by Devin Sawyer
“I don’t recall exactly. I was just busy.”
The crowd loses interest and we roll our eyes at Aaron’s vagueness until I hear an obnoxiously loud yell, which is a normal volume for Emily, come barreling out of her.
“Oh my God,” she blurts. “I know. You were masturbating, weren’t you? Like seriously what else could you have been doing?”
You hear some giggles at Emily’s bluntness and lack of filter, the girl hasn’t said more than a few words since arriving but God forbid masturbating has to be one of them. Aaron’s face turns the purplish-red color of a beet and suddenly I’m thinking that Emily may have just busted him.
“NO!” The inflection in his voice as it rises at the tip of the word sells us all. Oh. My. God. She’s totally right.
He attempts to deny it, blabbering about making a sale or checking on an account, but he’s already been given away.
“Dude,” Jeff scoffs. “You couldn’t tuck it away for ten minutes? You can arm wrestle with your one-eyed vessel like any day of the week. This was a fucking eclipse!”
Aaron shakes his head giving up on fighting it. The laughter rolls over the boys and they seem unfazed by graphic and private details. At this, Jeff breaks out into “Total Eclipse of the Heart” rendition, complete with dance moves and we become quickly distracted.
A few minutes later Torren grabs for my hand and I feel my whole body heat. I want to tell him how much I adore his little display of public affection, but I’m worried I’m making more of it than it is. It’s a crowded place. He probably doesn’t want to lose me. I grab on to Em and we snake through the party like a train.
“Hey, Wild Thang, wait up.”
My head swivels to find Aaron running after us, but I know he’s referring to Em by that name. She’s always had style that looks like she was from a different era but she finds a way to make it modern, it’s one of those things I’m intensely jealous of when it comes to Emily. Tonight, she’s wearing a denim oversized jacket more reminiscent of the nineties and it makes her small frame appear even more petite. Her dark hair is every bit of edgy rocker chic and a choker lines her neck, she polished her look off with a warm rust lip color that brings out her gorgeous olive skin tone. She’s a bombshell in a very atypical type of way. Boys in the nineties would blow their loads all over a centerfold of Emily, even clothed, but considering boys of the nineteen-nineties are now adults that’s a bit pedophilic. She doesn’t look like your typical high school girl, but she’s gorgeous in a generational kind of way.
“What the heck was that about back there? You totally ratted out my secrets.” Ah, Aaron’s flirting. Go figure. I pull back on Torren not wanting to leave Em behind and we buffer the conversation.
“Hey man, maybe you shouldn’t be so obvious next time.”
“It’s not my fault. I was all…backed up. Had to relieve the boys, ya know? I haven’t exactly found a lady friend I’m interested in meeting my needs all summer.” He eyes Emily and lifts his brows twice at her.
A light laugh comes from her and I watch what’s about to happen next.
“That’s your opening line? You’re going to hit on a girl who called you out on burping your worm? That’s ballsy.” She’s engaging him. Pushing him. Flirting back and I feel at ease that this isn’t going to be a scene.
“Hey! He takes offense to that, ya know! He’s a dragon, not a worm. He’s tough. He breathes fire and shit.”
Oh God. I know exactly where Em is going to go with this one…
“Look if he’s breathing fire, that burning sensation is probably something you should see your practitioner about.”
“Ugh,” he groans. “You’re impossible, Wild Thang. Fine, not fire, okay? But he’s big and… and... and bad,” he fumbles, and Torren and I giggle off to the side watching their encounter. “If you’re interested in a little wager, I’ll prove it to ya.”
“Nah, you’re not really my type.”
I perk up, feeling inclined to alert Aaron to the error of his ways, he looks so cute floundering for her attention, but Em is right, Aaron is too much of a “good ol’ boy” for her to care for his attention.
“Em typically likes foreign guys. She finds most Americans to be bland, except for me, of course.” I see a slight nod come from her. “Her ex was Turkish, and the ex before that was an Aussie, and the one before that was Moroccan.”
“Damn, Mama, you got a lotta exes. How ‘bout we add my name to the list. My parents raised me to speak a little Español. I’m the Hispanic Titanic and my friend to the south…” He gestures to his zipper. “Is the Mexi-cutioner, if you will.” He throws an arm around Em and suddenly Aaron’s Hispanic accent kicks in and it appears his boyish charm is at least enough to entertain her.
Em’s hand swings down straight to Aaron’s crotch and he flinches as if he’s about to get racked. She grabs around his nether regions like she’s frisking the man. My eyes fly open in shocked horror, as do Torren’s. She’s mashing around all his manhood and all he’s doing is standing there as shocked as Torren and me. I’m pretty sure if Aaron had a penis it feels something like mashed potatoes now. He has a pained look on his face even though I know she’s probably hurting his ego more than his boys.
“YOU CALL THAT A PENIS?!” she yells as loud as she can over the boisterous crowd, intentionally attempting to embarrass Aaron. My hand flies to my mouth in complete awe. She basically just sexually assaulted Aaron and now she’s insulting his manhood. Dear God, Torren will never be seen with me in front of his friends again.
“Hey Mami, I got my work jeans on you just can’t feel him. I don’t sport no skinny jeans like your foreign pretty boys overseas. I let my boys breathe. Skinny jeans are like a cheap motel—they ain’t got no ballroom.”
A small smile lights on her face ever so slowly and her sassy and cold façade fades away. He’s finally gotten to her. “I’m just jerking your chain, pendejo…. But I’m not jerkin’ your dick so get me a beer, you persistent shit.”
A winner’s smile crosses Aaron’s face, the same one Olympians wear on the podium. I consider humming the national anthem or shouting “for God and Country” just to soothe over any serious damage Em may have done to his ego, but I have a feeling she can handle him on her own.
I watch as Aaron leads her toward the keg and I wave her off. I’m glad that she’s found someone here to keep her company so she doesn’t have to be the third wheel, but I seriously appreciated that when she’s around, I never have to fill the silent void.
“Well, it’s a good thing that Aaron enjoys being sexually harassed by aggressive Filipino women or that could have gone REALLY poorly.” He laughs out. I laugh along with him glad that there isn’t any tension.
“Do you want a drink?” he asks. “I wasn’t sure if you drank alcohol. They only have beer, but I bet I could find liquor if that’s what you wanted.”
I haven’t drunk much in my life, one because it’s illegal at my age, but two because I’ve seen drunken idiots at the aristocratic parties. So, I can’t figure out why, for the life of me, “yeah, a beer sounds fine” comes tumbling out of my mouth. I follow stupidly behind Torren toward the keg and mock myself. A beer sounds fine? What the fuck is wrong with me. I don’t even like beer. I’m one of those disgustingly smitten girls at school.
I keep a comfortable distance from him, afraid to be too close, afraid of what I’ll want if he’s near, afraid to make a move when our feelings are still so vague. He pumps at the keg and pours the spout into the cup. He holds the cup out for me and I reach for it and watch as he pulls it away, closer to his body. I take a step closer to him, closing the distance and when he offers it again this time he leans into me, placing the cup in my open hand and whispers, “You’re awfully far away, Ace. Are you afraid of being with me?” His voice is raspy and thick. I love the way it sounds, and I want to swim in the thick masculinity of it.
Afraid? Nooooooo, not at all.
“No,” I whimper out. Lies. Lies. Lies. Way to sound
convincing. For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to lie to the man at least have the cojones to do it with some believability.
“Yeah you are,” he fires back at me, but he’s smiling and doesn’t seem offended that I’ve lied. Busted. He’s good-looking and surprisingly good at social cues for a man, maybe I’ll get a haircut next and see if he notices. He lifts my chin nearer his face so that I’m forced to look him in the eye. Why is that so painfully difficult? Facing your fears?
“But that’s okay,” he tells me. “I might be a little scared too. I’m scared that you have everything to build me into something I never wanted to be before, but that I’ll never want to come back from.”
I can feel his face and body so close to mine. I cue back into the noises surrounding us, but this moment to ourselves feels unnervingly intimate despite the other’s proximity.
“So, what’s next in life for you?”
Like in the next five minutes? You! It’s fucking, you. I want to take his hand and run off with him to his truck, but don’t have the nerve to do so.
“Rice,” I stutter. I observe every feature of his face as confusion sweeps across it. “I want to go to Rice University next year.”
“Houston.” He says it as a statement, but his face is a mix of impressed shock. It’s only ninety miles from us but it’s a major metropolitan area, and a lot of the Fortune 500 companies have their base there.
“Yeah, Dad’s convinced it’s a great startup area for businesses.”
“So accounting in Houston? What do you think?” he questions. His gaze stares softly, but it still feels a little too intense for me. I channel my focus down at the drink I haven’t touched in the red cup. I throw back a gulp of the honey-colored liquid and I feel my face scrunch at the awful taste of it.
A snicker from Torren goes unmentioned.
“I think I’m not sure about anything anymore. I’ve been doing a lot of questioning in my life lately.”
He doesn’t say anything. He never feels the need to fill the silent space, and instead he simply waits out the awkward quiet forcing me to fill it myself. “I don’t know what I want to do, I just want to get away and find my place in the world. I want to feel happy,” I say.
I take a long pull of my drink, tipping the cup back until it’s empty of the liquid that I’m using to drown my emotions in. I’m not sure I could be any more obvious that he is the part of my life causing me to question and rethink everything. This feeling isn’t lust or excitement, it’s pure insanity.
He tugs the empty cup from my lips and tosses it behind him to the ground.
He gives nothing away even after I shoot him a brief questioning look. He closes the little bit of distance left between our bodies and reaches to cradle my head before pulling me gently into his lips. Softly. Slowly.
I heave a breath, not believing how we have transpired in the last few weeks. How quickly I have lost myself to this feeling.
A brief moment later he pulls back, still cradling my face.
“I want to be part of your happy.” His voice is low and husky and it almost distracts me from what he just said to me. It takes every part of me to not break out in dance.
“I want you to be mine,” he whispers before pulling me in again for a kiss, his fingers hooked into the belt loops of my jeans and he holds me against him. He pulls back to breathe again. “Say yes.”
He kisses me again not even giving me time to respond and this time he slides his tongue across my lips and over my own tongue as if trying to persuade me. I nod my head while he continues to kiss me and I finally pull back.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he says. “I want you to meet my pops and Gavin. Come to our next family dinner.”
I simply nod my head. Nothing could ruin this night. Nothing could take this moment away from me. Em and Aaron approach us.
“Hey, motherfuckers,” Aaron yells when he gets a few feet away. “We were just trying to break up some of this sexual tension. Not trying to conceive anything on this Fourth of July. We were going to head out to the clearing so we have a better view of the fireworks. Wanna join?”
We agree. I pull the blanket from Torren’s truck and he grabs us another round of drinks as we head that way. I splay the blanket out on the ground and he positions me in his lap as we look toward the sky waiting for fireworks. Torren begins to knead my shoulders, massaging me. Having his hands on me feels euphoric.
I look over at Em who is sitting next to Aaron and they seem deep in conversation, laughing periodically.
Almost everyone from the party has grabbed their beer and headed over to await them with us. The show begins, and we watch as colors dance across the sky. Torren’s hands begin to roam, and I feel him graze them down the sides of my arms. He pulls the blanket over top of us even though it’s a muggy ninety degrees out still.
I turn my head around to look at him inquisitively, but he whispers in my ear,
“Shhhhhh, grab my hand if I need to stop, but I’m so fucking drawn to you that I can’t help myself tonight.”
I right myself, going back to pretending to stare at the fireworks. If anyone were to look back at us, they would know exactly what was happening. I begin to shake slightly, fear and inexperience coursing through me.
His hands find my legs, and run themselves over my thighs. I begin to tingle straight to my core. He runs them all the way up to my tiny shorts and my heart starts to race.
I turn back to him again needing to see him when I tell him. “I, uh, I haven’t… I’m not…” I struggle to get the words out. “I’m still a virgin.” His body tightens behind me and goes stone still.
“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath.
My brows furrow. “Is that bad?”
“No, no it’s not bad.” He moves in and kisses my temple. “I just didn’t expect that. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” I turn back around again.
He pulls his hands back from my thighs, but I reach down and hold them there.
“But I liked the way that felt,” I whisper.
He remains paused on me even after I let his hands go, but after a moment he begins to slide them over me again and I relax my body into his. I allow myself to feel vulnerable with him, the feeling that is reigning my body as he touches me. Every few moments he will glide his hand over my apex between my thighs and I feel the sensation to twitch or push against him.
“Does that feel okay?” he whispers into my ear.
I merely nod, not wanting to reveal how I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. He drops kisses into my neck and I feel his tongue drag across me and his teeth nibble me. It has me so hot and I can’t seem to sit still as I am ravaged by him. I finally release a breath and worry that those around us might have heard and turn around, but no one does.
His hand pulls upward toward my abdomen, but when it drops again, it sinks beneath my shorts and underwear and his fingers gently touch my most sensitive area for the first time. I loll my head back onto his shoulder, the sensation overwhelming me. He rubs me in little circles, moving as little as possible. He dips his hand farther and he rolls his fingertips around my opening. For a moment I’m nervous. Worried that this will hurt like they always say it will but he doesn’t enter me, he swipes up the moisture pooling there and he brings it back up to my clit and my breathing quickens even more. He is making me feel so many things tonight and I can’t hold my breath any longer. I’m going to break. I’m going to orgasm with nothing even filling me, and a dozen and a half strangers spread out around a field. None of it matters.
He pulls up, teasing me. “Just a moment longer.” He swipes over me lightly not giving me the final pressure I need. I feel that I am so close, but I’m not sure what to do. When the firework finale finally breaks over the sky, he pulses his fingers against me and raises his free hand to my chest under my shirt and he fingers my nipple, hard. It feels amazing. My core begins contracting and I let out a breathy moan as I come down from the throbbing but no one is paying
any attention to me, their eyes set on the sky.
It is only now that I notice the hardness digging into my back. The idea that I made him feel like that excites and scares me. I feel the embarrassment hit me as I realize what we just did in public.
Torren pulls my hair, dampened with sweat to one side and he lays a kiss on my neck again.
“You’re perfect,” he repeats. “Let’s get you home.”
We round up Emily and he drives us both to my house and I lie there in bed that night listening to Em talk about her own night spent mostly with Aaron and I feel a sense of satiation I’ve never had before.
Chapter 12
Ari
I’ve only seen Torren a few days this week. Things are increasingly hot and heavy between us. He continues to pick me up after work and by the time we make it to his house he usually has his hands or lips all over me to the point that I can no longer focus on the work. I’ve started bringing some of it home with me to actually get some work done. Things have been great since last weekend but not once did he bring up the family dinner again. I chalked it up to drunken flirting by Wednesday and was moving on with life quite swimmingly. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Lying in my bed Thursday night I reviewed some of the paperwork on my own. I ran numbers, organized, I even went through the more recent stuff Torren had gathered.
Torren: What do you want for dinner tomorrow? Pops is asking for requests.
You’re shitting me. He’s totally jerking my chain right now. He did not just ignore this for an entire week and expect me to suddenly appear re-interested at nine p.m. on a Thursday night.
Me: Anything works for me.
Who am I kidding? I’m totally interested still. I’m just pissed. The doorbell of my text tone goes off again.
Torren: Soooo, you’re not mad then?
That asshole. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. Don’t let him know you’re affected, Ari.
Me: Mad about what? That you ignored this plan on me all week and made me think you were backing out? Nope, not mad at all. *insert winky face emoji*