Steve Mosby - The Third Person

‘Is that what you’d say?’

My breath caught slightly, and I was suddenly unable to speak. I could feel myself growing hard.

‘Jesus.’ I touched her back carefully, as though it might shock me. ‘What did I do?’

She grinned, and then kissed my neck gently.

‘What makes you think you have to have done anything?’

‘I just… probably… don’t deserve this.’

She was making her way down my body, kissing as she went. Her breasts brushed against my stomach, then over my cock, then lower. Finally, I felt the pressure of them resting on my thighs. Her breath on the end of my cock.

‘God.’

She took it in her hand and her mouth moved down over the tip: warm and wet. Her hair softly cascaded over the tops of my thighs.

‘Mmmm. That feels good.’

‘Tastes good,’ she said, and then put her whole mouth around it. Her tongue slid over my cock as she moved her head slowly up and down. Her free hand flicked her hair over to one side of her head, out of the way. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

‘You like that?’ she asked after a minute.

‘You know I like that.’

‘Good. I like doing things that you like. Now.’ She moved back up my body, one arm leaning on the bed beside me while the other reached down between her legs and held me. ‘Let’s do something that we both like.’

She moved my cock to the entrance of her vagina and settled down slowly onto it. She was slightly too dry. I rubbed my hands gently up and down her back, kissed her throat.

‘Go slowly,’ she told me, ‘to begin with.’

We started to make love, moving ever so carefully at first: kissing each other almost casually. I traced my fingertips along her side, over her buttocks, back up to touch her face. We smiled at each other. As she grew wetter, we sped up a little. The sex became more aggressive; my touch, slightly harder. The kisses got deeper and more intense. I lifted up my hips to meet her; she sat up slightly and leaned against the wall behind my head, bracing herself; I brought my hands round to touch her breasts, and then lifted my head up to kiss them. The pitch of her breathing changed as I licked slowly around her nipples.

I sat right up. She pushed away from the wall and put her arms round me, kissing me, rocking slowly to a stand-still until she was just sitting astride me, on me. The kiss broke apart into an exchange of hot breath. I reached up and brushed a strand of sweaty hair away from her forehead. Hooked it back behind her ears.

‘Swap,’ Amy said, staring into my eyes.

‘Okay.’

She slid carefully off and lay down on her back beside me. I rolled over as soon as I could, not wanting to get lost in a tangle of legs, and then clambered onto her as she spread her legs wide for me. I sucked her nipples for a little while, allowing the head of my cock to rest just inside her. The insides of her thighs gripped me, almost tried to pull me in. I moved from one nipple to the other. She ran her fingers through my hair.

I slid into her, moving up to kiss her throat, and she clenched up underneath me, crying out, holding on to my back with tight little hands. We started to rock back and forth. I kissed at her jawline. She rested her calves over the backs of my own.

We made love like this for a while, gradually relaxing into a more circular motion, bringing our groins into pleasurably bruising contact with every thrust. I reached underneath her and pulled her tight against me while her hands explored my back. I moved myself higher up the bed a little to bring the shaft of my cock hard against her. Used my right hand to gently touch her face, and told her that I loved her.

I was ready to come, but holding back until she was there with me. It didn’t seem like it would take long: we hit a perfect rhythm, where every thrust was bringing her closer to the edge. She’d tensed up a little more, and her quiet cries were growing more eager. This was getting serious.

And then suddenly, it really was. She stiffened up against me in a way that felt entirely wrong: frozen in a fighting position.

Her hands started patting my back in panic.

‘Oh, stop, stop. Please can we stop? I want to stop.’

I stopped immediately. My body objected strongly.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘It’s okay.’

‘No, no. Please can we stop? Please? I’m sorry. I really need for us to stop.’

She was starting to cry.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We have stopped. Come on. Shhh.’

I slid out of her as carefully as I could and clambered back to my side of the bed, rubbing sweat off my face and then adjusting my cock. Her hands went to her face and her body started shaking. She had rolled over on her side, facing away from me. Her naked back was shuddering gently.

I felt strange: still turned on; frustrated; hurt; apologetic.

The only thing I could really do was move closer to her and put my arm around her. She was shaking uncontrollably. I pressed up against her back and tried to hold her, but it was difficult to find somewhere non-sexual to place my hand, and I had to lean back from her slightly to keep my cock away.

I said, ‘Shhh. It’s okay.’

I said, ‘It’s okay. Shhh.’

She was gripping my hand ever so tightly. It was the only indication I had that she didn’t want me to leave her alone.

I kissed the back of her shoulder gently and told her it was okay.

After a while, she stopped shaking and I could just hear her crying quietly. I gave her body a quick hug. She clenched my hand a little harder in a couple of communicative pulses.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Here – blow your nose.’ I untangled myself from her and pulled a few sheets of paper off the toilet roll we kept by the bed. She rolled onto her back and took it from me. ‘And you’ve got nothing to be sorry about.’

‘Yes, I have. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

She blew her nose loudly in reply.

I said, ‘Well in that case: I’m sorry, too.’

She dabbed at her nose. ‘Why are you sorry?’

‘Because I did something wrong.’

‘Can I have some more toilet paper? Thanks.’ She blew her nose again. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘I must have done something wrong.’

‘It’s not anything that you did. Don’t say that.’

‘All right, then, it’s not my fault. But I still did something.’

‘You didn’t. Please don’t say that. I don’t know why it happened.’

She started crying again, and hit her leg in frustration.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

‘It hasn’t happened for so long.’

‘No.’

‘I thought I was getting better.’

It was dumb, but it felt like I needed to say it a thousand times. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It wasn’t you !’ When she realised how angry she sounded, she started crying even harder. ‘Honestly.’

I just couldn’t help saying it, and so instead I didn’t say anything.

I had far too many hormones whizzing around my body, looking for somewhere to land, and I didn’t trust myself not to get angry. My cock was still hard and I’d been only seconds away from coming; it was as though I’d been slapped awake. I needed time to adjust, but I could tell that it wasn’t going to work. The world was receding to the size of a pinhead: to a point where nothing mattered to me anymore; where all I could feel was this awkward, badly arranged sensation of self-hatred, anger and disgust. I could have sat staring into space for hours. I could have pounded myself until I just couldn’t anymore.

And that’s the awful thing: it should have been about Amy and once upon a time it was. It doesn’t matter; it’s okay; here – look – smile! See – that’s better . I’d do everything I could to pick her back up, for no other reason than that I loved her and so that’s what you do. You take it on the chin and stay standing, because someone needs to. And nobody had ever hurt me, so what right did I have to feel affronted or damaged by what happened? And that’s why, for such a long time, I was understanding and sympathetic when something this catastrophic happened.