Geography Read Free Page B

mine. He put two fingers under my chin and lifted it up, forcing me to look into his eyes, then pressed against me gently, pushing me backwards until I felt a table against my thighs. ‘Lift your skirt,’ he said, placing his hands on my hips and hoisting me up onto the table. I kicked off my shoes and lay back so he could remove my skirt, my underwear. I lay myself out for him. He had a big cock, and though he pushed into me within seconds, I was wet. I had been wet all night.
    â€˜Tell me what you want to do,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Tell me what you want.’ I didn’t have courage to say what I was thinking: fuck me hard, fuck me really hard, turn me around, bend me over, fuck me from behind, bite me. But we did all that anyway; he made me feel brave.
    We moved from the living room to the bedroom and made love some more, and when we had finished, he whispered, ‘Let me stay inside you,’ holding me close as he fell asleep.
    I lay awake for what was left of the night, hearing the sirens, the helicopters that circled, the ambulances in the distance. I felt safe, surrounded by the sounds of chaos.
    I was used to feeling anxious all the time at home, for no reason I could articulate. But here it was different. Anxiety was in the city and its streets, it was in the air—but it was outside, not inside me.
    At dawn, I gave up trying to sleep and woke Michael to say good morning, goodbye. We kissed sleepily for a while before I said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
    â€˜Don’t,’ he kissed my neck, reached down and stroked my cunt slowly with the tip of a finger. ‘Are you sore?’
    â€˜A bit,’ I said. I looked at him, at his face even more crumpled than usual by sleep. I gazed at him. He licked the end of his fingers before reaching down again, pushing one gently inside me.
    â€˜Too sore to fuck?’
    I moaned as he lifted himself onto me. ‘Get your aim right,’ I whispered, reaching down to hold myself open for him with one hand and position him with the other.
    â€˜Now,’ I said. ‘Push.’ And he did, slowly at first because I was raw but then I opened up, and the wet came and he was deep inside me.
    â€˜I’ll be gentle,’ he said.
    â€˜Don’t be,’ I said and after that things became hazy—until, with a jolt, I remembered the time.
    â€˜Shit, I’ll miss my plane. I’ve really got to go.’ I put my foot against him and lifted him out of me. It was only when I got out of the bed I saw that I had begun to bleed, which was a surprise. Usually when I travelled I stopped menstruating altogether.
    â€˜I’ll take that as a memento,’ Michael said, looking at his ruined sheets. ‘Or perhaps some primitive marking of territory. Wait, I’ll get up, I’ll walk you to the car.’
    Disorientated by the sex, by the lack of sleep, I looked the wrong way and stepped out onto the road as a car was bearing down on me. Michael grabbed me by the hand, pulled me back to the footpath.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ he said. ‘Scaring me for the second time.’ Then he took my hand and led me over the road like I was a child.
    As we walked past the corner store he pointed at a newspaper cage. ‘It’s over.’ The headline on the screamer read, ‘2 Officers Guilty, 2 Acquitted; Guarded Calm Follows Verdicts in King Case’.
    â€˜So,’ I said. ‘We’re safe. I’ll see you when I get back to LA?’
    â€˜I’ve got your numbers in New York,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you.’
    In the years that followed, I kept thinking back to those first two nights Michael and I spent together, trying to work out the moment that he got under my skin. Trying to pinpoint the moment things shifted from play and romance to obsession. Was it when the sex got good? Was it when he made me feel like an adult? Was it when he made me feel like a child? Was it Los