Finally, she removed her arm. She stared at the ceiling.
“You were so good at that,” she said. “What if I’m not good at touching you?”
London reached out and took one of her hands. They brought it in between their legs, sighing when Dahlia’s fingers reached their destination.
“Dahlia,” they said, “no matter how you touch me, I’m going to come in approximately thirty seconds.”
That made her smile at least. She turned on her side, so they were face-to-face.
“But you like it like this,” she said softly, her fingers moving beneath London’s instructive hand. They lifted one leg to lay on top of her thigh, to open themself more for her.
“Yes,” London said, and they contemplated taking away their hand, to let her take over. But then they didn’t.
They liked this, telling Dahlia’s fingers where to go, feeling her feeling them. They liked being in control.
When they looked at her, their faces inches apart, she was staring down at their joined hands, and London’s skin prickled with the awareness of being studied again. After a moment, she looked up to meet their gaze.
“Hi,” she said, and it made London laugh, but only for a second, because their lungs didn’t have room for it, their airways already overwhelmed by the other sensations racing through their body. Maybe it would take them more than thirty seconds to come, but it wouldn’t be long. They felt weightless, a simple animal paired with another, all warmth and need and instinct.
It really had been so long since someone had touched them. They had thought it could only ever be a fantasy that the someone could be Dahlia.
London kept eye contact for as long as they could while their fingers moved together, until they felt the pressure building and they had to close their eyes, forehead pushing forward into Dahlia’s again. They dimly heard her whispering encouragements, I got you, I got you, that were so earnestly sweet London’s heart felt drunk with them, even though part of them wanted to laugh and protest, actually we got me, and then they were truly gone, their brain frozen, their insides spasming. With a final, dizzy gasp, they held her hand tight and still against them for as long as they could stand it before releasing her fingers, their leg falling from her thigh, rolling onto their back to fill their lungs with air.
London wasn’t sure, exactly, how many seconds or minutes passed while they caught their breath. Eventually, they gathered together enough pieces of shattered consciousness to turn their head to see Dahlia, still on her side, a hand under her head, watching them. She smiled and ran her fingers through London’s hair, smoothed it off their forehead again and again.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
London closed their eyes as Dahlia’s fingers ran down their cheek. Their limbs felt heavy, their muscles deeply relaxed, their mind already slipping into darkness.
They let Dahlia Woodson cradle their face as they fell asleep, felt her stomach settle against their arm as she cuddled in closer, and at least right then, in that moment, both of their bodies felt, if not perfect, then real, wonderfully so. London’s and Dahlia’s bodies were meaty and scarred and warm, and they leaned against each other: just right, exactly how they were supposed to be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dahlia woke up far before London, while the sky was still dark.
She stared at them, how their eyelids twitched occasionally, their eyelashes brushing against their freckled cheeks, which looked ghostly in the dim light. She listened to the steady cadence of their breathing, smelled their skin, stared at their slightly open lips.
And then she started to feel creepy about it and flopped over to pick up her phone from her shorts, crumpled next to the bed.
Dahlia looked through Instagram blankly, liking every single post, even the boring ones, even the ones she probably shouldn’t be liking, from people she probably shouldn’t be following anymore, that she should have cut off after the divorce like they had cut her off. She imagined them looking at their phone in surprise when they saw her likes, pinging in at this ungodly hour. Dahlia wondered how many of them even knew she was here, that she was on Chef’s Special.
No, of course they would know. That kind of gossip wouldn’t go unheard. She wondered what their old friends were saying. Yeah, she left David high and dry, and now she’s flaunting herself on national TV? Seriously. The audacity.
Dahlia threw her phone onto the bed. She watched the sky begin to lighten through the gauzy white curtains. She contemplated getting up, taking a shower. But she didn’t want London to wake up and think she had left them. She wanted to be there when London woke up.