He slapped me again but I didn’t care, because he was thrusting inside me too. He drove all the way in and ground against my clit. I reached for him, only to have my arms pushed back on the bed. He spread his palms on my forearms and pinned me like a butterfly, wings spread. That, more than anything, made the orgasm break open.
He sneered down at me and rode me hard. See? See what I can make you do? And it was true, I had no shame. I tried to come again as he pounded into me, and when he growled and twisted his hips and reached his own climax, it set off a second set of earthquakes for me. He was shifting my tectonic plates, breaking me up and putting me back together.
I closed my eyes and waited for him to pull away. I felt so sensitive and exposed. He could have killed me, slaughtered me to pieces with the wrong look, the wrong words.
Maybe he knew, because he rose from the bed without saying anything. I thought I heard him mutter Jesus under his breath. I heard the bathroom door close. I thought about leaving, running away, but our session wasn’t over yet. Plus, I doubted I would have been able to walk.
Instead I turned on my side in a ball, and pulled the sheets over me. The light bled through the fabric, illuminating a dim world. I heard the bathroom door open, and I wanted him to stay as much as I wanted him to go. I lay very still. Go, just go. I can’t take it. I’m falling apart.
A few minutes later, the bed dipped and I felt him beside me. He pulled down the sheet and showed me a pad of hotel stationary, and a pen.
“Longing,” he said. “By Matthew Arnold.”
And I thought, They call it longing because it doesn’t last a short while.
He started to read what he’d written. “Come to me in my dreams and then/by day I shall be well again.” He paused and re-traced a letter with his pen. “For then the night will more than pay/the hopeless longing of the day.”
And that went over the edge of too much for me. Ten minutes earlier I’d been thinking about longing, and dreaming, and hopelessness, and here was this poem.
I burst into tears and vaulted off the bed, ran into the bathroom and locked the door. Help me. Oh God, help me. Here comes the volcano. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t get his voice out of my head. Longing, by Matthew Arnold. My God.
He pounded on the barrier between us. “What the fuck? What’s wrong with you?”
“Go away.”
“It’s supposed to be romantic,” he yelled through the wood. “It’s a very famous poem.”
I turned on the shower to drown out my meltdown. I needed a shower anyway. I needed to wash all of my nonsensical thoughts of love and longing away. I needed to get clean.
“Open the fucking door,” he ordered.
“In a minute. I’ll be out in a minute. Please…”
I knew he’d leave if I stayed in the shower long enough, so I washed, and cried, and washed some more, and let the water run over my hair and back and shoulders. I could never shower this long at the loft. Our hot water heater sucked. It would have run out of water ages ago. I tried to convince myself that the only reason I felt so much for W was because the rest of my life was such a mess.
After half an hour or so, I turned the water off. My eyes hurt from crying, but I felt squeaky clean, and that was something, at least.
I hoped W wouldn’t be mad at me. What had he called it? My girly emotional shit? I dried off and toweled my hair, and stood with my ear against the door. Was he still there? I heard a knock, and “Room service!” and then W’s rumbly voice. He’d ordered food?
When I heard the room door close, I pulled on one of the neatly stacked bath robes and unlocked the door. W stood by the table, fully dressed, arranging platters and bowls. I knew a simple fucking sandwich cost forty dollars at this hotel. There was probably five hundred bucks worth of room service on that table, but that wasn’t as impressive as the way W looked standing over it.
He glanced up, noticing me. I pulled my robe closer around my waist.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
He didn’t sound angry or accusing. In fact, he sounded like he was trying to keep his voice modulated. I tried to keep mine modulated too.
“Not too hungry,” I lied.
“Sit down with me anyway.”
I hugged myself. “Maybe I should get dressed first.”
He shot me an irritated look. “We’re done for tonight. I won’t touch you again. Anyway, I ripped your dress. ” His frown deepened. “Do you want me to leave?”