He searches my face. “You’re ready?”
“I am. I want to be with you.”
“There’s still other stuff we can do. I want you to be sure—”
“I am totally sure.” I kiss him softly. “I love you, and I trust you. And I trust us. Do you have any idea what it means to me to be able to say that? And feel that? God, I am so happy, Esben. I never thought I could be this happy. I am so ready.” I kiss him again and tease my fingers over his skin more. “Are you ready?”
“I was ready about two seconds after I met you.”
My hand slips lower over the front of his pants. I smile at him. “Allowed?”
He smiles back. “More than allowed. Wanted.”
“So, make love to me.”
I’m pretty sure he stops breathing for a second.
“And let me make love to you,” I continue. “I want to show you how much I love you. I need that,” I tell him.
Esben smiles softly and nods. “I need that, too.”
I lift my hips and push into him. “Good.”
We start back at the beginning of our spectrum and work our way through, slowly, lovingly, sometimes nervously, but with every stage, I am secure in his love, his touch, in the care he takes with me. Even when I’m not sure about what I’m doing, he makes it okay. My hands go where they haven’t before, I want things I haven’t before, and I experience things I haven’t before. We figure each other out together; we learn together.
Later, when we are as close as we can be, and he’s moving very gently against me, he looks into my eyes. He tells me how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, how his world is complete because of me. “You have my heart, Allison.” His voice trembles. “You have my heart.”
“And you have mine,” I whisper back.
We kiss, and I wrap my arms around him, raising my hips more assertively to meet his and then digging my nails into his skin.
He lifts his chest a bit and stops moving, his breathing ragged and hot. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m so okay,” I manage to say. “Please don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
After, when I am curled into him and his arm has fallen over me, I am overcome with how peaceful and complete I feel. It’s true that in my head I am also jumping around, screaming about how I just lost my virginity, and I’m sort of desperate to tell Steff, but mostly I feel as though moving my naked body from his would be devastating.
“So.” Esben all but clears his throat. “How was . . . or, was that . . .”
I start smiling, listening to him figure out how to ask this. Esben is the least insecure person I’ve ever known, and there’s something rather cute about how nervous he sounds right now. “Yeah?”
“I’m just trying to figure out or, you know, make sure that you’re good with this. And that it was good. Or at least not awful or anything.” I can feel him tense. “Oh God, it wasn’t awful, was it?”
I turn and face him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Truthfully, right now, a little, yes.”
“If it was awful, why do I want to do it again already?”
He laughs softly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me a few minutes, and you have yourself a deal.” He props himself up on his elbow and lowers the sheet, running his hand across my stomach and letting his eyes travel over my body in the hint of light we have. “God, you are stunning.” He lowers the sheet even more.
I don’t worry that my breasts are too small or that I don’t work out as much as I should. I don’t worry about anything, because as much as what we’ve done tonight is about the physical, it’s also about so much more.
“You feel all right?” he asks me.
“I feel wonderful,” I tell him truthfully. “And you? Was it . . .” Now it’s my turn to feel slightly nervous. “Was I . . . I mean, obviously I haven’t done this before, so . . . how was it . . . for you?”
Esben’s kiss could be enough of an answer, but when he finally stops, I see how his eyes twinkle. “Don’t forget that I hadn’t done this before either, but I have to say that I think we did pretty damn well.”
“Okay,” I reply with less conviction than I’d like. Now that it’s all said and done, I’m starting to second-guess myself.
“Allison? Listen to me,” he says. “That was beautiful. No one could ask for a better first time.” His fingertips start to glide up and down my inner thigh, and my body slowly ignites again. Then he settles his hand between my legs. “And I already know that no one could ask for a better second time.”
I don’t argue with him. I can’t.
At midnight, we microwave soup and eat the last of the Parmesan crackers from Simon. In the hopes there is more food in the care package that arrived today, I tear it open. God bless Simon. There are still-fresh fudgy brownies with cream-cheese frosting, some kind of upscale microwaveable cheese risotto thing that tastes like heaven, high-end bottled water, Advil, individual brown-sugar oatmeal containers, and my favorite junk food ever, stove-top Alfredo noodles. “Jackpot!” I call out.
I remember that another box arrived today, and I haven’t looked at the return address until now. I grin, because while it’s addressed to me, I know that it’s from Simon for Esben. “You have a package here,” I inform him with a big smile.
“I do?”
I bring the box into the living area and hand it to him.
His look of delight warms my heart for so many reasons. “Simon sent me cannoli from Mike’s!” he exclaims as he reads the printed note. “Dude, that Simon is so cool.”
Esben, as I expect, takes a hundred pictures and immediately posts them, tagging Simon and noting that this fabulous cannoli giver is my father. He also posts a picture from our night at Mike’s, and it’s one in which Simon looks particularly handsome. We go to the small kitchen in the dorm and eat the risotto and hydrate while the Alfredo bubbles in a beat-up pot. I didn’t know that sex could make me so ravenous for food, and I couldn’t be more grateful for all of this. I need to figure out how to thank Simon properly.
When we are totally full and cannot stay awake any longer, Esben and I curl up back in bed. I am exhausted and nearly unable to think because I am so flooded with euphoria.
Yet, just as I start to drift off, there’s a slight sense of heightened awareness that something is off. Not with me, not with Esben. I’m missing something. A moment of discomfort tries to work its way in, as though the ice storm may not be the only thing crashing down on me. I shake it off. Tonight is not for falling into my old patterns of worry and negativity. I’m still learning to accept the good, so I stop myself and refocus on tonight.
Because tonight has been everything I have never dreamed of.
CHAPTER 24
LOSING AIR
When I wake the next morning, it takes me a while to understand that I am not dreaming. That this is actually my life. It’s astonishing and wonderful. And when Esben wakes, my life only improves when we make love again. My entire body may be sore in some ways, but I also feel better than I knew possible.