I haven't felt it in a long time. When you're with someone for six years the spark kind of dies down into a little ash-covered coal. If you're lucky it won't blow out entirely.
So I'm attached in a rather permanent way… I know I shouldn't be feeling this. I shouldn't be playing. I didn't mean for it to happen; it started out so innocent. But I can't help it. There's just something about him that hooks me, claws digging into my flesh, into my brain. A little shiver down my spine that shouldn't be there; something I thought I'd never feel again. Not in this lifetime.
I can't help myself.
He's never done this before; when he - jokingly at the time - told me to be gentle I just went all to jelly inside. My knees started to shake. They're shaking now when he lets me into his room. He's come a long way for this - for us to meet face to face.
Pictures, emails - they only tell you so much. They tell you what a person looks like and maybe even how they think and feel, but they don't give any indication of a spark, the thing that happens when two people meet, the thing that, if it doesn't happen, can't be forced.
He looks like his picture, but also nothing like. He matches the stats, the description, the picture: 6 feet, trim, short dark hair. Brown eyes. In them, the spark that can‘t be described, that must be seen in person. He looks me over, matching me with my pictures he's seen over the internet, my stats. 5'10, 170, blonde/blue. When he smiles and shyly steps forward to hug me awkwardly, I can feel him shaking. Just like I am. The way he smells makes my stomach turn flip flops and I feel the dizziness and panic I get from heights - like I'm going to fall. I fight the urge to clutch something and instead let him go and step back. His voice… I've heard it before on my cell phone, but now it makes it hard for me to breathe. That accent.
All through dinner at a trendy little Thai place downtown, we keep looking at each other. Sparks in our eyes. Both of us hardly believing the other is really here. An accidental touch, when both grabbing to pay the check, makes us both jump back like we've been been touched with an electrical shock. Then we grin at each other, embarrassed. We should be over this, right? It's not like we're kids.
I can't help myself.
I can't take him home, not with
him
there. I don't want to think about
him
. Not now. Just for one night let him not exist. Then I'll go back to my semi-content domestic partnership and stay there. I swear it.
So it's back to his room at the hotel a few miles from the Thai place. I drive and he laughs about being on the wrong side of the street with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. He's never been to the States before. I can see him getting a little nervous, and I smile. Giddy. Almost sick. It's like high school again, except no one from my high school had a sexy British accent, or ever smiled at me like he's doing. The crushing innocence nearly does me in. My heart is in my throat like a tribal drum.
He opens the door with his key card and I sit on the edge of the bed while he gets drinks out of the mini-fridge. I need one, badly. Absolut. Rocks, with a twist of lime. We both have one; we have several. We're strangers and at the same time not strangers. Isn't it funny what the internet can create between two people, a sort of instant intimacy. I've told him things over a network of wires and signals my closest friends don't even know.
I just can't stop myself.
We agreed. There's no expectation of sex. We'd just meet in person and see what happened. Just because you want someone online doesn't mean you'll want them in person. The pictures weren't necessarily even a true representation of what he looked like; people lie online all the time. But honestly at this point it doesn't matter to either of us if we hadn't matched our pictures. I feel scared, but at the same time I feel renewed. My body stops shaking and all the sudden we're looking straight into each other's eyes. My whole body is tingling and my cock is growing stiffer by the second, just from sitting next to him.
He swallows and looks down. He tries to hide the fact that he's nervous by smiling, but I don't need to be a genius to pick up on it. God. Women by the scores, he's had; he's told me half of their names. But he's never been with a man before. The fact that he picked me is baffling, but I don't question it. I just go with it.
Lifting my hand, I slide my fingers over his smooth jaw. I watch his eyes close as he leans toward me slightly. Waiting for me to kiss him. Our first kiss is just a brush … a journey of almost four thousand miles. His lips are so boyishly soft I forget everything. When I go for a second kiss this time he meets me - shy, but definitely eager. He wants this as much as I do. The taste of his tongue sliding past his lips and into my mouth is so sweet I almost can't stand it. I ache all over. All this time, wanting only just a taste, and now a taste isn't enough. It'll never be enough.
I can't stop. I don't want to stop.
I wrap my hand through his silky dark hair and pull him closer to me while his arms wind around my neck. We taste each other like hungry animals, devouring. I haven't kissed like this since I was a lovesick schoolboy. Kissing is one of those things that falls by the wayside after a few years with the same person. We're both breathing heavy when he pulls back and looks at me and starts to speak.
I place my finger over his lips and give my head a silent shake. Don't speak. Words, words, words. Months of nothing but words. Emails, instant messages, webcams, cell phone calls with a 6-hour time gap. Now is the time for actions. He smiles and kisses my fingertip that rests on his lips, understanding; we understand each other so well. The spark becomes a blaze.
Yes.
I won't let him say it with his mouth. Only with his touch. His body melting into mine until we're a shaking mass of the edge of the hotel bed. We haven't even undressed yet; all we've done is made out and already hot waves rush over me. His scent, sexy and innocent like sugar cookies, overwhelms me. My urge is to yank his clothes off, pin him to the bed and fuck his brains out, but his inexperience forbids that. We've already talked about this moment - the moment we didn't think would ever happen - enough that I know exactly what I want to do. What he wants me to do.
One night only. That's pretty much the agreement. One whole night together is all we can give each other. I'm attached. He's not seeing anyone, but he's got a job, responsibilites to go back to. But tonight it's just us and nothing else in this world matters. I feel a weight shed off my back; a weight I didn't even know I was carrying, the weight of the past twelve years since high school and everything that's happened since that has piled up on top of me. In this moment I can be totally free of all my baggage and be like I was at the age of eighteen: innocent and open, ready for anything.
Slowly I reach up and the buttons of his dark shirt whisper open. I know what he looks like; I've seen digital photos of him from all angles, naked. But they don't prepare me for the flesh. His satin-smooth skin that breaks into goosebumps under my touch; the silky dark hair trailing down his chest. He knows I like chest hair and he looks at me and grins as I stroke it, pushing his shirt open, over his shoulders.
It's only one night. I've worked it out like this: I told
him
I was going home for a quick visit overnight. Home is out in the sticks where cell phones have no reception and my brother, whom I always stay with, doesn't have a phone. It's just family so there's no need for him to worry or for me to call home. Home around noon tomorrow.
Noon tomorrow is a long time away.
Ths shirt falls to the bed and I put my hands lightly on his shoulders, spending my time just looking at him, seeing him in the flesh. The way his dark chest hair contrasts with his pale untanned British skin burns into my brain. His nipples are hard and his chest rises and falls quickly, matching the pace of mine. I slide my hands down his arms, skimming lightly with my palms over the light, lean muscle. He shudders.
I look up into his brown eyes and he gives me that nervous smile that makes me melt into a puddle.
"Am I what you expected?" he asks softly.
"You're better."