“What? No. If he'd interrupted before we'd orgasmed, then I'd be pissed, but he didn't.”
“So you mentioned him because....”
“Because everything's weird!”
She descended into a crying jag. I held her, the water turning our hair darker, hers especially, as it beat mercilessly upon us.
“When – when I'm home, everyone knows me. But they don't know nothing about my life in Boston. And when I'm in Boston, I live my life my way, but all my friends I met there think I'm some rube from Iowa who fell off the turnip truck yesterday when I talk about back home. I feel like I can't win. I can't be me. When do I get to be me?”
“You are the most 'you' person I know.”
“Then the world is in a really bad place, Joe, because this feels awful.”
“Do we make you feel bad?”
“No.”
“Does Cathy make you feel bad?”
“Sometimes. But I know it's because she loves me. Wants more of me here.”
“Is your life better or worse now that you live in Boston?”
“Better.”
Her answer was instantaneous.
“And is your mother's life better or worse since you left?”
“Better.”
Same quick response.
“Then I think you have your answer.”
Pure horror filled her features. “You mean I'm the cause of Mama's life being awful until I left?”
And then she crumpled again.
I was really, really bad at this whole comfort thing. Damn.
“You were never the cause of anything bad in Cathy's life, Darla. Never.”
“Oh, trust me, Joe. I sure was. There was this one time when I was working at the gas station and a group of college hockey players came in and one of them groped me, so I used a set of windshield wiper blades in a plastic pack to play T-ball with his head and got arrested. She had to bail me out. No one pressed charges because his grope was on camera but Mama was pissed.”
“That sounds like self defense.”
“And then there was the time a guy pulled up to the gas pump, threw five kittens in a trash can, and I brought them home, but they were covered in fleas, and – ”
“How many more stories like this are you going to tell me to prove your point?”
“How many I got to tell until you concede?”
“Okay. You have me there. But otherwise, she adores you. It shows. She might have some strange ways of expressing it, but she does. And now you have this new reality where there's this wonderful baby and you are rearranging your feelings on the inside.”
“That's exactly what it feels like. How'd you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
A kiss was her reply, wet and full, hands going to my ass, my own finding her breasts, sliding up until I wrapped my arms around her, cock at the ready, the water's pounding too intense not to want to be in her.
With a steady, calm hand, she reached between us, cupped my balls, and did that trick with her pinkie finger that made me kiss her even harder, the need rising up in me, twisting like a fast-growing vine that clung to her skin, searching for every crevice and nook where it could penetrate and take hold.
“What do you want?” I asked her, the spray filling my mouth with water, the swallow tasting fresh, full, real.
“You. Just you.”
She turned, then, hands on the shower wall, ass arching up, begging for me.
I’d hoped for sex, though not quite like this, but I grabbed the condom. She said nothing as I took care of the preliminaries, the very real prospect of an accidental pregnancy suddenly looming large.
We’d just held the result of an oops! He was beautiful and amazing, but…
I entered her, the thick folds of her pussy swollen from her earlier romp with Trevor, my hands having complete reign over her breasts, her belly, hips, thighs and ass a pleasure land for me to explore and claim.
Head tipped down, her hair hanging long and wet in a shield around her face, she let out long sighs that built to moans, the knowledge that I pleased her gripping my dick at the base, urging me onward.
“Come,” she whispered, moving her leg up, the angle letting me sink in deeper.
“What about you?”
“I'll come when you do. Don't go easy.”
I kissed her neck. “Whatever you say.”
“I just don't want to think, Joe. Make me not think. Make me feel. Push it all out of my head and into me like this.”
For the next few minutes, I did what she asked, using my hands and mouth where my cock couldn't go, making us both moan for it until she began to shake, the shudder a deep-dive into a piece of her I could never experience. My own orgasm was at the ready, but I held back, wanting more.
Restraint is all about using control to your advantage.
Any guy can come.
Not every guy can craft the quality of the orgasm. Calibration is a superpower.
I found her clit, the smooth touch of wet fingers on juiced-up skin making her gasp, walls tightening around me, her clench pulling me in deeper as I thrust with precision. Three circles were all I needed before she began bucking, slapping the shower wall, a silent scream pouring out of her, arched back tight to the point of snapping.
To the point of being nothing but reaction.
Only then, did I let loose, knowing I'd given Darla what she asked for.
Escape.
She felt so good, the condom making it all less sensitive, but letting me last longer, savoring her body's post-orgasm wetness. By the time I tipped over I could ride a longer wave rather than just peak and drop off, the sustained ecstasy a revelation.
Her shoulder was a convenient resting place for my chin as I pressed against her, sated.
“I'm so sore.”
“From too much sex?”
She touched her heart, then her pussy. “Both are sore. Both.” She turned around, my cock dropping out of her, dragging along her thigh before she faced me. Her fingers traced the thin scar on my chest, a long ragged line I forgot was even there.
“You were tiny, like little Cal. Your mama had to deal with you going under the knife. Three months old, right?”
“Mmm hmm.”
Tears filled her eyes, then she leaned forward and kissed the scar. “I have a whole new perspective on what Joanne and Herb went through.”
“Never thought of it that way,” I choked out, thoughts of her baby brother blending with my attempt to understand what it was like for my parents, having a baby who needed open heart surgery.
“They must have been so scared.”
“I guess?”
“If they felt one ounce of what I feel already for my brother, they sure as hell were. Of course they were scared. Terrified. Because what if they'd lost you, Joe? What if you'd died?”
I couldn't breathe.
A whole new rush of feelings hit my body like I was an alien finding a new skin.
“I didn't.”
“Duh,” she said with a sniff. “God, wouldja look at me? I'm a mess. One little baby comes into my life and I go all morbid.”
“You have more to lose.”
The words came out of my mouth like someone more adult than me had taken over my body.