Beautiful Stranger

struggled to find the right answer, suddenly more than a little overwhelmed with the enormity of that question.
    You over me.
    You under me.
    Your laugh in my ears.
    Your voice in my chest.
    Your wet on my fingers.
    Your taste on my tongue.
    I think I want to know you feel the way I do.
    “I just want you to enjoy this tonight.” I leaned forward, pressing my mouth between her legs. She smelled dizzying, tasted too good, looked too beautiful. Sara’s sounds were quiet and aching and seemed to be tailored entirely for my ear. Her fingers ran over my head, scratching my scalp lightly before she let go and pulled her leg higher, spreading wider, giving me better access. She didn’t move with exaggerated sexuality; she was slow and calm and easily the most accidentally sensual being in history.
    And as I focused on making her feel good, I imagined how she looked from outside this room, with my fingers in her and my mouth devouring her and her back arching up from the couch. I was so used to seeing her with the mask now that it wasn’t jarring or distancing; the way she lookedat me from behind it made me feel like I’d just been given the entire world. The silky black wig framed her face, made her skin paler, her lips redder. Those same lips parted as she began to beg quietly, instructing me to move faster, to not stop sucking on her, to fuck her harder with my fingers.
    As she began to fall, her hand moved up her torso, over her breast and up her neck to her face, where she slipped her mask off, exposing the last bit of her skin that had been covered.
    Her huge brown eyes were trained on my face, her lips still parted in a quiet pant.
    When she came, she never once looked away, never once even blinked her attention to the windows behind me.
    Someone was on the other side of that glass. I could feel it. But I don’t think we could have been any more alone in this room even if we really were at my flat. Nothing in this world existed other than the way she pressed into my mouth, crying out when she came.
    Then she sighed, tugged on my hair, and laughed. “Holy shit .”
    So maybe if I ever met this Andy twat I wouldn’t actually punch his smug face after all. Maybe I’d shake his hand for messing things up with Sara so epically that she moved to New York and stopped being the woman who did what she was supposed to do, and started to be the woman who did what she bloody well wanted.
    I kissed my way up her torso, let her suck her taste from my mouth, my tongue, my jaw. Beneath me she was warm and slow; her arms curled lazily around me, her laugh faded into my neck.
    “I think that was the most fun I’ve ever had,” she whispered.
    And I suspected I’d do almost anything to spend the rest of my life making this woman happy.

Fifteen
    I knew it wouldn’t be good to have every night of the week filled with Max, because it would shatter my ability to think about anything else. On my morning run, I thought back on what we’d done together, and came up with some of the wildest fantasies I’d ever had in my life: crawling under Max’s desk and sucking him off while he spoke on the phone, or having him in the elevator on the way up to his apartment.
    It was fun to finally let myself indulge in these sorts of daydreams, and I was starting not to care that he disrupted so much of my structured life. And after what he did for me at the club, I was beginning to realize I’d walk across flaming coals for the man.
    I’d been nervous, no doubt. The club felt darkly indulgent and was supported by patrons who’d been thinking about this kind of sexual fantasy maybe longer than I’d been alive. I wasn’t sure if there were unspoken rules I was meant to follow. Don’t speak tooloudly. Don’t cross your legs. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Don’t drink your cocktail too fast.
    My parents were so wholly innocent next to this world. Their idea of a wild night out was seeing The Vagina Monologues and dinner at some trendy Asian-fusion restaurant. To this day, my father considered sushi just a little too adventurous for him.
    And here I was, walking into a secret sex club, and on my first night there, letting Max go down on me where anyone present could watch.
    I had no idea, in the end, if anyone had in fact been watching. We left through the back door to the room, where Max’s friend Johnny met us and let us leave through a service entrance. Max watched me carefully the rest of the night, like he was wondering if I was