his phone was already propped against his knee when i came out of the bedroom in the set he bought me — black lace bodysuit, the snaps at the hip, stockings with the seam up the back because he texted once, in february, seams. some girl on the screen was already getting railed from behind, volume on low. two notches, not off. i’ve learned to read it like a forecast: off means come sit with me, two notches means come out dressed and don’t talk, all the way up is a bad day and i get the floor for an hour. it’s a whole language and i’m the only one who’s ever needed to learn it.
he didn’t say anything. didn’t have to. i got down on the rug between his knees and he lifted his hips a little so i could get his jeans and boxers down far enough, and he was already half-hard just from the video, which did something to me i won’t be pretending about. somebody on a screen three inches from his face couldn’t get him there and i hadn’t even touched him yet.
my hand was on his fly before i decided to move. that’s the only answer i have.
i got him in my hand first. thick — heavier than it looks even when i already know what i’m dealing with — and i ran my hand down the length of him a few times, slow, letting him feel that i’d planned for this, before i put my mouth on the head, just the tip, tongue working the underside where the vein sits, and he made a sound low in his throat that had nothing to do with the phone.
“there she is,” he said. quiet, to the screen or to me or to the room. “look at you.”
he reached down and ran two fingers under the strap at my shoulder, adjusting it the way you’d straighten a picture frame, and looked at the whole line of the set on me: the lace, the seams, the twelve-dollar nail polish i’d done sitting on the floor of the bathroom an hour ago while he watched basketball through the wall.
“new set,” he said.
“you bought it.”
“i know what i bought.” his thumb moved along my jaw and tipped my face up, and he looked at me the way you look at a tool that’s outlived its warranty and kept working anyway. “keep this one. it’s the best you’ve looked in weeks.”
that’s it. that’s the whole compliment, and i ran it through my chest like a credit. i’ve never once gotten more than a sentence out of him about anything and i have never once needed one. some men fill a room with words so you don’t notice the lights are off. he just turns the volume to two notches and waits, and the waiting is the entire courtship, and i would crawl here through weather for it.
i took more of him in after that. not all at once — a few inches, pull back, a few more, getting my jaw used to the stretch of him before i tried for anything deeper. his hand came down into my hair, loose at first, just resting there, thumb moving against my scalp while his eyes stayed on the screen.
“watch her,” he said, when i came up for air. on the phone, the girl from behind had her face in the mattress and her ass up, taking it slow. “see how she’s taking it? like that. she can’t get the whole thing. you can.”
i can. i showed him. all the way down, until my nose was in the hair at the base of him and my throat was full and my eyes were already watering; held it a beat longer than was comfortable while the girl on the screen made sounds i’d decided not to compete with; then pulled off fast, gagged once, caught my breath with spit running down my chin and dripping onto the lace, and went straight back down before i’d really recovered. down, hold, off, breathe, down again. the rhythm he likes. by the third or fourth time through, my jaw was aching in a way that tells you you’re going to feel it on the bus tomorrow and you won’t care a single degree.
his hips started moving a little under me, small thrusts up into my mouth that he wasn’t fully in control of anymore, and his hand in my hair tightened, not pulling, just holding on. i kept my tongue flat against the underside and worked the head hard on every pass back up, cheeks hollowed, spit making everything slick and messy and loud — the kind of wet sound that fills a quiet room. the girl on the phone was making noise too, and i’d have been lying if i said i wasn’t aware of the contest. i wasn’t making a different sound than her. i was just making it with lace on and my own cock leaking against the inside of the bodysuit, untouched, his to ignore, which he does, every time, on purpose, and which i’ve decided is the most wanted i’ve ever been in my life: he doesn’t have to touch me to keep me. i’d be back regardless. we both know it.
“look at me,” he said. i looked up. his face had lost the screen entirely. “not her. me.”
i kept my eyes on him — mouth full, chin wrecked, cheeks hollowed — while he watched me take it, and the girl on the phone finished loud, and his hand landed heavier on the back of my head at almost the same second. pushed me down further than i would have gone on my own. held me there with my throat completely full and my eyes streaming and my hands flat on his thighs for balance.
“don’t stop,” he said.
i didn’t. i swallowed around him, throat working, spasming against the head of him, and he groaned something that wasn’t words. he didn’t warn me, ever. he came down my throat in three hard pulses, hand fisted in my hair, holding me there through all of it, and i stayed and took it, because pulling off right then would have felt like hanging up on the only call i care about. when he finally let go of my hair i was still swallowing, throat working through the last of it, eyes wet, chin and the front of the bodysuit soaked through with spit.
he exhaled, long, and looked down at me for the first time all night — really looked, all of me, knees on the worn patch of rug, stockings, ruined lace. “you’re better than anything on there.” flat. not a line — a fact, the way he says most things.
i believed him. there was no galaxy where i didn’t believe him. i wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, licked the last of him off my lips, and sat back on my heels, knees aching. he was already thumbing to the next video before i’d finished swallowing, totally unbothered, like nothing in the room had changed for him — and one notch went up on the volume, back to where it started. that’s the whole signal, every time, that we’re done. he’s never once said thank you. thank you implies a favor, and this isn’t a favor.
i got up, fixed the bodysuit where it had gone see-through and sticky at the front, and went to the bathroom to wash my face and rinse my mouth. on the way past the hall mirror i caught myself — stockings, seams, elbows, wrecked lipstick, jaw already swelling the good way — and had to physically stop myself from standing there grinning like a lunatic. the girl on his phone had a whole production behind her: lights, a tripod, somebody pressing play. i have a rug with a worn patch and a number of notches on a volume bar that means come here. the volume went up. i’m already planning the set for tomorrow. it’s a language that only has two of us in it.
