Push(73)

I smile. “Only if I get an indescribable benefit in return,” I say.
“Done.”
I try to keep my balance as he pulls my chair back, away from the table. He walks around to the front and faces me. His hands rest on my shoulders as he sits down, straddling my lap. I smile playfully at him and grunt as if he is too heavy.
He lifts his shirt up over his head, dropping it on to the floor, and says, “I’m not that heavy, am I?”
I shake my head, wrap my arms around his waist and thread my fingers together at the base of his spine. He clasps my jaw and kisses me. As our mouths meet, I feel myself slip into him. It’s like my whole body is dissolving into his. Like we are one person, alone and charged with electricity.
There is a bundle of something caught up in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. Maybe it’s anticipation. Maybe it’s need. Or lust. Whatever it is, I don’t want to snuff it out. I don’t want it to end. It is making me feel heady. I wonder if it is love. Or hope. And I wonder if David knows it’s there. If he feels it, too.
I untangle my fingers and slide them into the waistband of his jeans, moving around the front to open his button and zipper. And then I am touching him, rubbing my hands up and down over him, feeling his need. When I tighten my grip, he takes his mouth off mine and looks at me, watching my face as I touch him, pushing his hips upwards into my fist. I listen to him breathe, and he is calm and quiet. Like he was this morning, when he was sleeping. I want to hear his breath stutter with need, and so I let him go and push him off my lap. I tug his jeans down over his hips, and when he kicks them off, I pull him back toward me. I drop off the chair and on to my knees. I kiss his stomach and his hips, letting my tongue skim across his skin. I lick and suck him, sending him to the back of my throat over and over again. My hands move slowly from the back of his knees up to his behind, and I push his hips forward. I push him into my mouth, deeper and faster until I hear his breath skitter. He tells me to stop before he comes, and then he backs away from me, dropping out of my mouth and looking down at me.
“Get up,” he says. The sound of his voice unfolds me, pries my insides open. I might as well raise the white f*cking flag right now. It isn’t even a contest. I am completely helpless.
When I am standing, he slides the zipper of my dress down to where it ends. He lifts it up over my head. I slide my panties down off my legs and David takes my hand. He walks me over to the sofa and tells me to sit down in the middle of it. My insides melt into goo.
David tugs my hips forward until my ass is hanging just on the edge of the sofa. Now it is him kneeling in front of me. He spreads my legs, putting one foot on each arm of the sofa. I lean back against the sofa pillows, feeling both exposed and electrified. His arms spread out wide, and he trails his hands slowly from my ankles inwards, stroking and smoothing me, spilling desire across my skin. When they reach my center, his fingers taunt me again with their small circles. Not for long, though, because a moment later, his hips move forward and he is inside me, rocking back and forth on his knees. Pressing into me. He grips the insides of my thighs, holding my legs open. His skin smacks against mine each time we meet, and every time I hear it, the bundle in my chest tightens and chokes me a little more. He is nearly breathless now, and I feel my heart hammering inside of me. He lets go of my legs, and sinks his thumb into my mouth. When it is wet, he uses it to taunt me with more small, slick circles, and his hips keep reeling into me until my tangled chest is rising and falling like a carnival ride.
When I come, I shout out his name. It sounds strangled and weighted, the way I feel. The way that David makes me feel. I am sucking the air into my lungs like a junkie sucks his pipe. There are chemicals rushing through me, filling my lungs and blood with release. I can’t catch my breath. But David wastes no time. He pulls out of me just long enough to pull me up and turn me around, propping one of my knees up on to the sofa. My other foot is on the floor, and my hands are on the back of the sofa as he enters me again, this time from behind. My arms are stiff, and I shift all my weight back on to David as he grips my hips and pulls me against him. He sinks himself into me again and again, and then my breath leaves me completely, rushing out of my chest, this time whispering his name instead of shouting it. I close my eyes and listen to him. I don’t inhale again until I hear his body let go. I don’t breathe until he says my name and sucks a chain of air into his own heaving lungs.
But even after, when he is lying against my back on the sofa and we are both breathing our own breaths, I can feel the bundle of something still caught up in my chest. I don’t think it is going away.
David’s body is cool against my warm skin. I turn over and burrow against him, wrapping my body around his chest and legs. The sofa is barely wide enough for both of us, and David’s heels are up on the armrest.
“Let’s do something crazy on Friday,” I say out of the blue. I feel his muscles tighten, and I know that he is looking down at the top of my head waiting for me to look up at him. “I know it sounds kind of heartless, but I want to observe Michael’s death by doing something off the wall. Something that I’ve never done before.”
I can tell David is a bit bewildered. He is silent for a few moments before he asks, “Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something. Or you will. I’ll stay at the office an hour later tomorrow and work through lunch so I can cut out of there a few hours early on Friday,” I say with souped-up enthusiasm. I love the idea of celebrating Michael’s death. Of celebrating my freedom.