Page 20 of Nash

No, it’s normal dynamic entry tactics, but nothing is normal about feeling Vale’s small, warm hand cup my shoulder like her life depends on it.

She’s shaking. She’s scared.

She hides it with sarcasm, making my pulse race faster than usual, my finger ready on the trigger.

I’ve cleared many locations, but not the studio apartment of a woman I shouldn’t care this much about.

Once we climb two flights of exterior stairs. Once I unlock her door as she stays with me, squeezing my shoulder while I sweep the dark room. Once we’re inside her one-room studio and I turn on a small lamp, making it glow by her bed, do I exhale.

I lock the door, checking it three times before I drag her loveseat in front of it.

Silently, she watches, resigned to the situation, before disappearing into her tiny bathroom.

I stare at its closed door, the only privacy she can find because her place is small, but it’s charming. Old, polished hardwood floors. One exposed brick wall. The other walls are white plaster with framed prints of red tulips. There are two large windows with white sheers. A tiny but new white kitchenette. A ceiling fan lazily whirls above.

It’s perfect for a single woman and the sparse furnishings are perfectly Vale.

A black, antique wrought iron bed, with its white comforter and piles of red velvet pillows, is centered on the brick wall. The loveseat, too, is red velvet, like an old Victorian settee. A gold-framed mirror is propped against the wall beside her bed, a lone antique dresser sitting beside it.

But the stacks of books circling the room get my attention. While water runs in her bathroom—she must be showering—I read some spines.

The History of Sexuality. The Ethical Slut. Come As You Are. Gender Outlaw. Sexing the Body. Whipping Girl. Fear of Flying. How To Piss Off Men. Sex, Sin, and Zen. The Hite Report. Sister Outsider. The Purity Myth. Promiscuities.

And on and on.

Tabs lace the pages with places she’s marked in over two hundred books. Her organization isn’t alphabetic; it’s some order that only makes sense to her.

But what gets my attention is her silver laptop charging on her black nightstand and the three books stacked beside it.

A hardback ofThe Kama Sutra, a small paperback ofTickle His Pickleand the one I want to open the most,She Comes First.

I step closer to read its subtitle, “The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring A Woman,” and it stirs my cock.

It breaks my heart, too.

I can press rewind on our convo, as well. I heard what she said. I’ll never forget it…

“I’ve never even been in love or had a good kiss or even a legit orgasm.”

Why? How?

Is it because of what her ex-boyfriend did to her so long ago?

The thought of him now makes me gnash my teeth, my blood boiling, but he’s gone. I glared into his dying eyes, said her name, and had a great, bloody day of making sure of it.

And it’s possible it’s his fault, but it seems she’s moved on.

Vale’s finishing her PhD in Sexuality Studies. She’s supposed to be writing her dissertation because she’s clearly well-read about it. She has no shame about sex.

I’ve watched her. I’ve heard her.

At Delta’s, the adult store she manages, she offers customers suggestions and tips.

The other day, while auditing the store’s taxes before the IRS does, I overheard her. She made a middle-aged man and woman laugh, suggesting they play with a Pickle Emojibator Personal Massager. It’s what the couple needed. They needed to relax and explore the toys. They needed to find that spark again because it sure as hell sparked inside me.

Pride that Vale helped them. Happy they let her. Aroused how she gave the toy a ringing endorsement. There’s only one way she knew it worked, and it flooded my mind, remembering how intoxicating she looks when she comes.

But she does it alone? She’s never felt it with someone else?

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