Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“Jesus, your ass is tight,” he grits out.
I arch my back, wanting more. He moves, shallow at first, then deeper, and I feel him everywhere. My pussy clenches, empty and desperate, but the fullness in my ass is enough to send sparks through my whole body.
“Buttfuck me, Daddy,” I whisper. “Yes, do it. Trash my asshole.”
Liam grunts and reaches around, rubs my clit, and to my surprise, I suddenly come again—hard, harder than I thought possible. My ass ripples around his cock as a scream escapes my lips. Liam curses, then comes with a roar as my rectum massages the huge dick inside.
“Oh shit, baby!” he cries. “Oh shit you’re such a butt slut, Simone, jerking me off with your asshole the way you do with your pussy. Shit shit shit!”
He empties inside me, cock pulsing, hands wrapped around my hips. Hot streams of come fill my dark cavern, so copious that it streams out between us, leaking from my asshole and smearing my thighs.
When he pulls out, I feel empty and whole at the same time.
We collapse in a heap, tangled and spent.
“Oh my god,” I gasp.
“Was it okay?” he asks, genuine worry in his voice.
I giggle. “More than okay. Holy shit. I’d forgotten how good anal sex feels.”
He hugs me, buries his face in my hair. “You’re amazing, Simone. We’ll do it again soon.”
We fall asleep in front of the fire, wrapped in an old quilt that smells like mothballs and love.
In the morning, we eat stale pancakes and drink lake water coffee. We make plans for the fall, talk about moving in, maybe getting a cat, maybe not. We talk about kids, and the future, and everything that comes after.
But mostly, we just exist—together, unafraid, and alive.
There’s a loon on the lake, and I watch it dive, surfacing halfway across the water.
I nudge Liam. “See? Monogamous for life.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “So are we,” he says.
And for once, I believe it.
24
UNEXPECTED NEWS
SIMONE
The walls are the color of old yogurt—thin, slightly yellow, vaguely biological. Even the abstract art on the gynecologist’s wall is designed to calm you: big, safe shapes in muted blues and greens, like a children’s playroom for people with premium health insurance. I sit on the paper-covered table, which crackles and sticks to the backs of my thighs when I shift my weight. My hands are restless—nails digging into the soft foam of the seat, or drumming arrhythmic code on the crisp paper runner. There’s a stack of ancient People magazines on the counter, as if reading about the latest celebrity divorce will soften whatever is about to happen in here.
It’s supposed to be routine. Just a check-up, post-surgery. See if the plumbing is clear, make sure the uterus hasn’t collapsed into a black hole or fused with my small intestine. Standard stuff for girls who spent their teens being told by every sex-ed teacher and well-meaning foster mom that pregnancy would be a statistical inevitability, followed by the same teachers and foster moms telling me, with matching sorrow, that I’d probably never have a baby at all.
The nurse is new, maybe a recent undergrad herself. She asks if I’m comfortable, which is hilarious, then offers me a latex-gloved hand to help onto the scale. I’m a half-pound heavier than last time, but I can’t tell if it’s scar tissue or residual stress eating. She smiles anyway, as if to congratulate my cells for trying. She leaves me alone with the wall charts: cross-sections of ovaries, fallopian tubes, a diagram of a fetus at six weeks that looks more alien than mammal.
My phone buzzes in my jeans, folded on the chair in the corner. I left it there on purpose—no doomscrolling, no distractions. But I’m already feeling the itch. I wonder if Liam is thinking of me now. He’s teaching summer session and probably mid-rant about Marianne Moore or the devastating sexual ambiguity of Robert Lowell. I think about our last night together, his hands tracing the scar on my stomach, the way he whispered that he loved all of me, even the parts that didn’t work right. I don’t believe in fairy tales, but sometimes I want to.
The clock on the wall ticks too loud, each minute a warning.
When the doctor finally comes in, she’s trailed by a med student who can’t be more than twenty-five. The doctor is the same one who took out my fibroids, her hair wrapped in a severe bun, her mouth shaped like it’s about to scold someone for eating gluten. She’s got a tablet in one hand and my chart in the other, and her first question is, “How have you been feeling, Simone?”
I want to say, “Like a puzzle with half the pieces jammed in the wrong places,” but I settle for, “Pretty good, considering.”