Page 24 of Ctrl+Alt Submit

AARYN

I realize I must’ve drifted off when I wake up to Errol’s voice. “This thing we have,” he says, his voice a low murmur. “Do you think it's real? Do you think it could be? Please, Ran — I really, really want it to be.”

With my glasses off, the view out the window is hazy, but I can tell it’s dark out. What time is it? How long have we been here like this? Did Errol fall asleep, too? Or has he just been lying half on top of me, like the world’s warmest, heaviest weighted blanket?

“Hmm?” I say, just to give myself a second to reorient my mind.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. And never mind.” Errol sighs. It was stupid.”

“No. I’m sure it wasn’t. You think everything you say it stupid and it never is,” I chide him. “I’m sorry, I just — I think I kind of drifted off a little.”

Errol laughs softly. “You were out for about an hour. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You fall asleep, too?” My voice is still fuzzy with sleep.

“Nope. I didn’t want to. It was just... so nice being here. I didn’t want to miss it.” His voice dips to a whisper at the end before he pushes himself up. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I wasn’t crushing you?”

“Nope. You feel good.” Even though Errol is an inch or two taller and considerably heavier than me, there’s something so goddamn endearing about the way he sort of tucks himself up against my body. It makes me feel like I’m the big, strong one between the two of us.

I take a chance on a thought that’s been hanging over my head. “That first night we had sex — had you ever done anything like that before?”

“Not exactly like that. But role-play? Yeah, a few times.”

“What was it like? Did you get off as good... or better?”

“Are you asking me because you think it’s hot or because you’re jealous?”

“Um, I mostly want to know if I’m doing it right,” I admit. I’m not a hundred percent confident that I am. I have been researching since that night, mostly reading on kink bulletin boards and forums online.

Errol frowns a little. “It’s not like there’s a right and a wrong way to do it. As long as everybody’s having a good time. And besides, I already told you it was great.” He sizes me up. “Is that really what this is about?”

When I don’t answer, he sighs. “I’ll tell you about them if you want, if that’s something that turns you on.

But I don’t want you to feel jealous or anything, because the thing is, Stud —” He glances up at me and pulls the corner of his lower lip into his mouth.

I can see him gnawing at it as he studies me.

“Those other guys, all the stuff I did or they did to me — in the back of my head, in some part of my mind, it was you instead.”

Errol drapes his body over mine again, burying his face in my neck, his breath hot on my skin. “It was always you,” he murmurs.

I try to wrap my mind around the idea that all the kinky shit — the details he’s told me, the ones he’s alluded to and the ones that I have yet to hear about — he got into since we fell out of touch so many years ago all happened with me in the back of his mind.

“I like sleeping in here with you,” I say slowly as an idea starts to take shape and gel in my mind. “Maybe —maybe we could use the other bedroom for something else.”

“Like what?”

“Kind of like a playroom. A place where you’ll always be my good girl, or my kinky slut —or both.”

His inhale is sharp. “Oh, fuck ,” he murmurs. “I’m not gonna lie —you just made me go from zero to rock-hard instantly.”

His enthusiasm emboldens me. I pull my arm free so I can bring it around him. When I run it through his hair, he exhales a little purr. I bend down and drop a kiss onto the top of his head as I pick up my train of thought.

“A room where, when we go there, you know your place. Naked, and crawling on your hands and knees unless I tell you otherwise. A place where there are rules —and punishments for breaking them.”

Errol lets out a whimper of need and anticipation. He wiggles around in my embrace, seeking out my mouth with his own. His kiss is all heat and hunger, demanding and tender at the same time.

“But —” I’m a little tentative. I had all planned out in my head what I was going to say once the kiss broke off, but the sensation of Errol’s mouth devouring mine makes me stupid. “Only if you want that, too. I want you to be happy.”

I think I said the wrong thing at first when Errol pulls in a couple of deep, hard breaths. Even in the dim light, I can see his eyes glittering as if there are unspilled tears in them. An instant later, he throws both arms around me, hugging me hard.

“Oh, God —” It comes out as a sort of whispered gasp. “I’m so fucking happy. It’s —I fantasized about this for so long, and the real thing is even better than I imagined. Everything just feels right with you. When we’re together, I just feel like I belong with you. Like I belong to you.”

He squeezes me tighter. “I think I loved you a lot longer than I realized, even if I didn’t know that’s what it was at first. But back when we were in high school, every time I thought of my future, I couldn’t imagine it without you in it.

And then when you left, and the messages kind of trickled off after a while and then stopped, I just —I didn’t know how to go forward by myself.

I didn’t know what a future without you looked like.

So I guess I kind of… just never made one. ”

Errol’s words are hitting me like gravity. Every word just makes me feel smaller and squeezes my chest tighter. “I —” I’m surprised at how raspy my voice comes out. I swallow hard and try again. “I never knew you felt that way. I mean, all that time.”

For somebody who’s supposed to be smart, I feel awfully fucking stupid right now. Errol wasn’t carrying a torch for me, I realize, so much as he was waiting for me to pull my head out of my ass and understand what he already knew: that we belonged together.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see it. I’m sorry I left you behind.” The words feel pitifully inadequate. “How — what can I do now? Is there anything I can do?”

“Just love me back. Because I love you so much it hurts,” he says in a rough whisper. “Please, Stud.” His lips are at the side of my neck, his breath warm on my skin. “I’ll be so good to you. I’ll worship the ground you walk on.”

He’s unabashedly begging me, the nakedness of his desire poignant, scary and humbling all at the same time. He presses his lips to my pulse point with a whimper that could crack stone. As I shut my eyes, I’m surprised to feel tears pricking at the outer corners of my eyes.

I don’t understand why I’m crying, any more than I understand why Errol is so determined to offer his heart on a platter to me.

Or why he has such unwavering and unwarranted faith that I will —that I can — protect such a fragile, fluttering, priceless gift from the entire harsh world as well as my own stupidity.

“It feels like we fit together,” I say. Something I didn’t know was off-balance or missing had suddenly slotted together and made itself whole.

“I just —” I shake my head. “I always felt like something was missing, and I never knew what. I chased success, recognition, professional acclaim —but that wasn’t it.

There was still something hollow inside me.

“Maybe what was missing was you . And maybe that’s why I’m having such a tough time figuring out what to do with my life right now —because the stuff I was doing wasn’t ever going to make me feel truly fulfilled.

Because you’re what makes me happy, and that’s what I’ve been missing.

You fill the empty space that was inside me. ”

I think Errol is going to squeeze all the air out of my lungs from the force of his embrace. “Thank you, Stud.” I don’t think I deserve his gratitude, but I don’t know how to tell him that without it sounding like I’m rejecting him. “I love you. I need you.”

His voice catches. The emotion in it makes my eyes well up again. My throat gets tight, so I rush to say the words I need to say before I choke on them.

“I love you too, baby.”