please don’t be upset if I can’t do it.”
“I think you can. It just takes practice.”
“Do you know anyone who gives lessons?” she asked flippantly. “Maybe I can join a team or something?”
“Sure, Team Hughes.”
“Team Hughes? Like—?” Her eyes flew wide. “Oh my gosh! Do you mean what I think you do?”
“That depends,” I said coyly. “What do you think I mean?”
“That Erin— and your mother! Oh— my— gosh! Paul, are you serious?”
“Mmm hmm. I’m sure they’d be happy to give you some pointers.”
“No. Absolutely not. Never in a million years. I can’t ask your mother for advice on how to deep throat her own son.”
“Then ask Erin. She’s pretty good at it.”
Christy buried her face in her hands. “Why do you do this to me?”
“Do what?”
“Feed my imagination. I don’t need help, you know! And I shouldn’t get this worked up about asking Erin for advice. But she’ll ask why, and I’ll tell her. She’ll offer to demonstrate, and I’ll want to watch. I’m serious, Paul. I think of a new fantasy every time you mention her. It’s starting to drive me crazy!”
I chuckled.
She lifted her head and faux-glared. “Laugh all you like. This is easy for you. But I wasn’t raised like you.”
“I know. But you aren’t the same innocent girl you were six months ago, either.”
“I wasn’t so innocent,” she said darkly, “even back then. I was still thinking about this stuff. I just didn’t realize you were too.” She exhaled slowly and stared into space. “Sometimes it feels weird to share my fantasies.
It isn’t real if it stays in my head. You know? Like my art. And, like my art,”
she continued, “I feel like people are going to judge me if I make things real, if I talk about my fantasies. Does that make sense?”
I didn’t even have to work through the Christy-logic that time. “Yeah, it does. But you actually share your art with the world. Our sex life and fantasies are private, just between us.”
“Not really. We sort of have a private collection. With certain people, I
mean.”
“True. Not of art,” I said, “but sex.”
“Mmm hmm. Brooke knows. Erin will know. Wren knows. Some of it, at least. The vanilla stuff like swinging. Trip, Leah, Mark… the list goes on!”
“Okay, so we have a small circle of friends who know more than the general public. But they won’t judge us ’cause they’re like us.”
“I don’t think anyone’s like us,” she said. “Not like you and me, I mean.”
“No, probably not. That’s why we fit so well together.”
“Yeah, we do. Even with things that aren’t sex, like our real art. I’m drawing more since we started dating. Did you know that? Mostly sketches of you, but still. I started a new book. It’s full of ideas for things I want to sculpt.
“The same in bed,” she added. “I have all these fantasies and kinky things I want to try with you. I’ve never felt that way before. I’ve always had to keep things inside, to hide who I really was. But I don’t have to do that with you. And I guess it kind of scares me. Where do we draw the line? Is anything too weird?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Before we started dating, I’d’ve said incest was. Yeah, I fooled around with Mom and Erin, but I never did anything—”
Christy laughed and shook her head. “You’re so frustrating sometimes.
You tell me that blowjobs are sex too, but then you say things like that.”
“Like what?”
“That you never ‘did’ anything with your mom or Erin. What do you think blowjobs are? Duh!”
“Yeah, all right, you got me. But you know what I mean. I never went all the way with them.”
“I know. I’m just teasing. Only, I’m not.”
“I guess I have my own double standards.”
“You do. But you’re really cute when you realize it.”
“Thanks. I think.”
She smiled at me fondly and then sighed with contentment.
“Come up here,” I said.
“Hmm?”
“Yeah, we can get to the deep throat practice later. Right now I just want to feel you next to me.”
She crawled up and settled along my side, a tight little package in her
bodystocking.
“I like this,” I said as I put my arm around her. “And I was wondering…
where’d you get it? I mean, I can’t imagine a Girls & Young Misses department with crotchless lingerie.”
“Funny, ha ha. Go ahead, make fun of me for being small. Everyone else does. But if you must know—”
“I must, I must.”
“—Brooke and I got them from a store down by the zoo. In San Diego.
Duh. They sell lingerie and vibrators and movies and all kinds of stuff.”
“So Brooke has one of these too?”
“Of course. You didn’t think I’d go into the store alone? Oh my gosh, no!”
I chuckled.
“Besides, we have similar taste.” She glanced up to judge my reaction.
“In guys, too. She thought you were really cute. I was kind of hoping she’d get to meet Mr. Big, but… oh, well. She knows what he looks like. In all his glory, I mean.”
“All his glory? You mean hard? Hold on—?”
“I showed her sketches.”
“Of Mr. Big?”
“No! The whole you. I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t think you would, but I didn’t ask, so I’m sorry if you’re upset. She wanted to know what you looked like. I have pictures in my wallet, but I showed her my sketchbook too. And… um… I might have a few drawings where you’re playing with him. Mr. Big, I mean.”
“For real?”
“I don’t show those to just anyone,” she said quickly. “Only Brooke. I wouldn’t even show Wren. Not that it matters with her; she already knows what you look like. But I was telling Brooke how hot you are—your body, I mean—and she was curious. So… I showed her. Are you upset?”
“No, not really. More amused than anything.”
“Oh, thank goodness. And if it makes you feel any better, she said I could show you sketches of her. She likes posing for me, so I have some really good ones.”
“Nudes?”
“Of course. But regular ones too, little sketches where she didn’t know I was watching. She’s so beautiful, Paul, so natural. But she doesn’t realize it.”
I’d noticed that about her too—she didn’t primp or preen like some attractive people did.
“She liked looking at you, though,” Christy continued. “That’s why she was so flirty that time you called when we’d been drinking.”
“Which time was that?” I teased. “You’d been drinking pretty much every time I called.”
“So sue me. Or us. Whatever. You didn’t seem to mind when we were there in person.”
“What? You drinking? No.”
“Brooke’s like me, a lot more flirty when she’s had a few. But more than that, she just needed to relax. And for a guy to be nice to her. Fletcher really screwed her over. Not only because he cheated, but also the way he made her feel about herself. I mean, I’m not exactly a model of self-confidence, but I’m practically you compared to her these days.”
“I have plenty of doubts and fears—”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“—but you’re right, I’m pretty confident in general.”
“I wish Brooke was. She used to be. Well, more than she is now. She’s always been a little insecure about some things. She thinks her boobs are too big—”
“They aren’t.”
“—and she doesn’t like her freckles—”
“They’re beautiful.”
“—but you know what I mean. Everyone’s a little self-conscious about something. I see it all the time when I sketch people, the little things they try to hide. It’s funny. Those’re usually their most interesting features, the things that set them apart from others. Like me and my size, or you and yours.”