Back at the beginning, he’d needed more help than me. I had a lifetime of musical theater experience and jazz lessons thanks to Mom. Zach had … soccer. So, my memories of Zach dancing are of someone competent, but maybe not so fluid.
Now? He makes it look as easy as breathing. There’s no stiffness, no look of concentration. Just skill. After one particularly smooth turn, he catches my eye, and smiles self-consciously, but doesn’t stop.
I’m glad. I don’t want him to stop.
He’s mesmerizingly beautiful.
When the song finally ends, he stands still, waiting for feedback. He’s not even out of breath. I guess this kind of thing is below our skill level, now. Once, we could barely get through a song without dying on the floor, begging for water. Now, we do it while belting song after song, night after night.
“So?” he asks impatiently.
I get up slowly and cross the room to him. “So,” I say, scanning from his socked feet all the way up to his eyes, which have darkened to a deep gold in this light. Burnt caramel melting into honey. With a soft smile, I place my hands on either side of his waist to line him up with me as I drop my voice to a murmur. “You’re in time.”
He pauses while he stares at me. For signs that I’m lying, or going easy on him, I guess. Then, breathing out with a heavy gush of air, he kisses me hard and deep, his arms flying around my shoulders. His chest presses against mine and I can feel the heat of his skin through the thin cotton of his shirt, and the rapid thud of his heartbeat, and suddenly I can barely hold myself up.
He’s kissing me like it can erase the frustrations and hurt of today, deeper and more frantically by the second, until I can’t keep up with him. I walk backward, pulling him, until my leg hits the bed and we fall together, crashing into the soft layers of blankets with a gasp. He doesn’t even pause, just cups my face and kisses me between his hands.
It’s zero to a hundred, but my body hasn’t skipped a beat. My breathing is hard and fast, and I grab his hips and pull him firmly down against me. The weight of his body flat against mine wipes my mind blank. All I know is him, and the smell of him, and the satin of the skin of his back as my hands slip under his shirt and lift it over his head.
Then we’re shuffling backward, still horizontal across the bed, and I’m gripping his middle with my knees for stability while I take my own shirt off, and his hands roam over my legs with a firm pressure. My breathing gets thicker and harder until it’s embarrassingly loud, and I can’t keep quiet anymore, and I want to be cool about this, but I can’t be. It’s not possible to be chill and detached with him. I change positions slightly, so I’m the one touching his legs, then, slowly, I crawl off the bed so I’m on the floor looking up at him. It’s a power dynamic I’m used to. I’ve given blow jobs before, to boyfriends in the past.
He must figure out straight away what I’m implying, because he swallows, and says, “I’ve never done this before.”
“Do you not want to?” I ask.
“No, I do. I’m just … sharing.”
I start on the buckle of his jeans, and he fidgets. “Can I ask you something?”
Okay. Something tells me this is not the moment for me to undress him. I rise back up and sit next to him on the bed. “Okay?” My voice comes out uncertain. It’s never a good thing if someone cuts you off mid–make out to have a Talk, capital T.
“It’s nothing bad. I just … I know you’ve had boyfriends in the past. And I don’t need to know every detail or anything. But pretty much everything I’m doing with you is a first for me. I was wondering if you’ve … ever…”
“If I’m a virgin?” I finish for him. “No.”
“So, you’re all out of firsts?” he asks.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I just wanted to know if I should expect to always be the newbie out of us. That’s all. I don’t mind.”
I hesitate, and look away from him. “Well, technically, I still have one first left.”
He cocks his head in a question.
It shouldn’t be hard for me to say, but suddenly I feel a twinge of embarrassment. Stomach clenching and cheeks flaming, I get the words out, still careful not to meet Zach’s eyes. “I’ve never actually been given a blow job.”
It’s not an accident.
Nathaniel, a guy I was seeing for a while once, kind of expected me to be the one giving, and even though it was never said out loud, it felt like I was doing the right thing if I instigated it. Like I was the good boyfriend, thinking about the other person before myself, like I should. I guess it stuck, because every time I’ve reached this sort of stage with a guy, I’ve made sure I was the one giving. Out of all the things there is to do, that’s remained the most vulnerable for me. To just lie there and not give anything back. To somehow trust that I’ll still have worth to the other person if I’m not earning it.