Teach me how

Then

I'd been studying on my bed. Something I was reading had been making me want to cry. My chemistry text book, probably. My door was ajar; no one on our hall kept their doors closed unless they had a really good reason to, usually involving nudity. Music and laughter was coming from down the hall.

I startled when my door shut suddenly and loudly. Was there a breeze? No, it was winter, and there were no open windows. I looked up and almost swallowed my tongue when I saw Lee standing there, looking at me. He was in a white t-shirt, track pants, and those Adidas slides all the guys seemed to be fans of that year. His hair was wet like he'd just gotten out of the shower.

"Hey," he said.

I closed my book. "Hey."

I stared, unsure whether to be mad at the invasion of privacy or excited that he was in my room. Was I even excited? My impression had been that our tryst it was a one-off, and had filed what happened under "new skill." I hadn't even seen Lee in weeks, with Thanksgiving break in the middle and midterms right after. We never intersected in our studies, anyway—me always in the science library, and him up on top of the tall hill where all the humanities buildings were--and rarely in the cafeteria at lunch, since I mostly ate on the go.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Nothing. What's up with you?" I replied.

"Nothing." He kicked off his shoes, and I watched them bounce and roll over on the floor.

My bed made a sad noise when he put his weight on it, kneeling on my flimsy mattress, his face right up against mine, and a hand on either side of my hips. I held my breath for a moment, letting myself feel that strange magnetic pull towards him, allowing the admission that, now that he was here, yes, I was excited, and even craved his weight on me again.

Again, I wasn't one to be coy. I was the one who reached for him. "My roommate," I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"...won't be back tonight," he countered, breathing into my ear.

"And you know that because...?" I whispered, lying back.

"...she's currently with my roommate," he whispered back, nudging my legs apart with his knee.

"I see."

He kissed me.

He didn't taste of beer this time, his mouth menthol-cool. I didn't ask any more questions for a while. I inhaled his aura; his scent invaded my room, usually perfumed by my roommate's scented candles and body spray.

"What do you smell like?" I asked between kisses.

"Irish Spring and self-doubt, probably," he answered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Shh."

"I think you smell like laundry detergent and sex."

"Ha. I'll give you laundry detergent. The other thing... I don't know. Would you sshh?"

I allowed him to shut me up with his mouth, his kiss deepening, getting more insistent. I reciprocated, tasting him, exploring, wondering which one of us was hungrier. It occurred to me that if you haven't had sex, kissing is sex, tongues and lips and mouths the perfect surrogates; a tongue inside a mouth—that is penetration, if you've never been penetrated otherwise. How in the world could a simple graze of someone's tongue across your own be mirrored by a wildfire elsewhere in the body? If this is what there was to do instead of studying, I could easily understand how people failed out of college.

He separated his face from mine and put his hands on my thighs just above the knees, bare below the boxer shorts I wore to sleep. He squeezed the flesh slightly. He said, his voice thick, "So, you think I'm gonna let you suck me off and never try to return the favor?"

I blinked a few times. "Return the favor how?"

He looked at me again with that expression like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I'll show you."

"Oh god," I said, when he pulled the shorts along with my underwear down, scratching his nails down my hips.

"I think you're going to like this," he said from below.

"I think you're right. Oh god."

The ceiling was made of those awful fissured tiles, with the big rectangular fluorescent lights in the middle, which I didn't get a chance to shut off. It burned my retinas as I stared at it, but only for a short while, because soon, when Lee got started "returning the favor," I lost the gift of sight. The gift of hearing too, and only managed to hold on to enough speech to keep saying, "Oh, my god."

Who was the first person who realized if you kiss someone on their genitals, it feels good? Who figured out that if you run your tongue across and around and over a woman's clit, suck it a little, and then do it again, and then over and over, she will writhe, and moan, and open for you, and you could probably make her do anything you wanted?

His tongue started out shy, tasting me gingerly, but it was enough to ignite my nerve endings. I strained my hips up, asking for more, and groaning, Lee obliged and put his entire mouth on me.

I couldn't control my body. It moved on its own accord, sopping cunt against Lee's mouth, hips circling, each round heightening the sensations that were already unbearably intense. I was made of nothing but nerve endings and synapses, and they were all firing at once. Lee moaned, his mouth against me, and it electrified even me more, both from the physical vibrations against already sensitive tissues, and from knowing he liked to be there, where he was, doing what he was doing. I was so high a fall was imminent, but instead I got higher. And when, in the throes of sweet spasm, all twisted, I squeezed Lee's head between my legs despite his hands pressing on my thighs to keep them open, I thought I understood why wars started over these unbearably intense few seconds.

Curious, I kissed Lee after, to taste myself, sweet and salty at once. It wasn't too bad.

"I could do this every night," I said into the room over his shoulder, my arms around him, and his nose in my neck.

He pulled back and peered into my face. "Yeah?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Maybe we will..."

After a pause, I asked, "That was it?"

"What was?"

"This was what you wanted?"

"Do you mean, to come in here and eat you out?"

I flushed in the dark. "Yes."

"I mean, I had to even the score. But what I wanted was to see you."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Do I need a reason? Tell me, so I know to come up with one."

"No," I answered truthfully. In a small voice I asked, "Do I, Lee?"

"Do you what?"

"Need a reason to see you?"

He looked at me for a few moments, smiling, eyes glinting in the dark. Then he said, "Taryn. You think too much."