You Are Not a Stranger Here - Adam Haslett [77]
“Don’t you want to do this?” she asks.
Suddenly, awfully, she doesn’t seem older. Her knowing expression is gone. Replaced by awkwardness or confusion, maybe even anger, he can’t tell. He feels alone. There’s a half-naked stranger in front of him. He’s the desperate guy he always imagined he was. Being here feels wrong, but somehow too late. He’s supposed to know how things go and he doesn’t. He leans down and tries kissing the side of her face, which works more or less, their bodies moving closer, her breasts warm through his shirt. He never imagined she might not have done this before. The thought terrifies him.
“Yeah,” he replies, “of course.”
He sits on the edge of the bed and Lauren starts undoing his shirt. He doesn’t want to take his T-shirt off, but she tugs at the back of it, so he pulls it over his head, exposing his slender chest. They shift farther onto the mattress and he lies back. He’s expecting her to climb up and kiss him but she doesn’t. She unzips his jeans, which finally gives him his hard-on back. It’s almost as he imagined it: her on top of him, this inscrutable look on her face, only it’s not distance, nothing like that, and he’s not asking her about where she’s been or what it’s like to come back from faraway places, even though these childish questions are the ones he still wants to ask. He thought somehow he would ask them now. But neither of them speak. There is the weight of her crushing his leg, a mole his fingers discover on the back of her shoulder as she kisses his stomach. It is weakness and helplessness he feels as she pulls down his jeans and boxers. They haven’t talked about sex, only Christmas night outside her house, as her parents watched from the kitchen and she waved to them and then turned to Ted and whispered, New Year’s, let’s do it then. Naked now before her, he wants to ask if he is actually male in the way other men are, or if he is missing something he’s never been able to see. His back arches sharply at the moist warm touch of her mouth on the head of his penis and he senses he can’t let her do this or it will be over, so he pulls her up by her armpits and rolls her onto her back. He looks at her mouth but avoids her eyes. Still they say nothing. Lauren slips off her pants and underwear. She makes no sound as he leans down to kiss her nipples, but once he’s started, she puts her hands in his hair and guides his head into her chest. He shudders at the taste of salt on her flesh. For an instant, he’s poised between drive and revulsion. He licks her breast. She presses his face harder against her skin. He wants it now, his whole body wants it. With his elbows, he presses against the inside of her knees, spreading her legs.
“Put it on,” she whispers. He leans back to grab from his jeans the condom he bought that morning. He’s never used one before but he’s seen pictures; he rolls it on as fast as he can. Then he crawls forward and she takes his penis in her hand. There are long, hideously awkward seconds as she squiggles farther down on the bed and he tries to push. His eyes are clenched shut. He hopes hers are too. Lauren takes a sudden, sharp breath, shouts, “Ow!” He holds himself above her.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I can stop.”
“No,” she says, her voice so deep and determined he doesn’t recognize it. She puts her hand on his butt and pulls. He can feel her trembling. Her breath is short and tight as he uses the muscles in the backs of his legs to move in and then almost out of her. It feels involuntary. Beastlike. Good. He begins to shiver and then with no warning comes in a rush, collapsing down onto her, burying his sighs in the pillow over her shoulder.
For a few seconds he lies across her, then rises, slipping out of her, leaning back onto his ankles. She covers herself with a pillow. He feels a wave of misery and defeat.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
Her expression is blank, a little stunned. As though she has arrived somewhere only to discover it is no different than the place she has