I tried to send a directive to my hands to push Colin away, but they locked behind his neck instead, attempting to eliminate what few remaining atoms stood between us. My legs journeyed backwards, taking us over to my bed where my legs defied their given orders as well and left the ground, taking Colin with, as I landed on my gray comforter. Colin melded his body to mine, his lips never parting from mine for a moment. Our speeding heartbeats were zooming along the same track. Colin’s voice wisped into me in a breathless moan and the last shred of my resistance snapped. I wanted him so badly. Having him on top of me was unlike anything I’d experienced in my life. I thought of Val and the rumors flying around at school, but those thoughts were flies battering against a closed window. I was lost in Colin, too deep already, probably from the second he entered my room.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but also like air wouldn’t help me. Colin’s cool hands snuck under the base of my shirt and rested directly against the skin of my stomach. My consciousness made a hard collision with the fact that it wasn’t just about kissing anymore. 7th grade me wasn’t around to help me anymore, I was in uncharted territory. Even as I thought I was making a mistake I’d never be able to recover from, I leaned into Colin’s touch, bucked against him when his excited lower half found mine even through the four layers of fabric that separated us.
My everyday self had shut down completely and the backup drive I was working with only knew how to toss out breathless moans as Colin moved from my mouth to my neck and lower. The most sensitive parts of my body were screaming, demanding more. His tongue found places over my chest that had been visited before, but never with such passion. The pleasure wrapped itself around me in thick, heavy bands and I was bound to Colin by them. Why was I pulling his shirt up his torso and over his head? Why was I relenting as his hands traveled under me to my back to flick the clasps of my bra undone? Why were my fingers sewing into his hair to pull against him as though I was starving and he was the only food that would satiate?
“Tatiana.”
This voice crawled over me like the slow, hot melting of wax down a candlestick. I continued to hear it long after his mouth was kissing its way down my stomach. I took a deep breath in and held it while Colin’s hands undid the button of my jeans. Were we just now crossing the point of no return? No. When had we? Was it when he kissed me? Was it when he entered the house?
Or was it back when my mother first brought me to meet with Colin and his mom when we were babies? Destiny had charted our paths long before we were born. We stumbled along the path, face planted even, but was this truly where the road was meant to lead?
Colin rolled my pants down my legs, taking my underwear with them. I was so exposed I felt like I was laying on a bed of hot coals. He stood up to remove his own pants and we stared at each other in labored silence. Neither of us knew where we were anymore, only that we were there together, and that’s what there was to latch onto. Colin positioned himself between my legs. His hardness poking at me below was nothing compared to the way his hand reached out and settled on my cheek. He looked at me as if he thought he might awaken at any moment. I grabbed his hips and pulled, my body defying me yet again.
His hand rigidified against my face and he closed his eyes as he worked his way in. My mouth opened to allow sound to escape, but nothing came out. The walls of my bedroom faded away and the furniture disappeared. I got such severe tunnel vision that I wouldn’t have even drawn myself into this scene if I were asked to recreate it. Colin was it. His chest rising and falling, his jaw clenching, his resistant movements. Was he just trying to make it last?
Every piece of me started to hum their own notes of enjoyment as Colin worked. It was slow, but intense, and the more he rocked, the louder the hums got, the closer they got, until they were all laced together in a single harmony; loud and powerful. My legs shook despite my begging them not to, and then the sound that had barricaded itself back before, warbled out of me in the shape of Colin’s name. He held on tight, traversing through my shaking pleasure, and the look on his face suggesting it was his body battling against his wishes now.
“Shit,” he whispered.
My hands walked up Colin’s arms and over his wide shoulders, to nestle themselves into the grooves on his back. I pulled and he blanketed himself over me. Our mouths met again, and with Colin finally dialing up the pace, I could hear the hums again. This time, they started out in harmony, but the harmonies themselves multiplied. They got louder and more prevalent, forming a song headed quickly for the bridge. I let out a scream as the song amplified to the point that I lost all feeling and could only hear a loose, white ringing in my ears. I was fighting to catch my breath, with Colin struggling to take short breaths as well. My mind couldn’t find purchase. I’d just had sex with Colin and every attempt I made to make sense of that fact was resulting in a critical error.
The thoughts of Val finally forced his way through the closed window and when I saw them, I came colliding back to earth in a sobering, painful slam. I’d just cheated on him. I’d been wrong about Colin for five years and slept with him without giving it a second thought. My life’s intentions, which had been neatly arranged before, were now a mess all over the floor. I felt like I was going to be sick.
Colin looked down at me and I didn’t know what to tell him. When I opened my mouth, the only words that came out, “I just made a huge mistake,” could have referred to anything, but the words slapped Colin across the face so hard I expected it to bruise.
His movements were hasty and clumsy as he left my body, gathered his clothes, and left. The subsequent cold that strangled me couldn’t have been warmed if I doused myself in flames. I didn’t move and allowed the waterfalls of tears careening down my cheeks to move unfettered. I had made a huge mistake, I’d made several, and I had no clue how to fix any one of them.
17
Tatiana
I had barely moved in several days; I was numb. I’d spent two days pretending I was sick and trying to figure out how to turn my brain off. Any time it was on, if I was aware of my consciousness even a little bit, the feeling of Colin’s body on mine came smashing back into me. I was already of the new, permanent yearning my body had, as if I had been born with Colin attached to me, and now that he was gone, it was like part of me was missing too. I hadn’t even seen his perfectly cut abs, or the flawless framing of his hair around his lush covered face. My lower region tingled hungrily every time it crossed my mind, which was constant. I wasn’t walking on my own two feet anymore. When Colin left, I needed crutches, and it infuriated me. Since when was he that big of an influence over me? How did he manage to leave so much of his heat behind? How could I get back to the Tatiana of a few days ago? Did that girl even exist anymore?
“Tati.” A knock on my door followed my father’s gruff voice. “I made the soup.”
Good. I was starving. There aren’t many illnesses one can fake that can’t be verified. I had to go for stomach flu with a loss of appetite, so I’d avoided eating to convince my parents of the lie. It wasn’t like it mattered. No amount of food that traveled down my throat could calm the braying hunger situated deep inside of me. The food I required now was entirely different from what I needed before. Each day I gave my body something different, it forced me to endure more dreams of Colin’s eyes bearing down on me while taking me whole, rousing me from my sleep with a frustrating moisture between my legs and a devilish desire to sneak across the hall.