What I Never Told About My Book Club

The hot water fell over Laura’s skin with a persistence that wasn’t enough to wash anything away. She pressed her forehead against the cold tiles of the shower, letting the contrast clear her head for a moment, though she knew perfectly well it wasn’t going to work. Nothing was going to work tonight.

The muscle inside her was still registering that new pressure, that strange fullness that had turned out to be something completely different from what she’d expected. Pain, yes, at first. A dull ache that had made her clench her teeth and grip the edge of the table. But then something else had come. Something that didn’t have an adequate name, or that did and she still didn’t dare use it yet.

She closed her eyes.

Her fingers moved on their own toward the bottom, sliding between her thighs. She was wet, and it wasn’t only from the water. The memory of Marcos leaning over her in the club room, his hands holding her hips with a firmness that left no room for doubt, tightened her stomach in a way she couldn’t tell was shame or desire. Probably both at once.

Harder. She had heard herself say that in her own voice and she still could hardly believe it. She hadn’t endured it in silence or put up with it to please him. She had asked for it. With that broken, urgent voice she didn’t recognize as her own, while he sank into that place no man had ever touched before.

And the orgasm. That was the memory she couldn’t shake. Without anyone touching her clit, without her own hands getting involved. Only Marcos’s steady movement inside her, rubbing something she hadn’t known existed, and then suddenly that explosion that had buckled her knees and torn a cry from her that she crushed against her own arm so no one in the building would hear it.

Now, with her fingers tracing slow circles over her sex, she tried to reproduce that sensation. It wasn’t the same. There was no way it could be the same. Her hips thrust forward on their own, seeking more friction, while her other hand slid back and cautiously brushed the still-sensitive muscle. A shiver ran the length of her spine when she pressed lightly with the tip of a finger.

She wanted it to happen again. That was the most disturbing part of all: she didn’t regret what she had done. There was no remorse in her, no shame that lasted more than a second before dissolving. Only that new hunger, and she didn’t quite know how to feed it alone.

The orgasm came in waves, wrenching a moan from her that she muffled against her arm. The water kept falling over her, indifferent, washing away the evidence of her pleasure but not washing away any of what truly mattered.

***

Marcos hadn’t made it past the first page of the book in forty minutes. He knew that because he had checked the clock three times in that span.

He was lying on his back on the bed, the book open over his chest like a prop, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. But he wasn’t seeing the ceiling. He was seeing Laura leaning over the table in the room, her back arched at an angle he wasn’t likely to forget anytime soon, her muffled moans when he had finally gathered the courage to push in. And her look afterward, that barely concealed expression of disappointment that turned into something far more interesting when he was ready again a few minutes later.

The session had been short. Too short. And the next meeting of the club was in three days.

He ran a hand over his face, noticing the heat gathering in his cheeks. This time he would do it differently. This time he wouldn’t go straight to the end like someone without patience or judgment. He wanted to learn how Laura’s body responded: what made her close her eyes, at what point her breathing became irregular, what made her lose track of any thought. He wanted to take the time he hadn’t had the first time.

His hand slid under the elastic of his boxer briefs.

The orgasm didn’t take long. The memory of Laura telling him harder in that voice she didn’t use for anything else was more than enough to make him need no fantasy at all.

Three days.

***

The book club met on Thursdays at seven. By seven fifteen, Marcos and Laura were the only two people in the room.

She was standing by the shelves with a book in her hand, staring at the spine without reading the title. He was walking slowly around the wooden table, his fingers drumming on the polished edge, his heart beating at a rhythm that had nothing to do with exercise. The air between them had that particular density of things about to happen. At seven thirty, neither of them suggested waiting any longer.

—It’s just us —Laura said, without turning around.

—I know —Marcos replied.

He crossed the room unhurriedly, though inside nothing in him was calm. When he reached her and she turned her head, his hand was already on her waist. The book hit the floor with a dull thud that neither of them looked at.

The kiss was different from the week before. Slower at first, more deliberate, as if they had all afternoon even though both of them knew perfectly well they didn’t. Laura parted her lips before he asked, her fingers closing over the fabric of his shirt. Marcos tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her closer, and the sound she made against his mouth, soft and loaded all at once, struck his chest in a way he hadn’t expected.

His hands slid down over her hips to the hem of her skirt and lifted it without haste.

—I want to taste you —he said, his voice rough—. Before anything else.

Laura didn’t answer with words. She braced herself against the shelves and watched him as he knelt in front of her. Her panties fell to the floor. Marcos spread her thighs with open hands and paused for a moment, not taking his eyes off her, taking note of everything.

She was wet. The scent of her arousal, dense and warm, went straight to his head. He buried his nose between her folds before even starting, breathing her in slowly, and heard her breathing catch up above.

The first sweep of his tongue was long and slow, from bottom to top, following the whole slit. Laura let out a sound that wasn’t a word, her fingers finding Marcos’s hair almost without thought. He repeated the motion, this time with more pressure, circling her clit with the tip before sucking it firmly.

—God —she murmured.

Marcos learned quickly what worked. He learned that when he pressed his tongue right below her little button, her thighs closed. That when he changed rhythm suddenly, her hips pushed forward on their own, seeking more. With a low growl, he parted her lips with his fingers and sank his tongue into her, as deep as he could, feeling her muscles answer with an involuntary contraction that tore a muffled moan from him against her skin.

—There. Don’t stop. Right there.

Laura’s thighs framed his head. He didn’t resist. He kept working her clit in precise circles, varying the pressure, adjusting the rhythm to what he heard. Her pants were shortening. Her breathing was growing shallower, more urgent. He felt her tense all over just before: the muscles tightening around his tongue, her hips losing control, a wet heat in his mouth and on his chin that he drank in without pulling away.

When he lifted his gaze, with his lips shining and his chin wet, Laura was looking down at him with glassy eyes and her breathing completely undone.

—Come here —was the only thing she said.

***

She unbuckled his belt with calm fingers. She lowered the zipper with a calculated slowness that cost him not to protest. When his erection was free, already hard and urgent, she looked at it for a moment with an expression Marcos couldn’t fully decipher before Laura tilted her head and licked the tip.

—If I do that now —she said, completely composed— you’ll last longer when you put it in me from behind.

Marcos found no argument.

Laura knelt slowly. Her lips closed around him and Marcos had to brace one hand on the bookshelf to keep his balance. She wasn’t expert, but she made up for that lack of practice with absolute attention, that fixed stare on him from below while she took him deeper, as if she needed to know exactly what effect each movement was having on him.

Her fingers massaged the base. Her tongue traced the length of his erection from bottom to top before wrapping around him again. When she took him all the way in, with a calm that didn’t match the urgency of the moment, Marcos knew he wasn’t going to hold out much longer.

—Laura... —he warned, his voice tight.

She didn’t pull away. She looked at him from below, and in that look there was something between curiosity and a quiet power he hadn’t expected from her, and that was the last thing he processed before he came. Laura took everything without blinking. When she finally pulled back, she wiped the corner of her lip with her thumb with a serenity that left him completely speechless.

—Now —she said—. To the table.

***

The wood was cold against Laura’s back. Marcos opened her thighs, looked at her for a moment without touching her, and then gathered her moisture with his fingers. Slowly, he moved them back.

—Breathe —he said.

Laura closed her eyes and breathed.

The pressure began slowly, the muscle resisting at first, and she had to focus on relaxing it consciously. Marcos wasn’t in a hurry. He pushed centimeter by centimeter, stopped, waited. When she tensed without meaning to, he withdrew slightly and started again with the same patience, as if they had all night and no reason to rush.

—Okay? —he asked, his voice very low.

—Keep going —she replied.

When he was completely inside her, they both stayed motionless. Marcos with his hands open on her hips, his forehead almost resting on her shoulder, breathing. Laura with her fingers dug into the edge of the table, feeling his heat filling her from within in a way that didn’t resemble anything she had felt before. A heat that bordered on pain but beneath it, much deeper, there was something completely different.

Then he started moving.

Slowly at first, short, controlled thrusts, letting her adapt to the rhythm. Laura paid attention to every sensation, trying to find that point the previous week had made her lose control without warning. And then Marcos adjusted the angle slightly and she let out a moan she hadn’t planned, deeper than any before.

—There —she said, unable to keep quiet—. That’s it.

The thrusts grew longer, more determined. Pleasure built in waves that began from some point deep in her belly and spread outward, to her legs, to her back, to some place that wasn’t physical exactly but felt more real than everything else in that moment.

—Harder —she begged, and this time she wasn’t even surprised to hear herself say it.

Marcos obeyed. His hands tightened on her hips and his thrusts became long and deep, the wet sound of his skin against hers filling the room along with both of their gasps. Laura cried out without trying to hide it when the orgasm ripped through her, her body shaking, the muscles clenching around him with a force that drew a rough growl from Marcos.

—I’m going to come —he said, his voice completely broken—. Laura...

—Inside —she answered, and that was enough.

He felt it as a heat that filled her in successive waves, spreading inward. Her second orgasm came at the same time, small and deep, different from the first but just as real. Marcos collapsed over her with all his weight, his uneven breathing against her neck, his hands spread over her ribs.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

The wall clock read ten to nine. The room was still empty except for the two of them, and the book Laura had dropped on the floor was still exactly where it had fallen.

—Next week —she said at last, staring at the ceiling—, the theme is nineteenth-century romantic fiction.

Marcos took a moment to answer, noticing the last trace of his accelerated breathing.

—I know —he said—. I’ve been thinking about exactly that for three days.

And Laura, despite everything, laughed.