ceramic coating sends a shiver through me as I get comfortable. I rest against the back of it, letting the shirt trail down the front of me.
The smell of him is all around me. Thoughts of him fill my head. My free hand skates leisurely down my stomach and around my navel. A wave of self-induced goosebumps spreads across my skin. With my eyes still shut, breathing in his scent, I let my fingers drift to my slick center. A small gasp escapes when the pad of my middle finger glides easily across my clit. It’s easy to picture him here with me, making my body hum with need. My finger makes pass after pass over my sensitive, slick knot of nerves. Heat rushes. Arousal builds. My hands shake, moving frantically, desperate for release. My hips thrust forward, bucking back and forth, seeking resistance and friction. A sob-like moan strangles from my throat. My eyes water. I draw my knees up closer, letting them open as wide as the sides of the tub will allow them. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as the first glistening hints of climax spring forward deep in my core. A growing tightness steals my breath.
One.
Two.
Three more passes from my diligent finger and the world falls away and implodes simultaneously. My other hand goes to my center and I plunge two fingers into my channel just in time to feel the body-racking spasms tear through me. I gasp and moan and cry out almost all at once.
My breathing slows, my body relaxing languidly against the tub. I thought that I’d feel better afterwards. I thought a little release would serve me well, but I was so fucking wrong. A burgeoning melancholy more powerful than I’m prepared for stalks up to me and engulfs me right here in the bathroom.
Maybe it’s the release making me so weepy? Or it could be the usual gamut of emotions raging inside me that’s making me feel like a punching bag that has seen far too many rounds.
I haven’t had an orgasm in two years. The last time I had any type of sexual release was the night Jake and I were shot. He had come home, showered, and prowled into our bedroom in search of me. I opened my body to him and we made love in perfect silence. That was the last time.
Since Jake, I haven’t—I never did anything like what I just did. I guess in my mind, I felt like he deserved to be the last one that I shared that with. Yet here I am, sprawled in a motel bathtub, crying guiltily because not only have I gone and ruined the fact that Jake was the last time, but I just got myself off clinging to another man’s t-shirt. It wasn’t Jake that I was picturing hovering above me, it was Zander. I feel guilty for doing it but I feel even guiltier for enjoying it. I feel most guilty for the tiny sprig of hope that just bloomed somewhere in my soul. I know that that little sprig of hope will flourish if I allow it to. The knowledge that I could free myself from a prison of grief has my heart swelling. It makes me so painfully emotional.
***
While the television in this motel room isn’t some high definition flat screen, it tunes in movies just fine. I’ve been sprawled on the queen bed in my pajamas watching a crime-thriller movie marathon for hours.
It has kept my mind off my run in at the beach …for the most part. I can’t believe I wandered right to Alexander McBride. I tried to forget the way he looked at me, especially because I know I liked the way he looked at me. The bath felt good. So good . The water was hot and I lingered for a long time, letting it wash away my embarrassing, awkward, frustrating afternoon, except it didn’t work. Not at all. In fact, it probably made it worse.
“Alexander McBride. Zander,” I mumble to myself , working his name over in my head. Something about that name seems familiar. I scrunch up my eyebrows and think hard for a moment.
Someone with the same name in high school? College?
It could very well be that his name is just one of those ones you swear you’ve heard before but you actually haven’t. Either
Helen MacInnes
Cameron Dokey
Sophia Lynn
Linda Byler
Qaisra Shahraz
Charlaine Harris
Emma Donoghue
Glenn Bullion
Evelyn Anthony
Anne Oliver