting still and passively watching things.

  Avery made a funny facial expression that looked like embarrassment.

  I couldn’t help my grin. “Ooh, do you have some guilty pleasure that I should know about?”

  He shook his head, but said, “Maybe.”

  “Well, now I’m dying to find out more.” I searched my brain for what kind of horrifying pop culture shows I’d heard of. “Desperate Housewives? No, wait, I know! What’s that camouflage family, umm… Duck something. Duck Dynasty!”

  Avery actually cringed, and I laughed out loud. This was fun.

  “God, no,” he said, and rolled his eyes, but he was starting to laugh, too. “Nope, you have to tell me yours first.”

  Mine? I didn’t really have anything… well. Okay, maybe I did. “The last time I had a nasty cold I watched a marathon of Toddlers and Tiaras,” I admitted, and the moment the words were out of my mouth, I felt my face turn red. “It’s not what you think! I’m not creepy like that, but oh good lord, the parents of those poor kids are nuts.”

  Avery kept a straight face, but I could tell he wanted to laugh.

  “Fine, laugh,” I said, and he did. In fact, he actually howled, with that full-body enjoyment that turned my stomach inside out. I found myself laughing with him, because, yeah, it was ridiculous. “Okay, your turn. You have to tell me one show you like that’s so embarrassing you don’t want anyone to know you watch it.”

  He sobered, but his eyes still held a gleam of mirth, and he extended his index finger. “You have to swear on the finger I had up your ass that you’ll never tell. I mean it.” He made his words sound stern, but his eyes were dancing with sheer merriment, and I’m sure the mention of that finger turned my cheeks an even deeper shade of red.

  I spluttered with embarrassed laughter. “Oh, oh, I can’t believe you! You’d bring th-that up in polite conversation!”

  He frowned but I could see him fighting a smile. “I’m serious.”

  I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe
, but I stretched my hand toward him and crooked my index finger around his. “Swear. Now tell.”

  “RuPaul’s Drag Race. Every season.”

  I didn’t even know what that was, but I loved knowing one more thing about him that maybe no one else knew. “Drag racing, like cars?”

  He was laughing again, but it was a relieved kind of laugh. “No, silly, Drag race, as in queens, fashion, and talent. Men dressed as women, competing for money.”

  “Competitive drag queens? That’s a thing?” I was spluttering with laughter all over again, to the point that my ribs hurt. This was The. Best. Conversation. Ever. “Avery. You have to show me this, right now.”

  And so he did.

  At first I was baffled. “So. They’re all men? For real?”

  Yes, he assured me, they were all men, although some of them were quite feminine even when out of their drag queen costumes. I realized the skinny bald African American guy was RuPaul, but so was the tall, elegant African American woman with poufy blonde hair. The contestants were bitchy, the challenges kind of campy, but by the end of just one episode, I was hooked. I even had a favorite queen.

  “This is silly and ridiculous,” I announced to Avery. “I adore it, utterly. I want to watch this all day.”

  After each episode of the show, the next would start automatically. Avery worked on his laptop, but this was the first whole weekend in months or even years that mine never came out of its case. I made us lunch, and ordered pizza to be delivered for dinner. Avery didn’t say what he was working on, but it didn’t take his total concentration, and he’d already seen the episodes I was watching. He laughed with me and tried to get me to guess which drag queen I thought won each challenge.

  When I was getting ready for bed, I was startled to realize I’d been just as relaxed here as I would have been at home. I’d have never guessed that watching television could be fun and social. But I’d also have never guessed I could be fun and social. That I could spend a whole day with someone and not be nervous for even a minute.

  chapter sixteen

  use guided meditation

  Late Monday morning I finished reading the gay romance submission. I leaned back in my chair and stretched, and let a contented sigh escape my lips.

  “You bored?” Avery asked, looking up from his computer.

  “Nope. I am perfect. I just finished reading an incredibly satisfying book.”

  “Something we can shop around?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, doesn’t fit into any of our categories. It’s an explicit gay romance. But it’s a great book. I’m going to write the author a letter encouraging submission to Bold Strokes, or even to try self-publishing. I mean, this would be a stellar debut novel.”

  “Hmm.” Avery’s fingers tapped a gentle rhythm on the surface of his desk, and he seemed to be thinking. “Are you interested in becoming an editor? I was only half-joking when I tossed out the idea of starting an e-press. I wouldn’t have time for it right now, but I could put you in charge of it.”

  “Me?” There was an emotional sensation blooming in my chest that I had no idea how to name. It was a mix of feelings – warm and hopeful, but also doubtful and scared. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Oh, come on, Jules. You’re a reader. I bet you’d take to editing like a turtle to a pond.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, a box turtle. I’d probably drown.”

  “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  The blooming warmth got bigger. Did Avery really believe I was competent enough to be an editor? To be the person in charge of a whole new branch of Phoenix & Phoenix?

  “Think about it,” he said. “I’ll schedule a meeting with E, and we’ll see what he has to say about it.”

  I thought about nothing else for the rest of the day. I googled “how to publish an ebook,” and found tons of information about different kinds of electronic files and how to format manuscripts. It was too much to take in all at once, of course, but my overall impression was that it was certainly doable. I didn’t quite understand ‘metadata’ and NCX files, but I was sure I could find someone to ask.

  At Tuesday’s impromptu meeting, Evan looked more smug than surprised by the suggestion. “I’ve asked you about this more than once. I told you we’d be trailing behind industry leaders if we didn’t consider branching out to publishing, especially now, when ebooks are cheap to produce, easily marketable, and romance readers eat them up like tiny chocolate bon-bons.”

  “Phoenix & Phoenix isn’t an industry leader in acquiring romance manuscripts,” Avery said. “My father and his cronies preferred the hard-boiled P.I., the aging athlete who fights to make it to the big leagues, and government conspiracy thrillers. We’ve branched out significantly, but typical romance might be tough for us. I want to use this to push right to the edge. Romance, yeah, but books that are explicit and steamy, with great story and great writing, but have something about them the large publishers are afraid of. Something that makes them off-off-mainstream.”

  I found myself thinking, ‘demon porn,’ and felt a little shiver of delight.

  Avery was still talking. “We start small, five books the first year, and call it ‘Sparks Rising Press’ or something like that. Julien has an eye for good writing, so we make him the acquisitions and content editor, and see what he can do with it.”

  He was going to name a publishing imprint after me? And he really thought I could run the whole thing? I didn’t contribute to the conversation at all – I couldn’t – I was too busy blushing to the roots of my hair because Avery spoke as if he had absolute confidence in me. And even though I had some doubts, I didn’t say anything to E about them. I didn’t say anything at all. Just sat there and let all of this happen around me.

  “Whatever you want,” E said to Avery. “I know there’s a part of you that hates anything mainstream, so sure, go edgy. It’s a low-risk venture, financially. I’ll figure out a budget for cover art, book formatting, and marketing. You can let your new favorite acquisition run with it.” He winked at me when he said that, and it seemed friendly.

  I couldn’t find anything to say even after Evan left.

  “Why the pensive look, Jules?”

  “You have too much confidence in me,” I said. “What if I can’t do it? What if I make bad decisions?” What I meant was, what if I fail? What if I embarrass you? But I didn’t say that out loud.

  “Julien.” Oh boy. I recognized his ‘reasonable’ voice and knew a lecture was coming. I looked at him, waiting for it. He got up from his desk, and came over to mine. I craned my neck to keep him in sight until he stopped directly behind me. When he put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed that space between my neck and shoulder that held so much tension, I relaxed my neck and let my eyes rest on my laptop screen.

  “I figure it this way – we’ll contract and publish any title that makes you hard. Sparks Rising Press, a division of Phoenix & Phoenix.”

  He sounded so grandiose that I had to laugh. “Even demon porn?”

  His hands got gentler as my muscles gave in to his kneading. “Especially demon porn. All the demon porn you can find.”

  I must have been too quiet after that, because Avery kept rubbing my shoulders for a bit, and then slid one hand along the nape of my neck and around to the front of my throat. His touch there gave me the kind of shiver that tingled through my chest. He used his fingertips to tilt my head until I was looking at him looming above me. His lips curved into a gentle smile. “You’re still afraid you’ll embarrass me, aren’t you?”

  I closed my eyes for a second. How did he know so much in such a short time?

  “Look at me, Jules.”

  I opened my eyes. The upside-down me looking up and him looking down, that soft smile, his blue eyes framed by lush lashes… he looked even more like his twin, somehow more feminine from this perspective.

  “You can’t ever embarrass me, because although I know you don’t believe it, I spent years embarrassing and humilia
ting myself in ways you could never dream of. That nerve is burned out. I promise. The worst that can happen is a book you adore won’t have great sales. And so what? Move on to the next one. If you hate editing and formatting, you can go back to reading. It won’t matter to me, either way. Don’t miss an opportunity because you’re scared. Be scared. Do it anyway.”

  As he talked, he leaned down and brought his mouth closer to mine.

  “I want you to try. That’s all.”

  And then his lips touched mine, his fingers still under my chin, keeping my head tilted back. The tingle moved through me, from my chest to my stomach to my dick, from my heart to my ears to my head, until I felt like I was floating into his kiss.

  “I like kissing you,” he murmured against my mouth.

  I raised my hands to his cheeks because I needed to touch him, wanted to make sure he kept kissing me.

  A groan escaped my throat, and I was moving, thrusting my hips until my buttocks nearly left the seat of the chair, and I wanted –

  Too much. More than the chair could handle. It tipped, crashing into Avery, knocking him off balance enough that we landed on the floor, chair and all, startled gasps turning into breathless laughter.

  “Are you hurt?” I finally managed to ask.

  “Not at all,” he said. “I had years of ballet. You’d think I’d fall more gracefully.”

  Ah. Well. I didn’t know much about ballet, but now I knew why he moved the way he did, all sure footing and graceful lines.

  We picked ourselves up off the floor, and I was still giggling as Avery righted the chair and put it in place in front of my ugly desk.

  “Okay, I’ll try,” I said. “I’ve got to search my outgoing mail and write an acceptance letter for demon porn.”

  I had a kind of nervous excitement going on as I wrote that letter, as I realized I could accept and publish anything I wanted. I had the power to make dreams come true.