Our Infinite Sadness

Parity

Her fingers were on his face, caresses everywhere. And her cold smooth lips were on his forehead. Impossibly, she was the one comforting him. "So I should stay? Now I mean? It's okay?"

"Much more than okay."

She nodded and stared at him hopefully. "I'm sorry about everything. I was selfish. I'm sorry."

"Stop saying sorry."

"Are you cold? You must be cold. You usually wear a shirt to bed."

He lost his breath again all at once. He still couldn't fully grasp that she was here in his room all night, almost every night.

"I'm sorry," she blurted again, "oh, sorry, uh"— and then she just grimaced and seethed. She groaned, flung herself across the room to his dresser, and came back with the first ratty gray sweatshirt she had put her hands on. She testily helped him into it as though he were a small child. She wore a grimace that made her dimples stand out in the darkness. As she settled back into his arms, she averred, "I wasn't spying, Ben. I swear. Not on purpose."

He felt like he had to make light of the violation of his private space for her sake. She was definitely more upset than he was, and he was still reeling from her confession that when they were apart she felt broken in half. "I don't mind so much," he soothed, "it was only the shock of it more than anything...."

She looked up at him hopefully, trying a timid uncertain smile, tucking her head against his arm. "You don't have to say that, just to mollify me."

"No, really. I mean it."

"I am appalling. An appalling and repellent abomination."

He kissed her head, and she shuddered in his arms. "Now you're definitely overstating things. Honestly, I've freely told you what I get up to at night to get myself to sleep, so it's not like I should be ashamed of that or anything"—

"No you mustn't be, masturbation is natural for your kind, and it's actually healthy for you, that's a medical fact, so you should do it as much as you need to"—

She was still on her knees, but upright now, face against his chest, breasts at his thighs, and every moment with her he was aroused; it was not something he could control; and this moment in his loose shorts, she had to feel him tenting against her breasts— not that she apparently cared one way or another....

He stammered, "And besides, what am I even ashamed of, admitting this stuff to you?"

"Right," she agreed, more confidently.

"Because you told me it's not like that for you, and I can understand you're not even really human, you're more like an angel than a human girl, so no diff"—

"Now hold on"—

"And you're like, quote, 'not the least bit interested,' unquote, in sexual desire"—

She snorted at that and glared at him, with an irritated frown and a grin combined, which on balance was a huge improvement, while still far short of actually being cheered up, for the trauma was simply too fresh.

"I did not say that, Benjamin Swan. Nothing of the sort."

Now he had his own back up. "Oh yes, you did. Several times."

She was up off her knees. She looked angry now. Well at least she wasn't crying anymore. "Yes," she concurred, "I did. But consider the context. It's Jeremy's sexual desire that I don't have the least interest in. Not yours."