Page 71 of Last Fall

I slid his boxers down enough to pull his cock free. “How often do you like sex?” I wrapped my fingers around him and stroked up anddownonce.

He wassohard.

“The obvious answer is that I like sex as often as humanly possible but the real answer,” he hissed as I stroked him again, learning how far to pull up, how tight to hold my fingers, “the real answer is that I want it whenever and however we’re both upforit.”

“You don’t have a number in your head? A schedule you liketokeep?”

He put his hands on my shoulders and separated us. “Fuck, Zo. No.” He tucked his cock away. “That’s idiotic. We’ll have sex when we have sex. When I’m on the road I have memories of kissing you, a hot shower, and my hand.” He held it up for emphasis. “When we’re together we’ll...for fuck’s sake...there are two of us with needs and wants. I’m assuming as two smart adults we’ll learn what that means forus.Bothofus.”

He looked like he wanted to strangle someone. Probably Tony. “I’msorry.”

“Don’t be fuckingsorry.”

I noticed he swore more when he was frustrated. “I’m just learning how youthink.”

He threw his hands in the air. “You know me, Zoe. I’m not demanding. I like to have fun. I’m boring and serious and I care about you more than I care about me.” He stepped closer and kissed me until I saw stars. “You want to know the fastest way to erase that dickwad and move on with me? Forget everything you know. Your life with him was not real. It wasn’t. Pretend it was one of your books. Close it up and throw it away. The things you write? Those are a thousand times more real than the shit you actually lived through.” He suddenly let me go and went to my overstuffed bookcase. He started pulling books off. “These people, these made up fictional people? They are based on what you see everyday. This one,” he held up my secondMayhembook. “That’s Jake and Eve. And this one?” He held up the fifth book. “It’s Jenny and Andrew. These?” He held upThe Butterfly Rebellion. “These are what you know youdeserve.”

My pulsethundered.

He shoved the books back where they belonged. “Now get in bed, let me hold you until you fall asleep, and tomorrow night we’ll do this all over again. And again, and again, until we don’t have to do thisanymore.”

He was right. The characters in my books weren’t real, but they were very much based on the things I observed in real life. The struggles Jake and Eve overcame to be together, the way they respected and cared for each other even when they wanted to scream. The love I saw in all our friends as they carefully found a way to betogether.

But I liked to torture myself with the past. Even though I could see healthy relationships all around me I latched on to the one bad relationship I let define me. I used my books to work my way through that concept, but was still refusing toliveit.

Nothing about this was easy, but Erik made me want tofinallytry.

So I got in bed and enjoyed the way it felt to have him wrap his body around mine, believed that I deserved to be in a relationship with someone who was decent and kind, and decided that Erik had abrilliantidea.

Tony was just a character in a book that I’d just thrown inafire.