Curious, how exploring thoughtfully with one hand that unique, firm, softness of his shoulder and his chest, how fingering the collar of his shirt and suggesting my fingertips inside, how the head that is too close to me for distinction turns slightly, and the breathing am I leaning against gradually becomes thick, how I feel his chest’s expansions against my hand and his lurching pulse when I touch my face to his neck.

I watched porn a few times, and the only part I liked was when the guy would brush the hair off of the face of the girl sucking his dick. Set the dick-sucking aside; that motion seemed tender to me.

Curious, how my pulse is slow, my blood pressure low, my breathing full and calm when he pulls me towards his lap and I decide I can spread my legs over him, how, as he pull me up and in to press my crotch fully against the feverish heat of his, I am looking over his head out the back car window, pulling my hair away from my neck with one hand and stroking the back of his with the other, because I think that I should—help him think I’m right there with him that is—how as he, trembling, grabs me—a lot of me, not all of me—moving quickly from one curve to the next because he can’t decide and wants it all at once, and how, as I realize hands are sliding under my shirt and across the skin of my hips, waist, back, I arch myself a little and notice how he moves in reaction, how, as he moves his kisses lower, I observe the empty street and notice the peachy glow of the streetlight, how I hold his warmth and exhales to my chest, and I want to laugh because it’s ridiculous because does he even notice I never kiss him back?

By the writing, you’d think it was somethings more erotic than it was in reality. In reality, it just was. Eroticism is a drama queen like that.

Curious, how a while later he stops, then slowly, piece by piece, pulls himself back, how he looks at me for a moment, like he’s really looking at me, with only a hand still on my arm, how I’m studying his face now and how I feel my spirit shift all its focus to this moment like a camera aperture tightening, how he even says, “I need to think about to say this…” after I ask him, “What’s up?”

Curious, how the glow of streetlight behind him darkens his forehead, his lips, his nose, how I hang in the massively intimate silence between us, vulnerable because I don’t decide what happens next, and how, when he says, “I don’t want to forget that you are attached to all of this,” I don’t know how to move.

My chest, oh my chest, oh it hurts.

Curious, how he strokes my back, just barely, while I learn over my phone and text lies to my mom, how gently he tells me that he’s going to take me home now, how I try to say to him what I would if my throat wasn’t empty.

When I walk down the sidewalk, I feel every piece of my torso constrict. My spine is rigid, my shoulders raised, I’m clinging to myself as I move my calves quickly towards my house, and a cry is tearing up from my gut. Cry, I command myself. Cry, but all I do is open my mouth and gasp like a baby bird. I gasp the night air in deep lung-fulls as if it can feed the hollow that’s imploding inside me, as if it can reach into my core and drag out the sobs that are breaking there. The wind blows my hair across my face, I pull strands from my mouth, and I can almost not believe what I am.