Falling For Casual

Chapter 15

   I didn't feel different. I wasn't changed or attached, nor was my body going through this new phase of womanhood. No tingle in my skin, no glitter in my eye, no glow on my cheeks. I felt the same as I had before he'd shoved himself inside me. A little sore to say the least, but I was still me. Autumn had warned me that I'd feel more for him, that it'd be hard to let him go once we had sex, but the morning after when I did my normal routine, it didn't feel true. The closeness I'd felt before Texas gave me what I wanted was similar. If anything it had faded a little.

   I still hadn't orgasmed and that fact laid heavy in my mind. There was a dark cloud of doubt because what if he wasn't capable of doing it? I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, not because he was my first real boyfriend, but because he was the one in the seat and the idea of going out to find another made my shoulders drop with exhaustion.

   Was he teachable? Trainable just like the puppy he was? I had to stop being scared to tell people what I wanted from them sexually. Something about voicing what I wanted in the bedroom always sent a chill down my spine. The reason behind it made no sense. I mean, I liked them controlling, knowledgeable, so maybe that played a part in it. But people weren't mind readers. They couldn't know how I wanted to be touched and tasted and fucked. That's not how the world worked. Still, I'd always kept my mouth shut and marinated in the disappointment, hoping there was someone out there I didn't have to fake it with.

   'Woke up smelling your bra like a junkie,' he sent me the day after. My cheeks pulled my smile wide. I hadn't intentionally left it but I wasn't really too worried about finding it before I left. Maybe something inside me wanted him to have a piece of me, something intimate that reminded him of how deep he'd been inside me.

   'That's how I like you,' And it was true. The way he was becoming more openly obsessed with me made my brain dizzy. It was what I'd always wanted: someone who needed me in every way possible.

   'Gotta leave some panties.'

   Imagining him inhaling my underwear as soon as his eyes opened in the morning, before he even got out of bed to brush his teeth, sent my mind into a complete spiral.

   'Hey, can you free your schedule for July 15th?' he asked.

   'What's on July 15th?'

   'Road trip.'

   My heart stuttered then. Both of us in a car for hours, no way for me to escape if he turned into the guy I didn't like, miles away from home. It didn't sound appealing in the slightest. I wasn't one for road trips in the first place, but going with him made my skin clammy. I barely knew this man, which was such an irrational thought that it made me laugh out loud as soon as I thought it. Having sex without a condom with Texas, who was a so-called stranger to me, was simpler than sitting for a few hours in a car going to God knows where? It was hilarious.

   'I'll clear my calendar.'

   I thought about it the entire time I was at work. Where would he take me? What would we do? Would I be able to be around him for so long without a buffer? Without anything to help me tolerate all those hours, maybe even days, with him.

   The sex did nothing to help my mind ease. It left me with more questions. Autumn's warning played on a loop in my mind even while my hands were busy. The constant wonder of when I would become addicted to him to the point of insanity kept my brain foggy.

   I grabbed the baby and placed him on the king-sized bed, the sheets almost swallowing him completely. Propping myself next to him, I stared into his brown eyes, the light from the window somehow making them seem like little orbs on his soft, small face. He didn't move and neither did I. We just lay there next to each other, gazing. Brown to brown. And then it was almost as if my mind completely shut off from all the distractions and incessant questions that had been buzzing around. Like the drip from the faucet finally stopped.