The Dark Space by Ruthie Knox, Mary Ann Rivers Page A

so unbelievable. I could feel him see her and think of dancing, of sequins and smoke, of the way my mom laughed.
    “Where’d you go?” I asked, because even though I had never heard this story, I knew he’d asked her if she wanted to get out of there, and she did, and then they walked all over their old campus together, their hearts throbbing like they had been stubbed against life and broken.
    “You were born nine months later,” is what she said, but her voice was far away.
    “A dance and five years,” I said.
    “Don’t forget the cigar.”
    She got up and stopped me spinning by hugging me. “This is your life. It’s real.”

Winnie
    I couldn’t stop laughing.
    I never thought about if I was ticklish, but there is only so much of a finger circling your navel you can stand before you’re going crazy.
    “I’ll tie you down.” Cal’s voice had a smile in it, but he was serious. My skin went warm and slack with his threat.
    I was on his bed, his double bed, on top of a quilt that was so soft I wanted to wallow in it like a buffalo.
    His parents were on some kind of a getaway at a bed and breakfast.
    Spring break was ahead of us, quiet and private and endless.
    I was naked.
    He wasn’t. He was in jeans, a T-shirt, and his feet were bare.
    He pulled his desk chair to the side of the bed, and I tried not to squirm. Last night, he told me he wanted to spend an entire afternoon eating me out . We were drowsing and kissing in bed, and he started kissing me around my ears, telling me that, telling me what he would do with his tongue, what I would taste like. Then he kissed me deeper and asked me to show him, again, what it had been like with Marv and Finn and Jason, and I made it last as long as I could, one impression of skin and mouths and touch at a time, until we both had our hands between our legs, finishing ourselves, side by side.
    I told him I wanted to taste him, too.
    He told me, Later.
    He leaned over and licked the nipple closest to him.
    “Sit up on your arms and watch,” he said.
    I hiked myself up. He licked the nipple again, slow, watching my face. I smiled at him, and he smiled at me around my breast, then closed his eyes and sucked.
    I had to bend my knees.
    I had to grab onto the quilt, tight.
    “I don’t know,” I whispered.
    “What don’t you know, baby?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Some girls don’t like a lot of breast play. You’ve liked the touching I’ve done when we’ve been really into kissing, but it’s okay if you don’t like it intense like this.”
    It was the first time he’d taken a real lead, and he was careful, offering his experience so gently that I died from the earnestness in his voice. By some mutual agreement we held onto our energy, kept ourselves centered. It was so strange to be around him and be that seated in my body.
    But good, not sparking, urgent, not easy, but good. Usually it was all I could do to be around Cal and not spread and finger myself, cross my legs so the seam of my pants pulled tight and gave me some relief. In his room, all that seemed a long way off, and every time he touched me it was like it skidded against my boundaries, tightened me unbearably before I let go.
    But good. Another thing I’d never had before.
    “Lick it again,” I whispered.
    He did, slower. His hand came up, and he put his thumb against my other nipple. It felt like cold butterflies rushing through me, then tight and pinching, but like it was pinching my clit, too.
    “Suck it again.”
    He waited, licking, thumbing so, so, so soft until I thought he wasn’t going to, and then his next lick sucked my nipple and half my breast into his mouth.
    My hand raced between my legs. I hadn’t anticipated the way it would look and feel, his wrinkled brow, the pressure. He didn’t let up, either — he sucked and tongued my nipple inside his mouth, which is a thing I didn’t even know could be done. It felt wet, hot, until he slid off and then blew over the mess he made