He took a deep breath and his chest trembled, letting me know he wasn’t as unaffected as he looked. “Can I touch you?” he asked.

There was more? I thought for sure this was the height of my sexual peak, but I guess I was wrong.

“You’re already touching me.” My voice sounded deeper, more seductive, and I celebrated that. Maybe I was changing before his eyes, because I felt as if I were. I was experiencing a mental transformation and I was almost certain that transformation was reflected on my outside as well.

“No, can I touch you?” With his question, he let a single finger press up against a part of me that had never been touched. My body came alive and the sensitive nub that had never been so sensitive before started to throb against his finger.

I swallowed loudly and I lost control of myself. All the strength in my body went away and I was worried that my knees would buckle and I’d topple to the floor. I gave in and collapsed against his chest. Little puffs of air blew back into my face as I began to softly pant against his skin. His chest rose and fell with a rhythm that I understood well. Coincidently, it was close to the same rhythm his finger was beginning to use as he pressed harder against my hot spot and began a circular motion.

I was going to pass out. Except this time it wasn’t from fear; it was from raw pleasure. My breathing became erratic and I was now digging my fingers into his shoulders. My body was so tight it felt as if it about to snap, and something, although I had no idea what it was, was just beyond the horizon. It was there, waiting to consume my body and ready to erase every dark memory I stored.

The slide of his finger against my body was so erotic. I had no idea my body was even capable of getting wet, but he’d somehow made it happen. Every one of my five senses were heightened and I found myself participating in a ritual as old as time as my hips started to move with his rhythm.

There was an ache, much sweeter than the one that had been sitting on my chest for the last ten years of my life, and I was positive this new ache I was experiencing would help soothe the old one just a little. My body seemed to be ascending in some manner. I was rising, yet my feet were still planted firmly on the floor.

“Please, Zeke,” I croaked.

I didn’t know what I was asking him, but I knew he had the answer.

“That’s it, baby. You’re almost there,” I heard him say in the distance.

I leaned my head back farther and I felt him nuzzle my chin. I heard someone whispering his name over and over again, but I couldn’t have been me. No way would I do such a thing, but he confirmed it.

“I love it when you say my name. You’re whispering it now, but that’s about to change.”

I felt the bed against my back as he laid me down. That should’ve been the part where I started to freak out, but I didn’t. Whatever he was offering, I wanted it. Anything to make the ache in my lower stomach go away. It started to spread all over and my body felt like it was being reborn. He was the cure for my ache. He knew it and now I knew it.

His finger stopped its movement and it was on the tip of my tongue to beg him to keep going. He fit his body between my legs and rested on his forearm. He was hovering above me and his face was so close to mine, yet he never kissed me. I wanted him to kiss me. I needed to feel his mouth against mine. Our bodies were practically connected in every other place. It made sense for us to kiss.

I was about to lean up and kiss him, but he buried his head in the space between my shoulder and my neck. His breathing matched my own and it made me feel good knowing he was as affected as me. And then he thrust his hips and I felt his hardness press against the outside of my panties. The warm ache suddenly turned cold and everything in me froze. Shards of my internal ice poked me everywhere and made my skin feel prickly. The room felt too small, his body too heavy, and I couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard I tried to suck in a breath, my lungs had seized their movement.

I was a sick girl, sicker than I ever really understood. I was psychologically destroyed. How could a person go from being so into something to scared to death of the one person who made her feel safe in a matter of seconds? It was possible; I was proof it was possible. My body went from being in a hazy, pleasurable state to tense and anxious. My fight-or-flight reflexes kicked in against my will and I wanted to run.

He was breathing hard, thrusting against me, and whispering something, but all I heard was the rhythm of my headboard at home. That damn beat would stay with me forever. I didn’t know I was crying until I felt my warm tears rush into the hairline at my temples.

He must’ve felt the change in me because he looked up into my face. Everything stopped and he stared down at me in confusion. He reached up and ran his thumb beneath my eye as if to see if my tears were real, and then he opened his mouth to say something, but a loud door shutting on the other side of his trailer stopped his words. I’d never seen a guy move so fast. He jumped up and went for the light switch. He flicked it, turning the light off and leaving me in darkness. I wanted to crawl into a shadowed corner and disappear forever.