You Already Know: Twelve Erotic Stories

Only I did, and I know I did because when it happens I’m so shocked I put a hand over my eyes. I make a little noise, thinking of all the things I expected him to do. Get his cock out and fuck it into me bareback, ride me hard then leave me wet and wanting on the bed. Maybe something dirtier – something I can’t even think of and don’t really want to – and then him laughing afterward.

But instead he cups my thighs with those big rough hands, and dips right down as graceful as a cat. Like maybe he’s going to bite me somewhere, but decides to kiss at the very last second. Right when I’m on edge and I’m staring into the blackness behind my hand, sure it’s going to be one thing then getting another.

Of course I think of skinny Brad and the boy I had before him – the one who bought me flowers and seemed like a real swell guy. I think about the way they pressed their mouths to mine, all teeth and sloppy wetness, nothing smooth or sweet or calm.

And then I think of this bull between my legs, with the iron filings coating his scalp – the ones I can feel burring beneath my fingertips when I dare to just reach down and touch him – and his hands like shovels. The brutish swell of a million muscles working beneath every item of clothing he wears.

The Star of David blazing on his massive bicep.

And I forget about flowers and skinny Brad and everything I’ve ever believed in. His mouth is like silk. He doesn’t lick: he strokes me with his tongue. He doesn’t suck: he draws me into him.

He makes a million romance clichés between my thighs, and when I arch my back he does them all over again, in spirals.

Feels like he does it for hours, though realistically I suppose it’s only been a few minutes. All of this teasing, all of him pressing down on my thighs until I’m good and open for him, all of this flickering over the very tip of my clit … it’s just a little bit of time, really.

So why am I bunching the sheets up into my fists?

I try to tell myself not to. He’ll know it so bad, if I react the way I want to. He’ll get that I’m so close to coming – so close it feels like agony – and then he’ll smile his little half-smile and I’ll be trapped for ever.

I fight it. I keep my mouth pressed tight closed and when he sinks a finger into me like he’s just testing the waters, I bite down hard on my lower lip. Not enough to make it bleed but close, and oh, it feels good to get that bit of pain.

It’s what I need to keep me above the pleasure swelling through my clit. He’s barely doing anything at all to it, really – every circle he makes around that little bead feels as though he’s studiously avoiding it – but somehow that’s worse.

It’s building and building, and it’s going to be terrible when it finally comes. And I think he knows it, too, because the more I struggle against it the tighter he winds things, using two fingers instead of one, pumping harder and faster in response to the sounds I make, his free hand almost like a restraint on my thigh.

Though I’m sure I could get away if I wanted to. Positive. Any second now I’m going to get up, and walk right out the door. Go downstairs to the store and continue my life as it was. Any second now.

And then he swipes one long stroke right over the tip of my clit and, oh God, I come, and come, and come.

* * *

Next time he comes by, Mickey D cowers. Mr Kirkpatrick says: ‘You’d better get out of here, you!’

But I don’t do any of these things. I just stand there with the broom still in my hand, and think about him kissing between my legs the way most men have never even kissed my mouth. I think of the spiral patterns on my ceiling, and how for the first time in my life I didn’t notice them during sex.

Though I guess technically he didn’t have sex with me. It was just a kind of sex – maybe just foreplay, when I really think about it – and then he had simply stood and walked back out of my bedroom.

Though I lie when I say that. He hadn’t simply stood and walked out. He had looked at me as he backed towards the door, this expression on his face like … I don’t know.

Like maybe I surprised him, and the surprise amused him greatly.

Which I suppose I should be mad about. I mean, I’m not something to be amused over, you know? I’m a decent person and I do the right thing when called on and I’m not a sex maniac, or anything.

So why am I looking at his big, rough face while thinking, Do it again?

This time, he takes my dress off. I don’t say he can, and I don’t ask him to. He just turns me until I’m bent over the bed, and unbuttons everything back there. Undoes my apron and lets it drop to one side. Spreads everything once he’s done so I’m only clothed over the front of my body, but bare at the back.

It’s a weird feeling. Like being separated from myself – I’m separated from myself and then he rumbles that he’s going to do the same thing he did the day before. ‘You OK with that, you OK?’he asks, but I can’t answer.

I think I’m shaking. I think there are tears running down my face but it’s fine – he can’t see me. He doesn’t need to know what I’m doing as he sinks to his knees and licks and licks over my swollen sex.

Though I’m pretty sure he can tell when I come within a minute, and sob too loudly for anything inside me to take, and then, oh, then he runs a gentling hand down over the curve of my back.

It’s too much. Be rough, I think at him, but he isn’t like skinny Brad. He’s not like the swell guy with the flowers. He says, ‘Easy baby,’ and then he asks me. He asks me:

‘You OK with me taking you, now?’

And I can’t say anything to that. If I open my mouth I might beg.

But he gets to me before I have to endure a thing like that. He turns me back over and spreads me across the bed, most of his own clothes still on. Most of mine gone. And though I don’t want it to happen with my face wet and all of me mixed up like this his mouth finds mine.

His big arm goes around me.

I’m not even sure when he starts fucking me – though the word fucking is stretching it a bit. It’s stretching it a lot, in fact, because he rocks me slow and easy and there’s something unbearable about that. So much so that a hot rush of anger goes through me, unaccountably, and the urge to bite him or dig my nails into his back swells up.

The urge to tell him, ‘Do it hard’ comes up with it, but it’s difficult to say words like those with a soft mouth on yours, and everything like a long, smooth roll into bliss, and his big arms around me – God, his arms right around me.

It’s like he’s holding me as I go down.

And, even better than that, I can feel him moaning. I can feel him doing it all the way through my body, because his mouth doesn’t veer from mine and his voice is like the distant rumble of thunder.

Mine sounds faint, by comparison. Faint, but I hope he can hear and feel it anyway. I hope he knows I’m clinging to him, instead of digging my nails in. I hope he knows how good this is – how each stroke of his thick cock strikes me just right, pushes me a little bit further into bliss.

But then he pulls away just long enough to gasp, ‘You gonna come, baby?’ So, in all honesty, I think he knows. He can probably feel it, bubbling up through me. He should definitely be able to feel my pussy clenching around his ever-working cock, and, even if he can’t, the words I get out do the rest of the job.

‘Oh God, oh God, I’m coming,’ I gasp.

But I only say God because it occurs to me in that moment of bliss – I don’t even know his name.

* * *

It’s early morning, and that sweet bluish light is just starting to creep under the drapes. I watch it make its way over all the ordinary things in my apartment, and then finally it gets to him and paints the solid curves of his gorgeous arms. It slants shadows over the side of his face, the heavy slab of his cheekbone, the delicious curve of his perfect mouth.

I don’t know when he started sleeping over. Probably some time after I dared open my mouth to ask him what his name was, right in the middle of a hot and sweaty fuck session. He had grinned, at that – not offended the way I expected – then said: ‘It’s Tyler, Bethany.’

Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I’d told him things had to end, then. I should have let things go the moment I realised he already knew my name, but I think it was too late even then. It was too late when he stared at me with those wounded eyes. It was too late when he leant against his truck, cigarette in hand.

It’s too late before it’s begun, with Tyler.

He stirs and turns over and my heart stirs with him. I’m lost, God, I’m lost.

‘You OK, kid?’ he asks, before he’s even opened his eyes. Maybe he can tell I’ve got my back pressed too tight to the headboard. Maybe he can tell I’ve been gazing and gazing at him like some lovesick puppy.

Lord, when did this happen? When?

‘Man, it’s early,’ he tells me – just for something to say, I guess. But then he follows it with this, right out of the blue: ‘Love you, kid.’

And that isn’t just something to say. I don’t know where he gets these things from, I really don’t. I don’t know how he’s this person inside – it’s impossible, it’s awful, I can’t look at him.