18 / throb
Under the quilt, over the sound of a windstorm raging against the cabin, they're generating so much heat and sweat. She feels his hip bones clocking hers every time he thrusts, his abs sliding on a layer of sweat between their skins. Her breath catches on the sensation that her time is soon before he clamps his hand over her mouth. Everyone is downstairs listening.
She startles awake.
The room. The dark. The stillness. It takes her a second to acclimate. She'd been sleeping deeply. She's relieved to find that she is alone in her bunk and none of it was real. A livid gust of wind throws itself against the sleepy cabin.
Well, that part was real.
So is the throbbing, she realizes with mild irritation. It's as if she's really been interrupted mid-coitus. She relaxes back into the mattress and takes deep, quiet breaths. How disturbing to have dreamed of him like that—is a thought she senses is there and the primary one to be thinking.
Is it wrong to feel a little angry that she woke up? She was so close to closing the deal, and...she wants to close it. Her anger grows with the seconds that pass.
If she rolls over and goes back to sleep, can she wedge herself back into that dream until he finishes her? Without anyone else, whoever the "everyone" was in her dream, there to listen? She pictures a crowd of ghosts milling around the living room, or all her friends having a party down there while the two of them shrink into the shadows of her bunk. Why would her mind invent such a scenario?
It's a strange and unexpected fantasy she knows now is brewing not terribly deep in her subconscious—is it wrong to feel curious, to want to experience fucking him in the safety of her own mind?
The beauty of dreams is their isolation; no one ever has to know. One can't even blame oneself for the choices made in dreams.
Remembering the heat of his body behind her nights ago intensifies the throb. Never mind why he was there, the pain of heartache over somebody else still minutely ringing in the depths of her chest, ignored. It was startling that he would even have the instinct to try and console her. Or was he just taking advantage of an excuse to crawl into her bunk? Either way, the dull ache screams. Whether he is thoughtful or terrible doesn't seem to matter right now.
Maybe she just needs to wake up a little more. Nightmares linger in the muscles; so too can sex dreams. And so she lies awake wishing the throb away. If she were alone, she'd take care of it. Some idle thought that there's no way he hasn't taken care of himself at some point here, in the shower perhaps, arouses jealousy. If she was certain she could climb down the bunk, sneak down to the bathroom without waking him, and be gone for some time without his suspicion, she would. It's that bad.
It's so bad, in fact, that she wonders if he's awake. Never mind who he is, at this point she just needs some kind of release. Or maybe that's part of it. Who he is. How wicked it would be. How risky.
She lifts herself up on her elbows and leans over the edge of the top bunk to look at him. It's so dark she can barely see, but she can find the faint idea of his face in the darkness. He's still. He sleeps. His breaths are long and even.
If her fidgeting around on the top bunk wakes him, will he know?
Would he indulge her?
If she slinked down and climbed into the bottom bunk with him, would he even want her?
Might he reject her? She's been so mean.
If he took her, could he accept it as a whim? Would he ever let it go? Or would he think there's some contract, some breaking of a seal, some shift in their relationship because sex one time opens up the possibility of sex any time?
It's too complicated, she decides. She rolls over in her bunk and hugs herself, clenches her thighs and grits her teeth until she falls back to sleep, only to dream of some mundane day in the classes she never got to take at Whitmore. In the morning, he's already gone outside, letting her sleep in. He's left coffee in the pot, eggs on a plate covered with a pan lid, and a scent trail of his aftershave. He takes care of her, she thinks, to assuage his own guilt and she lets him. They seem to coexist in an emotional house of cards, every edge delicately balanced upon one another. If she were to have sex with him, how might those cards lean? Or would they collapse? Would she?
For the rest of the day, when she looks at him, her body flushes with heat.