Page 118 of When Ben Loved Tim

“We’re alone,” I assure him.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

He glances at the stairs that lead to my room and then looks to me with transparent longing.

I feel the same way. “Let’s go!”

We race up the stairs. I slam my bedroom door and lock it. He’s already stripping off his clothes when I turn around. We’ve been starved of each other. At least in the past, we could sleep together to reconnect. Now we’re playing a game on the most difficult setting. I fall to my knees to take him in my mouth. He’s anything but gentle, but that’s fine with me. Tim rams the back of my throat until he loses patience and pulls me to my feet, both of us working to get each other undressed the rest of the way. He tosses me on the bed and climbs in after, kissing a foot and biting the inside of my thigh before he goes down on me. His hair slides between my fingers as I buck and moan.

I’m getting close when he crawls higher up to kiss me. “Is it a good time?” he asks.

“No idea,” I admit before opening my legs to him.

“I’ll try not to go too deep,” Tim says before spitting into his hand.

I’m thinking there’s no way that’ll be enough, but we make it work. I’m willing to risk embarrassment and pain to feel closer to him. We need this. I whimper as he pushes inside. When he pulls back to check my face in concern, I wrap my legs around his waist and beg him not to stop. Our eyes glaze over while locked. We’re whole again. I could nearly cry. Neither one of us lasts long after that. Tim collapses onto me as we pant. When he pulls out and rolls over, I hold my breath as he looks down to check himself.

“We’re good.”

I exhale in relief. Then I roll over onto my side, cuddling up to him before resting my head on his meaty shoulder. I trace a finger over the contours of his body as the endorphins slowly fade. I wish we could remain like this, safe in our little bubble. Although when I glance up and see his troubled expression, I realize that the outside world has managed to intrude, even here.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

Tim swallows. “God.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t believe in any of it,” he asks me, “do you?”

I choose my words carefully. “I mean, it’s a nice idea. For the most part.” He’s quiet. I push myself up on an elbow so I can study his face. “Do you think you’re going to Hell?”

Tim presses his lips together. Then he nods. “If we keep doing this. Yeah.”

My stomach sinks. “Why would God forbid this? I can understand him not wanting us to kill people or steal from them, but what’s wrong with love?”

“The Bible says—”

“I don’t care,” I interrupt. “I want the reason, not the rhetoric. We’re not hurting anyone. So what’s the problem with us being together?”

Tim thinks about it before responding. “Because this isn’t how God intended for things to work. It’s supposed to be a man and a woman. So he’s not happy when people go against his plan.”

“And he responds by throwing anyone with their own inclination into a pit of fire for all eternity? Isn’t that a little reactionary? Talk about being thin-skinned.”

Tim shrugs, my head wobbling with the motion. “I mean, he did give us life.”

“And he gets to decide what we do with it?”

“Well, no, because we have free will.”

“But only under duress.”

“I don’t make the rules. It’s in the Bible. That’s the word of God.”

I raise my head and scoff. “Every religion on this planet claims to have the exclusive scoop on what God wants, but they can’t all be right. And he sure as hell hasn’t weighed in on it recently. Doesn’t he have any more kids to play messenger? It’s a shame Jesus was an only child. I bet his sister would’ve been a stone-cold bitch. She’d cut right through all the melodramatic bullshit and lay it out straight. ‘Don’t be a dick, people of Earth! That is all.’”

Tim laughs. “You aredefinitelygoing to Hell!”