My Second Nightmare

We had a long, slow, absolutely delicious fuck. I remembered vaguely doing this with Jenny, in the early days of our relationship: me sliding in and out, easily, no hurry, varying my pace and my depth. Angie and I looked at one another, we kissed, I put my head on her shoulder and kissed her neck; and we went on and on. It was intimate and sweet, and much more like making love than just fucking. During those minutes everything but the joy of Angie's body was forgotten, far away—I was as happy as I had ever been.

I lost track of time, but finally Angie started humping her hips up at me more energetically, and whispered, "c'mon, baby, come for me", and I sped up at last and came hard, came like crazy, gasping with it, while she squealed and pulled me tightly into her, her arms squeezing the breath out of me.

And then we kissed, and smiled; and slept for a while.

And then we talked.

"That was backwards, you know Angie?" I said to her. I was sitting up in bed, two pillows behind my back, and she was lying half-way on me, her head on my chest, playing idly with my chest hair.

"Mmm?"

"I mean, we did it first, and now we have to talk about what it meant."

She suddenly tugged hard on my chest hair, and she giggled when I yelped and pulled her hand away.

"Well I don't think it will take very long to talk about what it meant—at least for me."

"Oh?" I said.

Without looking up at me, she went on. "What it meant for me is that I'm crazy about you, Nick. I started feeling that way about the third or fourth time we hung out together, and it's just gotten stronger and stronger.

"If it weren't for Jenny and my promise to her, if I'd only been thinking about myself, I would have dragged you into bed weeks ago."

Now she sat up and looked right into my eyes. "I don't want to tell you I'm in love with you—but that's mainly 'cause I don't want to scare you off.

"But I will tell you that you mean an awful lot to me, and I intend to make sure you know that." And she kissed me gently, looking seriously into my eyes.

"Okay, Angie. My turn now.

"I'm pretty crazy about you too. But I'm also coming out of a pretty painful, destructive relationship, and it may be that I still have a few trust issues." She poked me in the ribs, and I swatted her butt with my hand.

"I know why you did why you did—and thank God you stopped us that night, and then were honest enough to explain it all to me. But it's going to take me a while, maybe a long time, to feel that I can really trust you.

"It might have taken a long time anyway, after what Jenny did. But that bullshit about sleeping with me so Jenny could get me back...

"Listen, you need to see something." I got out of bed and pulled her out with me. Naked, hand in hand, we walked down the hall and stood before the closed door of Jenny's and my old bedroom.

"In there is a kind of shrine to how fucked-up and angry I'm capable of getting. You shouldn't be under any illusions about me." I opened the door and gestured for her to go in. Then I padded back to bed, and sat waiting for her to return.

After a few minutes Angie came back into the room, her face serious. Without saying a word, she climbed into bed and pulled herself tightly against me, wriggling until we were as closely pressed together as we could be.

She whispered into my shoulder, "I'm so sorry for what she did to you!"

Then she sat up. "And I'm so sorry for what I almost did to you—it just kills me that I might have lost you that way."

"Well, you didn't," I said gruffly, my throat suddenly kind of tight. "And if you play your cards right, you won't." I pulled her to me and kissed her gently.

Wouldn't you know it? At that moment the fucking phone rang. With a muttered curse, I picked it up.

"Hello? Oh, hi mom. Listen, I can't talk now—I'll have to call you back." With a smile at Angie, I hung up the phone.