Page 7 of Tonight's the Night
Inside, the house is dark and the party is raging, and the smell is strong: weed, beer, and some vague, unidentifiable liquor. Emily reaches into my back pocket and snatches my phone and scampersaway.
“Hey!” I yell as I chase after her, nearly tripping over my own two feet. I chase her down a wide, dark hallway where people are smoking and making out in corners. We land in the kitchen as she hits something on the screen of my phone and then slides it back into myhands.
“Oh god, what did you do?” I mutter, unlocking the phone and pulling up my texts. I should never have told her my passcode. I see a text to Elijah staring back atme.
Tonight I want to do something I’ve never donebefore.
Igulp.
“Emily, why did you sendthis?”
“You’re always saying you want to finally have sex. This is the time for it. If not tonight, then when? If not with a hot guy who is totally freaking into you, thenwho?”
But you don’t know the only man I want is yourdad.
Maybe this is the solution I’ve been looking for. Does eventhinkingthis make me a…slut? I cringe every time I hear the word used derogatorily. Emily would tell me to own it - she’s okay with casual sex. The first time she finally pulled the trigger was with someone she really liked. She told me she actually loved him. She figured out after they had sex that it wasn’t love after all — something aboutmeeting someone who makes her heart race even more than he did —but after that first time she was okay with having casualsex.
Even the word “sex” coming from her mouth has my clit tingling and my thoughts racing back to Joshua. Thoughts of him having me on my back in his office, with the cool blue light from the pool flowing in through the window. I don’t know why, but I always liked that light from the pool. And he would have me in his arms, and I would be safe. He always made me feel safe when I was alone after my parents passed and I when I had to do all these wacky things for my aunt. It wasn’t that they were all that bad, really, it was just that the unpredictable nature of them and the fact that I would never know what her mood would be like — and it swungallover the place — made me feel off-balance and never really able to find myfooting.
Joshua was my rock. He still is. He always made me feel safe and cared about, like I belong. I wasn’t an outsider when I was at his house, just hanging out with Emily. I was just a kid who needed some stability and I was a person with her own thoughts, feelings, preferences, and desires, and I was not subject to the whims of my crazy aunt or the cruel arrows of fate that took my mom and dad away fromme.
He made me feelgood.
And now he makes me feel otherthings.
I know why he pushed me away. There was no other option for him. But still my brain keeps going to that one idea — me, him, darkness, flickering blue light around us, with me on my back and him doing anything he wanted to me. I have ideas about sex, and I’ve had thousands of orgasms —thousands, and all of them with his name on my lips—but I want him to do things to me that I’ve never even imagined. I know there are things he could do that would set my skin ablaze and make my body know pleasure from the tips of my fingers to the arches of my feet—and I know it because there is a darkness behind his eyes when he looks at me, something primal and base and something that I really don’t know how to respond to or can even put proper words to. Sex with him would not be sex. It would transform me from the person I am to the person I’m supposed to be. And only he can do this forme.
And from stage left, oh, here comes Elijah. I roll my eyes, already knowing that he is going to address the message that Emily sent tohim.
“Got your text,” he says, putting an arm over my shoulder. I feel my heart grow cold toward him even though it shouldn’t. He’s such a good guy. He doesn’t really deserve for me to be distant. We should just be friends. But I don’t know how to be friends with someone I know has feelings for me. Would I simply pretend his feelings do not exist? I turn a pair of sad eyes up at him and give him a smile. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, whether it’s a mark of immaturity to let this guy put his arm around me like this when I know very well that he would like to sleep with me. Maybe I’m being mature by treating him like any other person would, any other person who he doesn’t want to sleep with, thatis.
Mature, immature, I feel like neither of these labels apply to me. I’ve been told I’m mature and responsible but I don’tfeelmature or responsible. I feel reckless and out of control and with no acceptable way to express myself except withJoshua.
“Hey Elijah,” I say, lifting his arm from my shoulder. I put it down at his side and he flashes me a cool smile. Cool guy, cool smile. He’s a gentleman no matter what condition I present myself to himin.
“So I heard you are up for some experimenting tonight,” he says, tilting his chin up at me. The music around us suddenly shifts from a smooth R&B melody to something more aggressive with crunchy guitars and a faster beat. My heart kicks up a little and I squeeze my eyes shut, then spring themopen.
“Hold on a second,” I say. I pass through the large kitchen and find the refrigerator in the dim light, only because the door is made of glass and it’s stocked with row after row and column after column of cans and bottles of beer. I pull the door open and grab a beer for myself and a guy with a green mohawk and black nail polish slides past me. I grab a bottle opener from his hand and thank him as I pluck the cap off my bottle and give the opener back tohim.
Then I scamper back over toElijah.
“Elijah,” I say, then pour some of the liquid courage down my throat, “I did not send you that text. Emily sent it toyou.”
“From your phone,” he counters. “How do I know you’re notlying?”
He narrows his eyes atme.
“Have you ever thought of going to law school?” I peer back at him. “You’d make a skilledlitigator.”
I take another long sip of my beer and grab his hand to tug him toward the source of the music. I find the stairs in the corner as we squeeze around peopledancing.
“Something you’ve never done before, huh?” he whispers against my neck. “A girl or aboy?”
I swallow thickly as adrenaline surges through me. Adrenaline. Not the good kind,either.
“What?”
“I’m thinking a girl,” he says, “that way I can hold your legs apart and watch her go down on you. I’ve always wanted to see that. Or if you want it could be a dude. I’m not going to suck any dicks but I don’t mind being in the same room as one if you wantedit.”
