Curiosity and hunger drove my hand lower, reaching behind myself. I circled my entrance with tentative fingers, feeling the slight tenderness there. The memory of Ezra's fingers inside me, of the pleasure he'd coaxed from my body, made me bold. I slicked my finger with soap and pressed inward, breaching myself for the first time.
The intrusion felt strange, clinical. Nothing like when Ezra had touched me. I pressed deeper, crooking my finger, searching for the spot he'd found so easily.
I couldn't find it. Or maybe I did, but my touch only produced a dull echo of what I'd experienced with him. My wrist cramped at the awkward angle. My finger slipped. Frustration mounted where pleasure should have bloomed.
I gave up, withdrawing my hand with a sigh.
I rinsed myself off and dressed in the clothes Ezra had left for me, feeling disappointed.
I found him in the kitchen cutting up berries. His fingers were stained bright red, and I had the strangest urge to suck them clean.
"Sleep well?" he asked without pausing.
"Yes," I said, sliding onto a stool at the island. "Thank you for the clothes."
"They suit you."
Breakfast was perfect, of course. Everything Ezra did contained the same precision, the absolute confidence in his own mastery. We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes before anxiety began creeping in around the edges of my thoughts.
Today, I would return to campus. To my apartment with its water-stained ceilings and drafty windows. To my normal life, that suddenly seemed like a costume I'd outgrown, a role in a play I no longer believed in. How could I go back to that after what had happened here? How could I pretend to be the person I was before Ezra had peeled back my layers and exposed what lived beneath?
I caught myself chewing my sleeve again, a childhood reflex I’d never fully unlearned. The fabric went damp against my tongue, grounding me in the present. It was a sensory thing, I thought. Or had thought. But after last night… Maybe it wasn’t just about comfort. Maybe it was about reclaiming something I’d been taught I didn’t deserve.
My eyes drifted to Ezra’s chest. Through the thin cotton of his burgundy shirt, I could make out the faint outlines of his nipples. I remembered how they’d felt in my mouth: soft and firm at once, soothing in a way my sleeve never was, but that was only part of it. There was something special about being held, having my face pressed so close to the soft beating of his heart. Something that made me feelalive. That comfort had gone deeper, reached something in me I didn’t know could still be soothed. What I’d once called a bad habit, he’d turned into a kind of communion. My sleeve felt like a stand-in now. A trace memory. A coping mechanism that had always longed for something real.
Ezra’s hand entered my peripheral vision, gently tugging the sleeve from between my teeth. Heat flared across my cheeks—shame, old and reflexive, like a bruise pressed too hard. Mygrandmother’s voice rose up unbidden, sharp and punishing:Disgusting. Stop that this instant. Only babies suck on things. Are you a baby? No? Then what are you?
“Sorry,” I murmured, bracing for judgment I knew he wouldn’t give, but the instinct ran deep.
Ezra said nothing. He just refilled my coffee, the quiet act more generous than comfort. No reprimand. No lecture. He let it pass, like he trusted me to decide what it meant.
"You have studio time booked this afternoon?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Yes. Three to six."
"Would you prefer to work here instead? I have papers to grade, but my studio is at your disposal."
The offer made my heart race, blood rushing in my ears like ocean waves. Another day in this sanctuary instead of the busy campus studio with its constant noise and interruptions. Another day in Ezra's orbit, breathing the same air, existing in his carefully curated world.
"Yes," I said too quickly. "If that's okay."
"I wouldn't have offered otherwise."
***
Ezra sat at hisdesk in the corner of the studio, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he graded papers. I stood before a blank canvas, paints arranged on a nearby table, brushes lined up by size like soldiers awaiting orders.
The past hours had taken on a dreamlike quality. After breakfast, Ezra had shown me his extensive art library, allowing me to select books to browse while he made phone calls. Then a simple lunch of soup and bread, eaten on the back deck overlooking the forest. Now this. Ordinary momentsthat somehow transcended ordinariness through their very permission to exist.
Ezra let me use his personal paints, the bone ash mixtures we'd worked with yesterday.
The brush seemed to know where it wanted to go, dragging my fingers along rather than being guided by them. Like a planchette on a Ouija board, my hand glided across the canvas, leaving strokes I hadn't planned, forms I hadn't conceived.
Time dissolved as my hand moved almost independently of thought. Colors mixed on my palette, transferred to canvas in strokes that seemed to come from somewhere outside myself. The paintbrush found its way between my lips as I worked, another unconscious habit I usually caught and stopped before anyone noticed. With Ezra, I forgot to monitor myself, forgot to police my movements for signs of weakness or sin.
From time to time, I glanced over at him. He'd removed his suit jacket as the afternoon warmed, the thin t-shirt as his only covering. When he leaned forward to make notes on student papers, the fabric stretched across his broad back, outlining the muscles beneath. When he turned slightly to reference a book, I could see the way his nipples peaked against the fabric.
I caught myself staring and quickly looked away, but not before his eyes lifted to meet mine. He didn't comment, just watched me for a long moment before returning to his work.
