Consenting Adults Read Free Page B

didn't you?”
    His eyes meet yours again, a little colder this time, less
twinkle.
    Apologize. Tell him it was only a joke.
    The waiter interrupts by announcing your entrees and setting
plates in front of you. It looks beautiful, as it should, haricot verts and
all.
    “I guess you never had any problem getting your own haricot
verts?” He doesn't sound too annoyed. Only slightly. “Always had any guy you
wanted, no doubt.”
    He holds your gaze for a long time, the corners of his mouth
turning up slightly. He's waiting for your answer. You shake your head.
    Tell him he's wrong. Tell him you're more the canned
string bean kind of girl and you know it. The ones that inevitably turn all children
against vegetables—all perfectly the same stout size, always too mushy, with a
bitter, tinny flavor. They could never hold their own next to haricot verts.
Tell him you never tried.
    You push your pretty little vegetables around the plate. Tell him you would have let him copy your class notes, too. Tell him:
    “I should’ve ordered mashed potatoes.”
     
     

The Reluctant Exhibitionist
     
    “Why won’t you let me watch you?”
    My stomach twisted with anxiety at his question, but also
with excitement. Tim, my boyfriend of a year and a half, lathered soap on my
back as we stood under the hot shower spray. He loved these post-sex showers as
much as I did.
    “It’s weird,” I said, reverting to thirteen-year-old
terminology to describe something much more complex than weird . He held
my shoulders and leaned forward to whisper in my ear.
    “It’s not weird. It’s damn sexy.” His hands slid down over
my breasts, pinching lightly at my nipples, not that they needed any help
perking up.
    My body was still sensitive and alert after the orgasm he’d
given me only minutes before. He could bring me to the edge and hold me there
for what seemed like eternity before plunging me over the precipice. It was
always worth the wait. With his slippery hands moving down my stomach now, I
could barely think about the original question. If he wanted a straight answer,
he’d have to stop working me up. And by the feel of things, I wasn’t the only
one becoming aroused again. A slow shiver snaked down my spine when he captured
my earlobe between his teeth.
    “Do you get excited thinking of strangers seeing you touch
yourself?”
    “Maybe. A little.” Not as much as the fantasy I’d shared
with him a few months ago: being watched while having sex. But it still pushed
all the right buttons. I swallowed my lust.
    “So why not let me?”
    “It—it’s different. I’d feel self-conscious.”
    He let go of me and turned away to rinse the soap from his
chest.
    “I don’t get how you’d be comfortable in front of random
strangers, but not me. After this long, I thought you’d trust me at least that
much.”
    Standing naked in a shower, you wouldn’t think it possible
to feel any more exposed, but in that moment, I did.
    “It’s not about trust.”
    “Then what’s it about?” He squirted a palm full of shampoo
and scrubbed his hair. Vigorously.
    By the time I garnered the courage to tell him, he’d rinsed
his hair and started sliding the shower door open.
    “Tim, wait.”
    “Forget it.”
    “No.” I slid the door shut again.
    “I hate that you shut down like this when I bring it up. I
won’t ask about it anymore, okay?”
    I pulled him back under the water with me and pressed my
body close to his. He was still semi-erect and the feel of him made my muscles
clench tight.
    “I love you,” I said.
    The hard line of his lips softened. He kissed my forehead.
    “I know, babe. I never—”
    “That’s why.”
    “What?” He stepped me back, shielding me from the water. He
cupped my chin and held my gaze when I tried to look away. My face had to have
been bright red, and not from the hot shower.
    “I don’t care what some anonymous person, who I’ll never see
again, thinks when they look at me. But I do care what you’ll