The Brightest Coin

She could never tell when she orgasmed in her dreams if her dormant body did the same. Controlling these escapades was teasingly difficult. She grew agitated tugging at her subconscious. She was trying to paint a lurid fantasy, with heavy and proud strokes. The lacquer would be so thick that names from her past wouldn't peak through. She wanted to paint in a new color, probably less pink than the last. Restless and fervid, she strained to caress an ethereal body. As her impatience for this new color and touch bloated; she gasped awake.

Now she could really think, really envision. She prefers the montage of a dazed, yet awake mind. Control is possible, and ripe for exploits. She tosses moving images about her mind to blur time until the yellowing sky suggests it is morning. The images contort and writhe to a mess of dark hair, which she hopes she will soon touch. And plumped lips nesting into unrecognized profiles, his undiscovered bluff.

She is meeting a man tonight.

Maybe he will be funny. Funny enough that she will laugh not just because that's what women do on dates in movies. Or even better, maybe he will be so funny that she hiccups and spews her drink across his glasses, like skinny women did in sitcoms in the 90's. She will act demure and feign embarrassment as he wipes off the sputter. This will all be a farce to inspect his face without his glasses. Maybe she will find new blemishes to memorize.

Maybe he will smell like a high school Euro AP teacher who owns a brewery with his brother and works there on the weekends. Like on workdays the polish from his morning shower lingers, but by the last bell, the waft of castile soap is obscured by a lick of sweat. Maybe she will taunt at his wrist with a flimsy pat not just because she wants to remind herself how to flirt. But maybe his hands will look gentle and his fingers will be long -- but not too spindly. Maybe he will ease close to the bow of her back as they turn a corner and she will note how steady his touch can be. Maybe he will patter his long yet steady fingers, riffing, down her torso until he hears music.

Maybe as he touches her she will shallow breath like girls do in the videos she watches when she can't sleep. Maybe she will like it so much that she forgets that she's just mimicking what she thinks he wants.

Slumped in her wet and eager stupor, she only hopes he won't be too kind, or too earnest, or too good. She doesn't want to be tempted by any glimmers of coins at the phantasmic bottom of wells. She doesn't want to fall.

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She sloshes her fork around her soggy burrito bowl at lunch just to listen to the lewd noise the sour cream makes. With her eyes closed she can hear a hungry wetness. This makes her appetite for food wane and be supplanted by an appetite for this new person -- a new horizon to fling her lofty fantasies. Her food wilts as her mind prances to an imagined figure. She feels like a petty child, incapable of finishing her food because she's daydreaming about a tall boy.

She wonders what's better: meeting a real boy with unexpected textures, who she might one day have to introduce to her cantankerous mom, or curating a boy with shoulder skin so soft and predictable and welcoming that his entire personality might as well be the embodiment of the cartoon cloud a rainbow dies into?

This imagined boy would always text her back quickly (enough) and wouldn't require a five paragraph persuasive monologue about why the movie she wants to watch tonight is worth his time. He would muse about his next novel while she delicately paws at his flaccid penis in the morning. In her mind she has the gumption to say, "I love you" first; ideally precisely as a glass of wine is brimming his lips so he convulses out of cheery surprise. They will kiss through laughing grins. Laughing at her playful timing, and how her love has stamped its permanence in the form of a Rorschach splatter on his favorite horizontal striped shirt.

She could easily envision the hesitation in the last boy's disposition the final time he came on her stomach (because he was too anxious to cum inside her). His unsure expression loomed as an omnipresent face of self-doubt. He was unsure about her naked body beneath him. He was unsure about her cunt. He was unsure about her.

She is lost again in a reverie of carnal bodies. She imagines a faceless boy snap his neck back, his head clearly weighed down by the power of pleasure, as she gives herself to him, bare. A blunt, yet ordinary, slam of the front door startles her back, as her roommate offers a convivial: "Oh my god, don't you have a date later?"

As she grapples to find her presence of mind her roommate adds, "Whoa, your face is

red

."

"Oh, yeah," she gingerly holds her cheeks, "I guess I'm nervous. I don't know. He's like...too handsome. I've never been on a date with someone this handsome. Like do you think he might be a secret weirdo?"

She outstretches her arm to present his dating profile on her phone to her roommate. Her self-sabotage was churning up a destructive avalanche. Goading her friend to reaffirm that he ~must not be that great~ calmed her. Maybe if she thought he was a secret pariah she would be able to finish her lunch.

Her roommate's eyes bulged and her neck jerked, "Woah! He is so attractive. Good for you!"

"Yeah...am I pretty enough for him?" she instantly hated hearing that thought aloud and goofily tussled her hair to cover her face to deflect from her flagrant insecurity.

"Oh my god. Yes, calm down." her roommate dropped her phone on the couch between them, "you're gonna dazzle him."

Her past rejections by conventionally beautiful men played in a macabre montage, an imagery loop far less racy than this morning's.

Maybe I won't like him

, she thinks,

wouldn't that be nice and easy?

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If I'm 3 minutes late I won't seem too excited

.

Like scary-excited.

She clenches her crotch to sense the rosewater she sprayed up her pussy before leaving. Just to remind herself that she didn't forget something. Just to remind herself what's between her legs. She first notices the hair on his calves and toes. The air must be flirting with each strand, an windy twirl. If she interlocked correctly during their ~nice to meet you~ hug she would feel a welcoming fuzz.

He has chamfered but sturdy shoulders. His brown eyes are so trusting she wants to lunge at his mouth immediately -- on the public sidewalk. The natural breeze on their bare backs would make her feel as if they were in adjoining daydreams.

"Hi, nice to meet you!" he says, opening his arms to offer an embrace.

"Hi!" she briskly nestles into his chest. She is abruptly relieved because the tambour of his voice is higher than she expected. He is still handsome in a cinematic way -- dark hair that has molded itself into an inviting wave atop his resilient brows. He has the jaw of a noir detective. But the oddity of his voice, the misplacement, made her more attracted to him than she expected.

She clenches her crotch.

While rotating ciders to sip on, he interrupts her with laughter. He thinks she's funny. Or he's good at making her think that he thinks she's funny. He is good at making her feel

right

. They bandy about childhood anecdotes, stubborn opinions about TV shows, and tales of frivolity from their misguided college years. The disparity between her nerves prior and her placid charm now is gaping. She thinks that could mean

this must be right

. And his smile is so generous that the thought doesn't scare her.

Their conversation meanders along with their bodies back to his living room. They are both poor at hiding when they're fixating on each other's lips. His are colored by a glaze of red wine after he sips. He notices her cheeks redden as he drags his tongue slowly to swipe the taste away.

Her newly rouged face is his invitation. She isn't being intentionally demur. But as he presents his body close enough to hers that his soft breath blows through her hair, she can't bring herself to look into his eyes. Now, alone and indoors, she knows she would certainly hurl towards him. She knows her body would be ravenous for their richness before her brain could even register their exact hue. Maybe this is why she had never been with a man with brown eyes...too dangerous. She would be rendered too vulnerable. She would always be hungry.

Finally, after a pregnant stillness, another drop of wine rests on his lower lip as he places his empty glass on the coffee table. She strokes with a single finger to collect the red smear. She wets her lips and pouts them as she flicks her finger into her mouth to taste his castoff droplet. She curls her tongue like a ribbon around her finger as she slowly releases it. Now she looks at his eyes.

There was not even a wink of a moment to notice what he smells like as he cups her neck; with a firm intensity their lips interlace. Her hands, at last, tug at his quaffed hair as they kiss with plush and open mouths. She likes her kisses wet and with a reckless tongue. He is a clean kisser, and his lips are obediently following her cues for how dainty or unruly to be. His hands aren't waiting for anyone.

She is intimidated by how expertly he unfastens and unclasps her clothing while still holding her face close to his. If she weren't so enraptured by his tongue and touch she would've found his movements arrogant. While she claws at his neck and head, pressing her newly naked body against his woolen chest hair, he unbuckles and wrangles himself out of his shorts. She pushes him back on the couch; his unwavering grip on her torso pulls her on top to mount him. The softness of his leg and pubic hair against her inner thighs makes her even more wet. And she can't help but begin to roll her hips back and forth -- like they're almost dancing. They withdraw from their kiss to just hold their lips on the cusp of touching. As they inhale and sway their lips skim across one another's. He twiddles his finger against her clitoris and draws her closer still. She releases a whisper so effortlessly it's as if it came from a force she doesn't control.

Oh my god

. As she rolls her hips against his, she finally glances down to see a tan, not very pink, cock. The folds or her labia curl, as petals, around his cock and she teases him, grinding against it. It is playful until it is not.

Her wetness lathers his shaft with each grind and his breath deepens to a groan. He can't follow along anymore. He clenches her neck, and she expels a shrill cry to let him know that that is ok. That is desired. He chokes her to control and contort her body to be beneath him. With his other hand he guides her left leg up and over his shoulder. Her cunt is readied with a glisten. It doesn't take much rearranging because of how wet she is to press his cock inside her, at first with careful conviction. But then, once they're acquainted, once he's familiar, he comes back out slightly and begins an amplified blitz.

She scratches his chest and tangles her nails in his hair, "fuck me harder." But again she can't quite place where her voice is coming from. She drinks in the hot air and can finally sense what he smells like. He smells as if the lotion on his hands is covering up slivered cuts made from wood chips. He smells as if he went on a run before their date to shake off his nerves but then cleansed the sweat from his shoulders with a cursory shower. He smells as if he always does his dishes but will never say no to midnight-mozzarella-sticks. He smells as if he couldn't wait to fuck her because he thought she would be funny based on their texting -- but then she had a dimple on her left cheek that he didn't notice in her pictures. And this made him want to fuck her even more. He smelled like sweat swirled with bitter red wine and spritzed with rosewater.

"How can I make you cum?" he gruffly whispers as he yanks her hair to expose her neck, punctuating his question with a bite.

"I want to ride your cock while you lick my tits," she closes her teeth around his lower lip and stretches it taut.

He pivots her body with a prompt jerk and puckers to her nipple. His upper lip wrinkles like a pleated hem. His tongue wraps and curls, a slick leaf. She feels clumsy and ungraceful as an uncouth howl stumbles from her mouth. Maybe she came so quickly because she looked bravely into his brown eyes as he fucked her. Maybe she came so quickly because all day she was hoping that he would make her laugh. And even the glimpse of the creases in his cheeks when he smiles made her stomach quiver.

She flails her torso limp into his as her giggling drips away into his neck and ear. Her orgasm incites a newfound tenderness. He cradles her back to press her tits to his chest, as if he's protecting her. Their closeness was not only something she didn't expect --but it was also something she did not think she wanted.

I hope he is not too kind, or too good.

With his palms spread one across her ass and the other her lower back, steady like she hoped, he bounces her to the rhythm of his husky inhales. She sloppily nests her tongue into the branch of his neck. She can tell when he cums not only by his hastening breath, but also how he slaps her ass with his nails flexed and bites her neck again with such vigor she squeals, surprised. All the sounds weave together like music.

Gasp. Scratch. Spittle. Smack. Yelp.

She keeps laughing to herself, delicate as piano keys in the distance. He breathes with the faint swells of her body. Her eyes open and a blank stare reminds her where she is. She wonders if this closeness is something he also didn't expect, or also didn't think he wanted. She doesn't know what is more frightening: the possibility that he doesn't think she is kind or earnest or good, or the possibility that he does. The possibility that he sees a glimmer, even a wink of one, at the bottom of some bullshit well, makes her eyes widen with trouble.

"I like your glasses," she says as she drags her feet, swaying backwards off his front stoop.

"I like your face," he responds, leaning contrapposto against his doorframe. She wonders if he's posing so that her last vision of him reminds her of a statue.

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The unapologetic night air barely stifles her smile on the walk home. Her legs are swinging at a gallop. She can't tell if she's running as a way to expend excitement or if she's running from a man she didn't think she was ready to meet. He didn't have the kind of unexpected textures she was lamenting about early. Like maybe he

could

work at a brewery with his brother on the weekends, but all their bespoke cocktails would be named after the twelve Olympians. Maybe he was too good and too earnest, but he wasn't too kind to pull her hair and bite her shoulder. He wasn't too kind to give her new bawdy looks or noises or touches to replay when she can't sleep.

Finally in bed, dazed yet awake, she can think back on all the ways he makes her want to run. She thinks about all the ways he scares her. She grew dizzy retracing all the ways he undermined her heretofore-favorite hobby of

let's tweak this real human man into a man worth daydreaming about

. He didn't talk about rock climbing. The famous women he revered were women worth admiring like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Jane Fonda. He wasn't embarrassed to ask for help when he got the corkscrew stuck in the wine bottle. Most importantly he would be the kind of sexy Euro AP teacher whose classroom she would've eaten lunch in. He'd be the kind of stoic yet amiable teacher who would've asked her what Japanese food she brought, out of curiosity and not as a subtle comment about the overbearing fragrance.

When she closes her eyes she sees his tan dick attached to a statuesque body. The vision turns to porcelain, ready to paint. The statue is displayed with pomp, elevated on a plinth in the center of a fountain. She perches at the rim and is nearly blinded by a symphony of reflected glimmers. There are so many coins she cannot see the bottom. She points her toes until they forget the ground and begins to fall.