I feel her hand on my thigh. I wince at the twinge of the still-healing wound, and then I feel the mattress dip as she leans forward, slides one leg over mine. Feel her straddle me. The slight ache of her weight on my thigh isn’t enough to make me move her off me. Her palms cup my cheeks, and I hate how much I cherish the feel of her tender touch, how right it feels. I hate it, because it makes it so much harder to pretend I don’t desperately want her. Need her. Yearn for her. That I wouldn’t give everything to have her in my life, every day, every way. That I wouldn’t tell her all my secrets, and show her all my scars, and share all my sins and shadows. She already knows more about me than anyone. She’s seen me burn myself, and seen me smoke pot and seen me break bones. The only secret she doesn’t know is how desperately I need to know who my father was, and what happened to him and if I’m like him, if he was a good person or a f**k-up or a thug or a loser or a rich yuppie or just an average guy. Why he left me. Why he couldn’t stick around long enough for me to know him. Why he couldn’t be my father and why Mom is so f**ked up about him. No one knows how deeply into my psyche and into my soul that need is tangled.
She’s sitting on me, holding my face. Waiting. I open my eyes, and I’m seared by the vulnerability in her blueblueblue eyes. She’s begging me and pleading with me, silently, and with razor-sharp precision. Her knees are at my hips, her thighs strong and tight in her skinny jeans. Her breathing is harsh and ragged, her hands trembling on my skin. Her hair is a fall of sunset-copper rivulets and loose spirals, and her skin is pale as porcelain and dotted with freckles across her nose and on her cle**age, and I want to kiss each freckle, count each one across every inch of her flesh. I suddenly understand how sex can mean something. Before it just felt good. It’s given me a bit of distraction from my life and my pain and poverty and questions. The girls have been hot and willing, but our time together has always been momentary, fleeting. Despite being naked, there’s never been vulnerability. We both knew we’d never see each other again, and so any imperfections could be ignored, any flaws could be glossed over. I’d be gone within the hour, or she was. With Kylie, it wouldn’t be that. It couldn’t be that. We’ve exchanged too many truths. Seen too much of each other’s soft and easily damaged inner selves. I’ve shown her who I am, beneath the metal shirts and the tattoos and the cursing and violence.
She’s seen that I’m just a guy, nothing special.
Yet here she is, wanting me, and refusing to let me protect her from me. Acting like I am something special.
Kylie’s eyes burn into mine, and my mind and heart and soul are all giving in, telling me that she’s right. Who am I to decide what’s best for her, what’s wrong for her? If she wants me, wants who I am, why should I deny her myself? I lick my lips and prepare to say this, but she beats me to it.
“Oz, I’ve thrown myself at you. I want you. I care about you. I feel things for you that are powerful and confusing and scary, and I’m not holding them back. I’m here, and I’m telling you I want you for you, for who you are, as you are. But I can’t keep getting rejected. So I’ll put myself out there one more time.” Her eyes are scared, her breathing coming in long, deep swells. Her hands shake, and her eyes waver as they search me. “Don’t deny me again, Oz. Don’t tell me I’m not old enough, or that you’re not good enough. Because…if you don’t want me, then I’ll go. If you’re too scared to be with me, to be with me for real, no matter what anyone thinks, I’ll leave you alone. I can’t just be friends with you anymore. I want too much more than that. So tell me what you want, Oz.”
She takes her hands off of my face, sits back so she’s on her haunches and my legs. Shakes her hair back, out of the way. I’m frozen, speechless, mesmerized. Her beauty is too much for me. Sculpted features and fiery hair to match her personality and skin, fair and perfect and soft, a body to kill for, to die for. Talent to rule the world, passionate, and here with me. With me. Wanting me. God, she’s demanding all of me. And I don’t know how to deny her.
I’m going to hurt her, someday, somehow. I know it. And yet I can’t seem to refuse her.
She wipes her hands on her thighs, and then crosses her arms around her middle. Grasps the hem of her sweater. “Tell me to leave, Oz. Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me again you don’t deserve this.” Then, slowly, she lifts her sweater, revealing a sliver of white skin and the round dip of her navel. God, my heart is pounding at that tiny glimpse of flesh. “Stop me, Oz. If you’re not in this with me for real, stop me. I’m not going to give this to you if you’re not all the way in with me. But I want you. And I believe you want me. You’re scared of yourself, but I’m not. So this is your last chance, Oz. Grab my hands and stop me, because if you don’t, you’re mine. And I’m yours, and whatever else happens, we’ll have something beautiful and perfect, and it’ll mean something, for as long as it lasts.”
My ability to speak is shattered, ruined. She’s drawing her sweater off slowly. It’s just beneath her bra now, her ribs showing with each deep breath. I can’t speak, but I can’t deny her. I can’t tell her to stop. I can’t send her away. Because I do feel things. And, yeah, I’m scared of myself. I’m scared that I’ll never get out of shitty apartments, that I’ll be like Mom, living paycheck to paycheck, never aspiring to anything, traveling a thousand miles and never going anywhere. I’m scared I’ll do something stupid and end up in jail, or dead. Grow up living in a dozen different ghettos, you learn to fear that. You watch the ambulances show up and cop cars skid to a stop and watch guys disappear into the system, or into the morgue, and you wonder if that’s gonna be you. And I don’t want that. Not for me, and sure as shit not for Kylie. Can I be more? Maybe. Hopefully.
But now, none of that matters. All that matters is the girl sitting on my lap, straddling me, lifting her sweater up slowly in a deliberate striptease, daring me to reject her yet again, knowing I can’t.
My throat is dry, shut tight. My heart is a double-kick drum in my chest, and my hands are curling around her thighs, sliding up to her waist, to the pale skin. Her eyes widen, and her nostrils flare and the fear in her eyes ratchets to something approaching panic, but she doesn’t stop. My palms slide over her skin and up, thumbs tracing her ribs and the hint of black underwire.