Page 19 of Ctrl+Alt Submit
“You never had it out with Eliza, did you? Never asked her why she was banging Tyler? Never had an argument or called her a terrible person for cheating on you?”
“No,” I mumble. “I just stormed out. And she wasn’t at the apartment when I came back. I basically took my shit and left.”
“So you never got closure,” Errol says, sounding triumphant.
“What are you, a psychologist now?” I grumble. “What good would that do? And besides —”
A thought strikes me and I straighten up from my mortified slouch, convinced that I have an impenetrable argument to shut down this nonsensical conversation. “How the fuck am I supposed to get closure, huh?”
“Tell her how you feel.”
“How?” I demand. “She’s not here! What am I supposed to do, write her a fucking letter?”
Errol rolls his eyes. “ No . Do it with me instead.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“How do you know? You’ve been moping around since you got here. I can tell it’s on your mind. Am I wrong?”
“No,” I mutter, a little ashamed that Errol saw right through me and called me out.
“So, what do you have to lose? Come on ,” he insists.
I throw up my hands. “This doesn’t make any sense. What do you want me to do? Just pretend that you’re Eliza?”
Errol swings a leg over me and straddles me. His weight landing on my thighs and the penetrating look he gives me unsettle me and turn me on at the same time.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I’m embarrassed by the stammer in my voice.
“ Yes . That is exactly what I want you to do,” he says, poking me in the chest with a finger.
“So, what —is this supposed to belike a… role-play or something?” I ask, my words halting.
“Yes.” His voice and nod are equally emphatic.
I frown, turning it over in my head. There are probably plenty of good reasons why this crazy idea will never work. And dammit… I can’t think of a single one.
I sigh in defeat, turning my thoughts to this absurd charade Errol has assigned to me.
To my surprise, it’s not nearly as hard as I expected to think about what I’d like to say to —OK, probably yell at — Eliza if she suddenly materialized.
It makes me feel like an asshole, though.
And thinking about what I’d like to do seems a little more dangerous.
“This feels weird,” I protest. “I mean, I wouldn’t really act out this stuff I’m thinking about. Honestly, I wouldn’t even say what I’m thinking to her face. Because it’s pretty bad.”
Errol’s eyebrows steadily creep up as I speak. They’ve disappeared entirely under his hair by the time I fall quiet again. He evaluates me for a few seconds before pulling our bodies together.
“It’s OK, Stud,” he says softly, so close that his lips brush the shell of my ear. “I know you wouldn’t do this in real life. That’s why we’re doing it this way. It’s safe like this. Do you believe me?”
He draws back to look at me again. The look in his eyes, along with the echo of his words in my ears, makes me bolder.
“Can I slap you?” I ask in a hoarse whisper. Errol wiggles his ass, none-too-subtly rubbing it against my cock. “Not just that,” I say. His brow furrows. I take a deep inhale. “I want to slap you in the face.”
His eyes get huge. “Crap,” I mutter. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have —”
“You can,” he interrupts me. His voice is breathy, and maybe even… eager? “What else?” he asks.
My mouth has gone dry. “I want to grab you by the throat, throw you around and call you names.” I pause to see if he’s going to say anything, but he just nods. “And um —” I take a breath and dive headfirst into this bizarre game Errol wants to play.
“Then I want to fuck you so hard you think I’m going to break you.” His inhale is a hiss, and from the way he shifts on top of me, I think he’s getting hard.
I’m about to look down and confirm my suspicion when an even crazier realization hits me: I’m hard, too. My dick that was stubbornly refusing to play along just a little bit agohas suddenly woken up and wants in on this… whatever this psychological head trip is.
I still have to double-check. “Are you OK with that? And are you OK with our first time fucking being like —like this?”
The smirk on Errol’s face answers before he does.
“Yeah, Stud, that’s good.” He traces his fingers down the side of my neck as his expression softens.
“We’ll have a safeword, OK? If either one of us feels like things get weird, or too intense or we just don’t want to do it anymore, we can stop. Alright?”
“A safeword?” I repeat. “Instead of just, like, stop or whatever?”
“Yeah — a random word that neither of us would ever in a million years say when we were fucking that means stop. Emergency brake. Eject. Scene over.”
A million things are going through my mind right now, and not a single one of them is a word I could imagine myself saying if I was having sex that got bad or painful or out of control. “Will you come up with one?” I nearly plead.
“How about tangerine?”
“Tangerine.” I roll it over my tongue. “Yeah, OK.”
Errol looks satisfied. He grinds his ass against me again. “So. You got something you wanted to say?” He arches a brow as his expression flips to something unsettling — something that’s not not a sneer.
And —oh, God —it throws a switch inside of me.