It wasn’t meant to last, right? Do such things really ever last? He placed his classmates into two categories. There were those, like himself, who found a love, or, more accurately, an infatuation early — coinciding neatly with that period in life in which one sheds their innocence of sex. And then there were what he now called the realists, who outwardly showed no signs of romance, but eagerly embraced the pleasures that came with high school. He supposed there was possibly a third group, the unlucky. But given all the heartache their more “lucky” classmates experienced, he didn’t know if that was the right term. Late bloomers, might be more precise.

He looked at the perfectly staged Facebook photographs of high school couples that had made it. Who had fallen in love early, and sustained that love through the many temptations and vices of college, to emerge victorious on the other side, with rings on their fingers. He could believe, without much thought other than that they seemed nobler, that the 65+ crowd might have more success with this sacred institution known as marriage. Black and white photos of old weddings, with men fresh from sacrificing their lives for a country, just seemed so much more pure. But, to him, the posturing, the precision, the unblemished portrait that Instagram and Facebook let these wundercouples present came across to him only as fakeness. Under all that, he thought, there was discord, distrust, jealousies, desires, boredom. Marriage was just a way to decide mutually not to let those feelings be known.

Daniel didn’t know why exactly he was so bitter. Well, he had a few ideas why, but they were so commonplace that he couldn’t imagine it was the real reason. The basic story was he had once fallen so hard for this girl, Alexa. Alexa, or Alex as she preferred, was far less interested in him it turned out. In fact, she didn’t know him. They were thirteen, and he was scrawny and covered in pimples and had bad posture. But he persisted, and he eventually learned the disappointments of the “friend zone”. And as the pimples receded and the weirdness of puberty passed into actual maleness, the future did take on a brighter hue. He calmed down on his borderline creepy obsession with Alex, and learned to mimic the tricks of his more advanced competitors. He spent his free time learning the rules of this strange game — it was not intuitive at all to him — where those with the most success, that is, teenage success, were the biggest assholes. He found it all rather inane and besides the point: having been an early adherent of masturbation, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to play games when you could just fuck. Right?

But, as these things go, it worked with Alex. Eventually. He still wasn’t sure whether it was his own maturing or the “game” that brought the relationship to fruition.

At any rate, toward the end of high school, as the daily pressure of soccer gave him more physicality and more time away from thinking about girls, he stopped treating Alex as if she were a princess and he was there to cater to her every wish. He stopped paying attention to her every word. He ignored her when he was busy. He openly flirted with others; he dated others. Generally, he just stopped being the perfectly nice best friend that accommodated her every whim, even if he still secretly adored her.

So perhaps it came as no surprise that Alex’s eye finally turned to what was right in front of her. It was their last year of high school, the culmination of five years of friendship and secret desire. On a grey and chilly Saturday morning, towards the end of a snowy New England winter, Daniel took a jog around their forested and rustic neighborhood outside of town. Unconsciously, his route led him right by Alex’s home. Perhaps it wasn’t that unconscious, he thought. He slowed as he saw the dark-brick two-story rise ahead of him. Alex’s room light was on. He was cold, having worn only jogging shorts and a Patriots hoodie. His own house was about a half mile away. He decided that he would stop his run at Alex’s. The perks of high school life is that all your friends’ homes become your second homes. Unlike college, that actually means free food and drinks and nice things.

He walked up the path to the house. He shivered as his body cooled down but the sheen of sweat remained on his skin. Alex’s light was on, so he figured she had to be awake, despite it being early. He rang. No answer. He was getting very cold and about to continue on to his own house when the door opened. Alex stood there, with a mix of annoyance and laughter.

“Get your ass in here, you freak, it’s forty degrees outside.”

“Took you long enough,” Daniel said as he stepped inside.

He remembered that it took him awhile to formulate words. Alex had opened the door in dress more appropriate for the middle of summer. Her hair was mostly wet, not quite its usual lush and soft brown waves. But it was the tank top and the pajama shorts that caught his attention. A simple dark blue tank top and tiny black shorts was all that covered her body. He’d always found Alex to be perfect. She didn’t play sports anymore nor did she cheer or dance, which left her with a young voluptuousness that combined well with her indifference toward how she looked in comparison to fashion models in Vogue or the cheerleaders on the sidelines. Months of winter clothing had left Daniel with only teases and hints of Alex’s breasts and legs and curves. Now, it was all in front of him. The large and appealing slope of her breasts, with cleavage that took every ounce of will power to draw his eyes from. It left his blood boiling as he took in her smooth legs, as they led to the gentle and promising curve of her hips — and her butt, fuck, he thought, only barely contained in her tight shorts, when she turned to lead him inside the warmth of the home.

“I suppose you’ll want some water or Gatorade.”

“That’d be great.” Thank God she couldn’t see what his eyes were doing right now.

They reached the kitchen and she handed him a water bottle from the fridge and turned to face him.

“So what did I do?” Alex asked.

“What?” He said between gulping down the water and wiping sweat from my forehead.

“The one Saturday I have the house to myself, without my mom constantly interrupting me, or my dad asking me to do some chores – I was planning on having some quality time to do my nails and watch my shows instead of football, and now you show up. Thanks,” she said, though with less bitterness than amusement.

“Ah, well, I would hope I’m better company. But really, I was just getting cold and decided to stop early, and hey, maybe I wanted to get away from my own parents. Do you mind if I go to the restroom?”

“Do you really need to ask.”

He got up from the bar stool and walked passed her, giving her his best and most cloying smile on the way.

“You smell bad, too, by the way.”

He closed the door to the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His face, still red with the cold and exertion, was attractive, he thought. This narcissism wasn’t a daily occurrence, as he felt he always had an off day or two during a week, in which his appearance paled in comparison with some of his teammates. But his face was slender, with good bones and a strong jaw. His brown eyes and messy brown hair gave him a normalness that he had long ago embraced. He took the hand towel and wiped off his sweat. He tried smelling himself and he decided Alex was just fucking with him: he’d only run about two miles.

He took a moment to breathe. He had that weird sensation in his stomach. It wasn’t from a lack of food, but rather anticipation. Expectation — a tension that could possibly be released — that his body sensed, or just his body reacting to the sight of Alex and desiring. Something in the way she spoke and looked at him, the glint in her eye, the tightening of a smile repressed. It suggested rather than offered, in the way he had learned long ago that women had mastered and that he had yet to ever read correctly. It was this inability to discern the intentions of women, when a look meant romantic interest rather than niceness, that left him the recipient of only an awkward — but weirdly nice if incomplete — hand job. Most of his teammates and friends had long ago moved onto bigger and better things than hand jobs and sexually unfulfilling relationships. He told himself that he just liked Alex a lot more than getting in the pants of someone else.

“Alex?” He had left the bathroom and returned to the kitchen, but no one was there. He drank the rest of his water and looked around the first floor, but it was all silent. He went back to the kitchen to refill, then headed up the stairs, where he could hear the blow dryer. He went to her bedroom instead.

Alex gave up sports for music. She sang with a band, less now, though, he recalled, as well as having plenty of talent with piano and guitar. Her bedroom, covered in posters and a bulletin board with concert tickets, made her tastes clear. And she had her own record player and sound system — he looked at the cover that was next to the spinning table, Yo La Tengo’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Appropriately down-tempo for a Saturday morning like this, he guessed. Daniel thought she was a little pretentious, a little snobby (something he never hesitated to rib her about), but he still found it cute in its own way, that she had such strong opinions about the evils of “corporate music” when most found no issue with Top 40, himself included. But, every now and then he appreciated her knowledge of music when she introduced him to a band that was actually listenable.

He sat on her unmade bed, eye drawn to an open magazine. Of course the girl who listens to Yo La Tengo on Saturday mornings would also read Cosmo, he thought to himself. The blow drying ended and Alex appeared in the doorway.

“Making yourself comfortable?”

“Oh yeah, just seeing how exactly you perform mind-blowing head. Did you know you’re supposed to eat some fruit right before, and then blow a dude? It’s all about that slight acid burn.”

“Oh shut up, that’s not anything worse than the ridiculous acts that porn and men call sex.”

“Sounds like you’ve been watching too much porn in addition to reading this trash.”

“Or maybe I’ve just been unlucky enough to be the recipient of that male education,” she responded.

Daniel felt his already tingly stomach do another turn: was she serious? As far as he knew, and he thought he knew well, she was also a virgin like him. But it’s not like he knew everything about her life. Five years of practicing being cooler than he was helped him avoided betraying his feelings.

“I can’t help that my fellow males haven’t got the skills.”

She laughed, and came to sit on the bed with him. “Right, because your no skills is better than some skills, even if misguided, is what you’re saying.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve never had any complaints.”

She looked at Daniel incredulously but didn’t respond. She looked away, towards the spinning record player. He took the opportunity to gaze at her body more — she hadn’t changed clothing, he thought to himself — feeling his heart beat faster at the thought of her naked skin, so close to him.

“You’re a virgin, right?” She spoke it softly, without looking at him. He swallowed hard, and felt his voice falter a bit. It’s not like the two of them didn’t discuss sex. It’s hard to be in high school and never have a conversation about sex, but it usually involved other people: who was doing it and who was not doing it. Should he lie?

“Yeah, I am.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” she said, “I am, too. I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of slut for saying that guys don’t know how to please me.”

As usual, Daniel’s first thought was to say something to break out of the more serious tone of the conversation had taken. That is, did she basically just tell him she watches porn by saying that she was inexperienced? But he resisted.

“Even if you weren’t a virgin, that doesn’t make you a slut for complaining that guys suck.”

“I just get nervous, I guess, that I will be bad, whenever that day comes. That I won’t live up to expectations.”

Daniel felt a weird mixture of horniness talking about sex like this and dismay, as the whole premise of the conversation was that they were friends. Not lovers.

“I really doubt that. You obviously need to learn something, and that is that there is nothing for you to learn.” He didn’t really know what he was saying or whether it was true. He just wanted to keep the conversation going, to see where it might lead.

“What does that mean?” The two were sitting across from each other on the bed, legs crossed, Daniel toward the headboard, Alex toward the foot. Daniel tried his best to keep his eyes from gluing to her exposed thighs and the tight shorts wrapped around her. Alex’s faced showed an eagerness.

“I mean, that, at least at this age, that guys are like an oven full of gas. You throw a match and it’s goin’ to light up faster than you want,” he said.

“You need work on your metaphors. For one, if anything is an oven, it’s a vagina.”

Daniel and Alex laughed at that.

“But you know what I mean,” he said, “Girls are just hot, their hotness is enough to make up for any undeveloped technique in performing acidic blowjobs for example.”

“I guess so. But that’s not really helpful. Nicole, for example. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. But anyway, so she goes on this date with this guy. You probably know who it is, but I’ll at least keep that to myself. So they’re on this date. Dinner, movie, blah, blah, blah. He drives her home, but she tells him to park at the park, a few blocks down from her home. Typical Nicole. They start making out in his back seat, lots of hands everywhere. She says that she put her hands down his pants and starts giving what she thinks is a hand job. She said he kept asking for more, but that was all she was going to do, so the guy settles for a hand job. And, you know, Nicole is hot. She said her shirt was off, and bra gave her some great cleavage for the guy to look at. But nothing happened. Nicole said she must’ve spent fifteen or twenty minutes stroking the dude, but nada. Eventually her hand got tired and she said, ‘Are you going to come?’ He responded that he probably couldn’t. Which of course only made her feel guiltier about saying no to more, which she assumes might have solved the problem. So they like kiss some more, but she said she could tell the guy was disappointed. And she was disappointed too, but she can’t just stroke him forever, and she wasn’t about to let him fuck her.”

“Well, it was a hand job.” Daniel didn’t pick up on much from her rambling story.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, Dan. Guys jerk off, right? Wouldn’t another hand feel even better?”

“Well, it’s not quite that simple,” he responded, not knowing quite what to say.

“But that’s exactly the opposite of what you just said! You said that girls don’t need to worry about anything cause they’re hot. But know you’re saying that there’s more to it.” Daniel got the feeling she’d been thinking about this for awhile.

She continued, “Look, I wouldn’t talk about his to anyone else, but we’re close you know, and you’re a guy, so I guess you’re more reliable than my girlfriends. I don’t know why I’m throwing all this at you.”

“It’s okay,” he responded. “I don’t mind. I mean, it’s all kind of a mystery right? That some people don’t have any figuring out and some people have a lot of different hang-ups for different reasons. I guess what I’m saying is that I can see that practice will make it better. I mean the first time I, well, nevermind, but like, in general, girls shouldn’t worry about disappointing guys because what idiot guy wouldn’t appreciate a hand job or whatever, even if it was less than stellar. He still got a hand job.”

“First time you jerked off?” She said with an amused smile.

“That’s all you got out of that?”

“You blushed a little. It’s okay, girls have needs too.”

He felt his blood drain from his head. First, a maybe insinuation that she watches porn, and now a suggestion that she touches herself. He tried to keep the image of her spread out on the bed, naked, out of his mind, aware that he had on tight athletic shorts that would not hide anything.

“Look, yeah, I mean middle school, all the guys talk about it. So you go home and you try it out for yourself. And you’re like what. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing happens. But you keep it up and learn what feels better, and well, the rest is history.”

“Thanks, I really needed the detail.”

“Whatever, you clearly were asking for it.”

The record stopped. The conversation paused.

“So,” she said, “You plan to stay here all day?”

“Hey, if you want me to leave, just say so, I know I ‘smell’.”

“I’m kidding, of course, I wouldn’t mind the company. But I do need to finish getting ready and put on clothing in which you’ll actually look me in the eye.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, unconvincingly. She rolled her eyes, got up, and went back to the bathroom. He heard objects being moved around. He lounged back against the headboard, thinking.

He couldn’t shake the strong feeling of arousal that had been building since he first walked inside the house. Everything about Alex screamed at him — demanding his attention, demanding that he do something about the desire that overwhelmed him. His heart thumped loudly. His stomach still felt tingly, tingling with the subtle flirtations and the eyes that looked him over in what he imagined was the same way he looked at her. He thought back to his last two “relationships” — both marred by his inability to make a move or pick up on signals. Was all this talk about sex been a signal? Or was it just her way comfortableness in their friendship?

He took a deep breath and decided to hell with it. He knew, or at least he felt, much more attractive than the days in which he had first fallen for Alex’s grace and her pale skin and wavy brown hair. He was fit, his muscles were defined. He was attractive, right? He also thought that it was near the end of their last year of high school — not quite prom or graduation, but getting close. It was time to start acting more like his age.

He stood up and thought through his plan. There wasn’t much of one, actually. He could still hear Alex doing something in the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar and he could look in without her seeing him. She actually wasn’t doing anything. She was just standing there, looking at herself, making sure everything looked right, he guessed. She looked beautiful.

With more confidence than he felt, Dan walked straight into the bathroom. Alex barely had time to react before Dan had pushed her up against the wall behind her, with one hand snaking behind her now-dry and soft hair, and the other wrapped around her waist and pulling her into him.

He didn’t kiss her immediately. He let his nose line up parallel to her nose, breathing quickly and with desire, eyes locked, eyes saying much more than words could express. He felt her tremble under his gaze. He could feel her body reacting to his, melding her lithe form to his. With all the desire he felt, he pushed her higher up the wall, closing his eyes and bringing her mouth to his, his hand lightly gripping her neck. He took her bottom lip between teeth, biting soft and then hard, before opening his mouth to allow their tongues to touch. From there, their passion fully ignited, a dance that had built to its climax for years. The intimacy of tasting each other for the first time was such a revelation of pure ecstasy that he hardly noticed how hard he was, and how desperately he was pushing his hardness into her.

She broke the kiss.

“Fuck,” she said, between deep breaths, as if she had just run a hundred meter dash.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” she continued.

He answered by kissing her more, moving his arm lower so that he could pick her up. Still devouring each other’s mouths, he hoisted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist as he carried her to her bedroom. When he got close, he threw her down on the bed, and quickly got on top of her.

“I was tired of waiting,” he said simply.

She pulled him into her, as they continued making out. Feeling each other’s bodies, discovering the hope, the sheer joy, of finding someone whom you can surrender yourself, in whom everything is forgotten but Daniel and Alex.

“Stop,” she said. “If we’re going to do this …” She got up, went over to her record player, withdrew another vinyl: he saw two xx’s on the cover. Fitting, he thought. The scratchy warmth filled the room, as a soft guitar line and synthesizers filled the room, an undeniably sexy rhythm.

“Not bad,” he said. She merely raised her eyebrows as if she could do wrong.

And then she did what Daniel had only dreamed. In the method that all girls seem to understand intuitively, she crossed her arms along the bottom of her tank top, and lifted her tank top off. It left her only in a lacy black bra. He almost came then. The soft and pale curve of her undeniably perfect breasts left Daniel speechless. He had, after all, spent plenty of nights looking at the best the Internet had to offer: they looked underwhelming in comparison.

“You like,” she said, with a coy smile and not a hint of a question about the answer.

“You are the most stunning woman I have ever seen.” He was aware of how cheesy he sounded, but he felt completely sincere in saying it. She blushed.

“You’re just saying that because you’re about to touch them.”

“Oh, I am?”

“Yes, I want you to feel them. To touch them.” She was stepping closer to him. Where this sudden confidence and sexiness came from, who knew.

“I’ve been waiting for you to make a move,” she continued. “While I’m glad you waited until you got over your awkward stage, that awkward stage ended a long time ago.”

“I, uh, didn’t realize …”

“That’s because you’re a stupid boy, who’s been convinced that because I didn’t want to make out with you five years ago, means that I still don’t want to make out with you when you look like a man.”

“Well — “

“I do like the initiation you finally showed.” She was right up against the bed now, towering over him: her soft but flat stomach, her dark hair falling down over her large breasts, her impossible hips. “But you’ve made me wait for a very long time. I thought you might have lost interest in me. Every weekend, I have to endure stories of my girlfriends and their latest conquests, while I wait for you. Like I said, girls have needs too.”

Daniel could barely process what he was hearing. The sheer sex she exuded filled the entire room, suffocating him and any possibility of coherent thought. But it didn’t matter, because she immediately got back on top of him. She positioned her body so that her mound aligned perfectly with the bulge that stood out in his athletic shorts. She rubbed herself up and down on him, as she brought his mouth back to hers. The pleasure was intense, and he moaned into her mouth. His need for her was clear.

She stopped him for a moment. She pushed back off against him, her hands on his chest. The position on pushed her breasts closer together, making Daniel groan in joy. She smirked.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

* * *

Daniel played the beginning of their romantic relationship together often in his mind.

Four years later, none of his subsequent experiences ever matched the sheer intensity of the passion and the breathtaking surprise of that first time together. He didn’t think it was possible to surpass: the long build-up, the first time emotions, the revelation that Alex liked him as much as he liked her. It was too perfect.

And they didn’t even have sex that first day. He fingered her and she touched him, briefly. But it was mostly just nonstop, full-fledged making out. Something that he certainly didn’t spend much time doing anymore, but at the time, it was all he wanted. The sex came later, and she fulfilled her promise a thousand times over. Only one word could describe their fucking and it was fun. Like all couples, they engaged in the occasional “lovemaking,” complete with candles and gentle movements and red wine on special nights.

But that, they came to realize, wasn’t really their style. First, Alex was just as perverted as he was, if not more so, and had little reservations about anything. Second, it turned out that despite her rather take charge attitude the first time, she was actually quite submissive. And finally, her drive was insatiable.

Maybe they could have been one of the Facebook couples, with the cheesy captions and the filtered perfection. He probably could have communicated better to her, and she probably could have done the same, and maybe, just maybe, they could have worked through their issues.

* * *

Dan now alone lived in small apartment in a big city. He had graduated and moved out of the tranquil of New England and into a more bustling environment. He had a good job, he had met some new friends and kept up with old friends. He was relatively happy, in the way that most recent grads are. It wasn’t the same happiness that he had in college, where the most pressing decision is whether to play the latest video game or read the Odyssey, and where the reality of how America works in the twenty-first century only crept sinisterly in the background of booze-fueled partying and a series of inconsequential misadventures. The fact that a college degree was less relevant to having a good life made little dent in the bubble of sex and alcohol and drugs. No, the happiness was rather a realization that the best times were in the past, but good times still remained.

It was another Saturday, just like the one five years ago when Alex and he finally figured out that they liked each other. His thoughts were focused on her, mostly because, amidst all the annoying photos of impossibly happy people, it had just showed up on his Facebook that she was moving to the city.

This wasn’t necessarily unexpected. He didn’t quite know the details of her life anymore, but he knew enough that she would have more success here. He knew she was doing some job she was overqualified for in their small hometown — PR or advertising or something like that, even though her dream was to work for a music label, of which the city had plenty, finding and promoting new acts. He assumed this meant she had found such a position. He unwisely looked through her recent photos, and it did nothing to calm the already turbulent and lusty thoughts he was having.

They’d fucked a few times since the breae up. It was a hard habit to quit. Neither of them jumped into different relationships, and the sex made sense at the time at least. Even though they had their problems, they still knew how to make the other come like no one else. But it had now been two years since then — almost three. There was an unspoken agreement that they should move on, and Dan had done his best. There was no shortage of single women in the city, many of them pretty, many of them certainly datable for more than just a night. He had something going with this one woman, Miriam. They weren’t exclusive, but it was trending in that direction. He, at least, had shown no resistance. But, damn, he thought. After all these years, he still felt a strong desire for Alex. Who, he had to say, had lost none of her allure as he looked through her latest photos.

* * *

The relationship had ended. Bitterly. But somehow they still ran into each other all the time. The campus was small, they had the same friends. It was difficult to avoid each other. Though they both knew the end had come — and how could it not, he thought, after she had fucked that jackass — they were both still very much in love and lust with each. They tried to act normal in public, but she would do something terrible like look at him with those hooded eyes and bite her lip and he would be hard within seconds. He eventually learned how to resist. But not before a series of alternatingly angry and downright dirty fucking. It was these memories, in their long history, to which he most often turned for inspiration.

He probably could — and should — just call Miriam. But he was too into it by now. He closed his eyes.

It was a few months after the break up, at the beginning of the summer. He was home, watching his parent’s house while they vacationed. Basketball was on the TV, while he enjoyed some of his parent’s wine. His phone buzzed.

ALEX: Hey. What’s up?

DAN: Nothing much, just watching TV.

ALEX: Cool. Well, I’m in your neighborhood at a party. Mind if I stop by?

Dan thought for a moment. They’d had their unofficial agreement to stop ending up in bed with each a few weeks back. It was possible he was reading too much into her texts, as she did express her feelings and he agreed that the two of them should try to stay friends.

DAN: Sure, but don’t expect me to entertain you. I’m having a nice quiet night.

ALEX: That’s fine.

She showed up in just a few minutes. He could tell she had had a drink or two, but she certainly wasn’t obnoxious or wasted. He, too, after all, was buzzed. For awhile, they sat around watching television and talking like normal people. After the second glass of wine, that’s when things got interesting. It started, improbably, with her making some remark about how much thinner he looked. She had seen his body change from a mortal version of Rafael Nadal to the body of an typical college student. He did his best to keep off extra weight, but it was difficult when you weren’t doing drills every day. Since the breakup, he’d been more religious about exercise and participating in intramural games. The trademark Alex tease came after the remark about his weight.

“I bet you could even fit into my shorts now,” she said. It was a strange thing to say, and it was hard to tell how her shorts would fit. Despite her curves, Alex was smaller than him in some ways. He appraised her, trying to guess her intentions. He settled for another sip of wine, and decided to call her bluff.

“Is that a challenge?”

“You bet.”

“Then give me your shorts.”

They both looked at each other, but it was hard to say exactly what the other was thinking. At any rate, the sexual tension was palpable. He half expected her to back out of it: this was such a weird way to initiate. The play clock on the TV buzzed.

“Fine, look the other way.”

“What, I’ve seen it all before.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Look the other way.”

Dan acquiesced and heard her shuffle to take off her shorts and then grab the blanket behind her.

“There, let’s see how good you look in women shorts.”

“Hey, this isn’t about male or female. It’s about the fact that you were obviously desperate for a way to get me out of my pants.”

“Or maybe I’m just impressed that you finally started taking care of yourself again. I’m giving you an opportunity to impress me, Dan, now that your legs actually look like you’ve left the couch.”

“I have nothing to prove to you.”

“Yet there you are, holding my shorts,” she said, laughing.

Dan rolled his eyes. Unlike her, he had no shame and he knew she had a weakness for tight boxer-briefs. He stood up right in front of her and slid down the gym shorts he had on. As he did so, he looked down appreciatively at the pleasant bulge in his grey underwear, knowing that Alex could hardly contain herself at such a site without making a move. She cleared her throat, as if she were suddenly nervous. He pulled up her shorts and they barely fit around him — like a second pair of underwear, still showcasing what he knew was his bulge.

“Well, it, uh, looks like they fit,” she said, “Good job, on the whole workout thing.” He watched as she took another — rather big — gulp of wine.

“I guess we know what happens next.”

“We do?” she asked, confused.

“You leave before this gets out of hand,” he said, feeling the bitterness well up, fighting the serious arousal he had built up, knowing that she was either naked under the blanket or in her typical skimpy underwear.

“You’re probably right,” she said. But when he looked at her, she had the mischievous glint in her eye he knew too well. He expected her to grab her shorts, put them on under the blanket, and leave. She did the exact opposite.

She threw off the blanket. Dan felt himself freeze. She sat there in a lacy, scarlet thong. He thought he could smell her arousal.

“Will you give me my shorts?” she asked. The sultry note in her voice was unmistakable.
As if under a spell, Dan undid the button and pushed the shorts down, never moving his eyes from the sight before him. As he prepared to hand them over, she reached out quickly, grabbed them, making Dan lose his balance. He fell right on top of her, and she grabbed the back of his head and pulled it into her neck.

“Fuck me,” she whispered in his ear, “Fuck me, like the slut I am.”

Even if Dan tried to resist, he seriously doubted he was capable. He was hers, absolutely; the lust at the sound of her whispered voice overwhelmed him.

He ripped off her shirt, with a menace that felt alien — as if he had lost control of his body. Pushing her back into the couch, he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his — biting her lip hard.

“Fuck you,” he growled.

His other hand busied itself finding her glorious tits, naturally encased in a matching lacy bra. He thought to himself, she planned this — and the seduction only pissed him off more.

Her breast filled his entire hand comfortably. He pulled the edge of bra down over the nipple, and twisted it hard. At the same time his cock, harder than it had been months, pressed violently against her clearly aroused sex. She groaned.

“Yes, baby, like that.”

He pulled her mouth back to his, fighting her with his tongue and then moving to her neck, biting all along her jaw, onto the soft delicate skin of her neck. Kissing and biting his way down, as he ground his hardness into her and caressed her exposed breast.

“Take me to the bedroom.”

He pulled her up and carried her, their mouths still connected as he made his way toward his bedroom. He threw her down on the bed.

“Touch yourself.”

She looked at him, with those eyes that screamed an innocence that wasn’t there.

“If that’s what you want.”

He stood and took off his shirt, letting her see the chest and abs he had worked so hard on the past few months. He kept on his boxer briefs as he watched her get comfortable and slowly snake her hand over her panties and begin rubbing. At first she made eye contact with him as she rubbed her pussy. But then she slipped her hand underneath the wet lace and touched her clit directly — her eyes snapped upwards and shut. She sounded as if someone had just knocked the air out of her.

“Oh, Dan, it feels so good. You like when I play with myself? You know I love it.”

“Shut up and keep going.”

She moaned at the harshness in his voice. She kept rubbing herself. The sound of her wetness filled his ears, the way it sounded as she pushed a finger deep inside of her. He watched as she kept one finger inside of her and brought her other hand down to play with her clit — rubbing faster and faster.

“Can I take off my panties?” she asked, as if asking if she could have an iced tea. It made him achingly hard.

“Where are your manners.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she moaned loudly, as she pushed a third finger deep inside of her. “May I please, sir, take off my panties. I want to, oh, Dan, I want to show you how wet I am.”

“Yes, take them off.”

The eager slut removed them quickly, clearly wanting to waste no time without touching her pussy. He watched the obscenely sexy sight of her own fingers pushing inside of her; her breasts, heaving up and down with the exertion, and the hard nipples pointing upwards, begging to be touched; the glistening of sweat beginning to appear on her forehead; her tightly scrunched eyes and wide open mouth, moaning and groaning under the pleasure of it all.

“Stop,” Dan said. “Get on your hands and knees.”

“Yes, sir.” She had quickly assumed her role; Dan smiled, it taken him a long time to figure out how much it turned her on to be treated this way. But once he had figured it out, well, then things got interesting.

The sight in front of him always threatened to make Dan come. Her body poised, expectant. Her head down, as if she were a poor supplicant before a king. And her ass. Too perfect for words. A bubble butt, as the term goes in crass porn titles. Her asshole and pussy vulgarly on display, shining with the wetness of her arousal. He moved right up behind her.

“You’re such a bad girl, you know that right. You invite yourself over” — he spanked her, with all the force he could summon, leaving a bright red mark — “You drink my wine” — again, leaving her a mess of whimpering — “You tease me” — again, the whimpering increased, sounding more like a groan of pleasure — “You wear my favorite color of underwear” — again, her ass, bright red — “You knew the whole time what you were going to do here, didn’t you? — again, but this time she moaned so loudly that he thought she had come, her pussy seemed even wetter than before, her lips expanding.

“Yes, sir, it’s true, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she managed between moans. “I just wanted your cock. Your hard fat cock. Please can I have your cock, sir. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Take off my underwear,” Dan commanded.

Eagerly, Alex moved around so that she was now facing him. She gently pulled down Dan’s boxer-briefs, licking her lips as the cock she knew so intimately slowly revealed itself, its hardness definite. Dan kept himself well groomed, preferring the feel of smooth balls.

“Take me in your mouth.”

Without response, Alex immediately engulfed his sizable manhood. Long ago she had mastered the techniques and the touches that drove him wild. She began with one long suck, forcing as much of him into her mouth and slowly withdrawing, so as to wet his entire cock. Then she looked up at him, as she lowered herself down onto the floor. On her knees, she moved her left hand to gently cup his balls, caressing gently back and forth. Her mouth found the tip of his cock, kissing it. Her right hand gripped the bottom of his shaft, twisting and stroking. She took his head completely in and Dan groaned in pleasure, telling her she was such a good girl.

Alex moved her hands off and bobbed her head fast on his cock, letting Dan fuck her mouth. She reached her hands up towards his well-defined chest, and raked her nails down, before moving them to the back and grabbing his ass — forcing his cock even deeper in her mouth. She always struggled taking his full length, but he could tell that she wanted him. All of him. Her eyes looked up at him, slightly watering, full of desire. Bringing her hand back to his balls, she increasing her grip around him.

The pleasure was intense. Dan looked down, and enjoyed the site of his ex-girlfriend, slavishly sucking his cock, her full breasts moving sensuously to the rhythm of her movements, nipples begging to be touched. He could feel the come building within him at her expert skills.

“Stop.”

She stopped, but not without a whimper of sadness.

“Did I do something wrong, sir? Did you not like it?”

“You were a good girl. But I need to taste you now.”

She moaned. The delight in her eyes was unambiguous, as was her surprise as he quickly bent down and picked her up and threw her down on the bed. He then flipped her over, stomach flat against the mattress, her ass — still red from his palm — teasing him with its erotic curve and the gap that betrayed her most intimate parts.

She moved her head to look back at him, her dark eyes vulnerable and needy. Dan moved onto the bed, and moved his mouth down to kiss the redness on her ass.

“You’ve been patient, and you did such a good job pleasing me. Would you like me to touch you?”

Her answer was a moaned please. He gently caressed her cheeks, alternating between pushing and pulling them together. The site of her glistening pussy made his cock twitch.

“Where would you like me to touch you? Here?” He moved his mouth close to the edge of her sex, kissing and biting.

“Yes, that’s good, baby.”

“What about here?” He moved his mouth to her tight rosebud, and gave it a quick lick.

“Oh, fuck.” He watched her knuckles turn white gripping the sheets.

“You probably want it here too,” he said, whispering, letting his breath touch her sex. He took one long lick from right below her clit and then back up toward her ass. His hands forcefully gripped her ass. The overpowering taste and smell of her drove him crazy with lust.

“Please, Dan, I want to feel you inside of me, please.”

Acquiescing, he pushed a finger inside of her. Her wetness easily accommodating the intrusion as he drew his finger along the top of her sex. He brought his mouth back down on the bottom of her vagina, and then licked his way to her asshole, still wet from his earlier kiss.

“Fuck, that feels fucking good. I want you to fuck me with your tongue. Oh, shit, oh,” Her words were drowned out by the moans as Dan increased his speed and added a second finger. His tongue rimmed her asshole, licking around the edges, playing with her needs.

“I missed your tongue so much, oh, shit, it feels good. I love when you lick me there. It feels so good, Dan, no one else has touched me there, no one but you. Fuck, fuck, yes, please, harder, babe, don’t stop, please, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

He moved his mouth off her ass and drew back. His fingers still plunged in and out of her wet pussy, his thumb circling gently her hard clit. He slapped her ass again.

“Are you ready for me to fuck you?”

“Yes, please, fuck me.”

“I don’t think you’re ready.”

“I promise I am, please, I need your cock so badly.”

“You’re not convincing me.”

“Please, sir, let me be your little slut. Use my pussy. Fuck it hard. Take me however you want. Just give me your hard cock, please,” she said, in between moans as his fingers found her g-spot. “Let me come all over your you.”

“Turn over,” Dan said.

She did, and he suddenly remembered how much he missed seeing her breasts. He moved up, letting his cock graze against her mound, as his mouth found her nipple, sucking it into his mouth. He moved up from her breasts, kissing her neck, biting the skin, before kissing her with the all the pent-up desire built from the second she walked into his home.

He locked eyes with her. Her face, so beautiful and so vulnerable and so trusting. Her mouth slightly open, still catching her breath from the oral sex and the kissing.

He pushed the tip of his cock inside of her. Even with all the prep work, her pussy was still tight. He pulled back out, letting her adjust to his size, before pushing in half of his length. Eyes still locked.

As he pulled out the second time, her hands found his ass and she pulled him completely inside her with desperate urgency. She screamed with pleasure as she felt his full cock bury itself deep inside of her.

“Holy fucking shit, I forgot how good you felt. Now fuck me like a whore,” she said.

He gripped her throat, applying slight pressure. In his mind, Dan was thinking through the checklist of Alex’s kinks: ass play, choking, roughness, dirty talk. Alex also preferred to begin hard and fast: she had once told him that she got off on the uncontainable, uncontrollable desire that such fucking intimated. He had no problem accommodating her needs, as he himself needed to thoroughly and completely dominate her after watching and listening to her sexy whimpers of pleasure and pain.

He ground the base of his cock against her clit, as he aggressively slammed his full length inside and out of her wet sex. His free hand had found her tit, pushing and caressing and twisting. For the next few minutes, neither of them had the ability to say words or do anything besides let out their moans and groans of pleasure. The fucking, fast and hard, made Alex squirm beneath him, her eyes shut, her mouth open. Dan, doing his best to control himself and not let loose early, focused on the rhythm and his breathing, keeping his hands busy.

“Come inside of me,” Alex demanded.

“What? Already?”

“Just keep fucking me until you fill my pussy with your come. I want it inside of me.”

Through all their years together, Dan had actually never come inside of her. He looked at Alex, trying to decide whether it was a good idea, but her eyes were closed once again and she was oblivious to his confusion.

“Oh, fuck, Dan, your fucking cock is amazing, faster, baby, I want you to fill me with your hot come,” she said.

He could feel himself nearing the point of no return. He gripped her neck tighter; she whimpered and said harder. He was abusing her pussy. There was no other way to describe the speed and aggression with which he was fucking her senseless. And then, it was done.

Dan moaned, as if in inscrutable agony. He released himself inside of her.

“That’s it, come for me, oh fill me up, I’m your little slut, oh, shit, yes, yes, baby,” Alex urged him on. Somewhere in his brain, he registered that her pussy was constricting around him, taking his come inside of her as she experienced her own orgasm spreading through her body.

Dan fell off of her. He took a look at his glistening package and then stared at the ceiling before closing his eyes. He felt Alex move her head to his chest, her body now on its side.

“That was incredible,” she said, “But you’re not done yet. You’ve still got two more holes to claim.”

* * *

Dan opened his eyes again. He took a deep breath. He’d been lazily stroking his cock while he relived that night of marathon sex, trying his best to remember every detail. Alex’s promise was not empty. That night she had shown a depth of naughtiness and adventure that she’d always hinted at during their real relationship. It had all finally come out in that strange freedom of having no relationship but knowing the other person better than they knew themselves.

He closed his eyes again as he remembered the way she had reached down to her pussy and tasted herself — and him, too, with their come intermingled. How she teased him with dirty hints about how she wished that they had a third person there with them, so this mysterious woman could eat out Alex’s pussy while he recovered. How she begged him to fuck her ass, to finally fuck her ass properly, and how different and how warm it felt to be fully inside of her ass, and how hard he came as he filled her second hole with his come. How both, nearly exhausted, at three in the morning, turned on porn as they stroked each other back to arousal, with Alex and Dan revealing their deepest fantasies as they watched other people fuck. And then as they, much more gently, fucked each other one last time that night, she had taken him in her mouth at the end and swallowed every last drop.

His eyes moved back to his computer, where Alex’s Facebook page was still open. He supposed the next few months was going to be an interesting new chapter in his life.

Author’s Note: This is the first installation in what I intend to be a long series that explores the beginning(s) and end of a relationship. Naturally, as the introduction to the characters and their histories, there is less sex. Other chapters, I promise, will have much more satisfactory material. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. If you have any interest in serving as an editor, please contact me. Thanks for reading. 

Everyone depicted is 18 or older.