“Now?”
“Yeah. Let’s try again. Play with your pussy.” When I didn’t move, he rolled his eyes, “Come on, Lyssa. I know that’s what you were doing in here before I got home. Go on, do it again.”
I hesitated, and before I could blink, Mike wrapped his hand around my wrist and stuck a couple of my fingers in his mouth. I gasped as his tongue slid over my digits, dancing along the split and soothing the sides. He pulled them out with a wet pop. “There you go.”
My breath coming faster now, I tried to study his expression to see if he was doing his cocky Mike the Man shtick again. But his deep brown eyes met mine without bravado or posturing.
I slid my hand under the water and down my belly. Mike’s saliva on my fingers was immediately lost to the bathwater, but the idea of him lubricating me to ready me had quickened my pulse.
I clenched my lids shut as my fingers resumed their earlier pattern, sliding into the familiar grooves. Mike watched, leaning on the lip of my tub—his tub—as water swung up and down the sides of the enamel.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
“Good.”
“Good?”
I knew he wanted more. But honestly, this question was triggering for me. This question was how I ended up feigning enjoyment of every single partnered sexual experience I’d had. The broad spectrum of assholes I’d let in my pants—from a high school boyfriend who dumped me the morning after I finally slept with him to Paul, fucking Paul—all needed me to perform enjoyment more than they needed me to enjoy myself.
I stopped what I was doing.
“It’s always good, until it’s too much,” I bit out, frustrated. Then I had to swallow a few times as tears were threatening again. “It’s like I overshoot it. Like … like going on a hike only to get to the other side without even a glimpse of the view that everyone else had raved about.”
“Did you Google how to orgasm?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Like anyone could have a problem like this in a modern time and not consult Google. Of course I’d Googled it.
“All the articles I found were basically, like, ‘idk sometimes people with vulvas can’t come, shrug.’ I think a lot of the time the problem is having sex with cishet men.” I side-eyed Mike, assessing if he was going to be one of those guys who thought this label was hate speech, instead of a fact. His expression didn’t change and I continued. “Because they think sex starts when they get hard and finishes when they ejaculate. It’s like Caroline says—this is more proof sexuality isn’t a choice, because women are way too smart to want to be attracted to men.”
Mike made a face. “I’d rather not think about my sister right now, if that’s all the same to you.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. I have an idea. I need you to do something for me.”
He was asking for more than that. He was asking me to trust him.
Did I? He’d never given me reason not to. The opposite, in fact. I took a deep breath and nodded.
“Close your eyes.”
I did.
“When you’re ready, start touching yourself again. No rush. I haven’t got anywhere to be.”
I lay still in the water for as long as I thought it would take him to get bored and leave. But he didn’t. He stayed kneeling at the side of the tub, true to his word.
Eventually, the idea of doing this while he watched became exciting again.
I tentatively resumed my exploration. When I pulled the sodden fabric of my dress up my thigh and my hand disappeared beneath it, Mike’s heavy exhale hit my shoulder.
That thrilled me.
It was easier to do this when I was doing it for him. Under his gaze, I imagined his cock lengthening in his jeans, getting thick and stiff. All for me. I petted my soft, hot flesh, but when my fingertip ducked under my clitoral hood and hit the bundle of nerves there, I jerked.
Mike made a noise low in his throat, considering. “That pretty clit of yours is very sensitive, isn’t it?”
I still didn’t open my eyes, but he spoke with an easy playfulness that made me feel like I was in safe hands. Mike knew sex. He could guide me.
When I nodded, he hummed again.
