Silas Read online

  “Right,” she said.

  “What about you?” I lay back on my bed.

  “Um, I went out with my friends from my math class,” she said. “And we had rum runners. And April—you remember I told you about her?”

  “The one with the nose piercing?”

  “No, that’s Blair. April’s the one who’s—”

  “The lesbian.”

  “Yes,” she giggled. “Well, she totally flirted with me all night, and these guys kept asking us to make out, and I told them to get lost. And we danced and stuff.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You and April danced? Together?”

  “Shut up,” she said. “I should never have told you I had a friend that was a lesbian. You’re just picturing me making out with her.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “We’re friends, remember, and that would be completely inappropriate.”

  “Yeah.” She laughed a little. She sounded nervous.

  “Hey,” I said. “Seriously, are you all right? You don’t usually call me in the middle of the night.” Honestly, we didn’t talk on the phone that much. It was mostly texting and facebook and stuff. But we did communicate nearly every day. I talked to her more than I talked to anyone except Sloane.

  “I am,” she said. “Uh… Jesus, I want to ask you something.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’m not sure how to bring it up exactly.” She was quiet for a minute. “Okay, well, you’re still not sleeping with anyone, right?”

  “Right,” I said. I sat up. “Wait, are you? Is that why you’re calling me? Did you meet somebody?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. No way. There was a guy that accidentally brushed up against me while I was dancing tonight, and I completely flipped for like three seconds. I had a flash and everything.”

  I gripped the phone in concern. “Was it a bad one?”

  “It was a normal one,” she said. “I got through it. I told myself that I managed to live through Rolf raping me for real, and I could absolutely live through remembering it. And it went away.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said. “That’s what your therapist said to do, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s working.”

  “Good.”

  “Um, so how is it going for you? Not having sex?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Okay, I guess. It’s still weird trying to talk to girls without flirting with them. I never realized that was the only way I knew how to have a conversation with the opposite sex.”

  “I know, right?” she said. “How do people talk to members of the opposite sex and be totally platonic?”

  I laughed. “Well, it’s tough, but not impossible. I mean, we don’t… flirt or anything, and we’re members of the opposite sex.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath. She sounded nervous. “The thing is, though, what I wanted to ask you…”

  “There’s another question?”

  She took a deep breath. “Uh huh. So, you’re not having sex, but I bet you’re, you know, still… satisfying yourself or whatever.”

  I coughed. “Um…”

  “Yeah, I thought so,” she said. “You’re a guy, you’re totally jacking off. Like, I used to jack off all the time, but ever since the thing with Rolf, it’s just been too weird, and, anyway, uh…”

  I was feeling sort of embarrassed. “Why are you asking me this?”

  She giggled. “Is this turning you on, Silas?”

  “No,” I said. Even though it kind of was. I wasn’t sporting a raging hard-on or anything, but there was some, um, stirring down there. I lay back down, resolving to ignore it. I could talk about this with her. “You know, the truth is that I didn’t at first.”

  “Didn’t masturbate?”

  “No,” I said. “You remember when I was having those images that would pop up in my brain? Of you tied to the tree and stuff?”

  Her voice was quiet. “Yeah.”

  “Well, they would happen whenever I thought about sex at all. For a good month or so. So, I didn’t, you know, even touch myself.” I thought about it. “I had a lot of restless energy during that time period.”

  She laughed. “But it went away?”

  “Uh, yeah. One night, I got wasted, and I just abused myself really badly.”

  She laughed again. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “You’re the one who started this entire conversation,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “So, that time, you didn’t see any of the images?”

  “Uh… I did, I think, but I kind of ignored them. I was really turned on.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I hadn’t had an orgasm in a month, I think,” I said. “I don’t remember.” I sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell her that I’d been thinking about her. That would probably freak her out.

  “Well, I was kind of thinking that I miss, you know, getting off, and that I would like to try touching myself again. But… I’m kind of freaked out about it, because whenever I try, I start thinking about…”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That sucks.”

  “It does,” she said. “So, I called you because… well, I wondered if you would mind if I, um…” She burst into giggles. “If you would just stay on the phone with me while I tried it, then it might be less scary.”

  I couldn’t speak for a minute. “Uh… Christa, I don’t know if that’s something that friends do.”

  “It isn’t?” She was still smiling. I could hear it in her voice. “I thought maybe we were the kind of friends that might do that.”

  I let out a little disbelieving laugh. I got up from my bed and closed the door to my bedroom. I leaned against the door. “I don’t think there are any kind of friends who, you know, help each other have orgasms.”

  “You said it wasn’t even turning you on.”

  “Yeah, well, I lied,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. “You are turned on? How turned on are you?”

  Just like that, I went from half-mast to full sale in point five seconds flat. “You know, I’m… adequately turned on.”

  She giggled. “Are you hard?”

  “You can’t ask me questions like that,” I said.

  “I bet you are,” she said. Her voice got more sultry. “What if I told you that I was touching my boobs through my shirt right now? Would that make you harder?”

  Yes. I groaned. “You’re killing me.”

  “You could touch yourself too, you know.”

  I swallowed. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m drunk, and being drunk makes me get turned on sometimes, and I got turned on, and I thought about you.”

  “You did?” I collapsed on my bed.

  “Yeah,” she said softly.

  I closed my eyes. “You’re an awful tease, you know that?”

  “Are you touching yourself?”

  “Are you?”

  “Yup,” she said. “My nipples are hard. They’re poking through my shirt, and I’m rubbing them.”

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “I’m putting you on speaker phone so that I can use both my hands.”

  I laughed again, helplessly.

  And I unzipped my jeans. Slid my hand inside to wrap it around my cock. “You should take your shirt off.”

  “Should I?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The sound of movement. “Okay, done.”

  “And your bra.”

  She giggled. “Okay.”

  “Are you topless?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I grunted, moving my hand and thinking about the way her breasts looked. They were perfect and round and perky. She had tiny little pink nipples.

  “Are your nipples hard?”

  “Very hard,” she said. “I’m pinching them gently, and it feels amazing. Are you hard?”

  “As a rock,” I said.

  “Are you touching yourself?”
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  “Yes,” I said.

  “Um,” she tittered, “are we having phone sex?”

  I laughed. “Maybe.”

  “It’s fun, I think.”

  “You could say that.” I was ridiculously aroused at the moment.

  “Why? Aren’t you having fun?”

  “I’m…” I sighed. “I’m lying here wanting you so badly I can barely think.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Well, I want you too. I called you because I wanted you.”

  I let out a breath. “If I was there, I’d have my mouth on your tits.”

  She made a tiny noise. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

  “I’d be sucking on one of your nipples and toying with the other. Rubbing it and squeezing it.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “I’m rubbing my nipple now. I’m remembering that you’re very good with your mouth.”

  My voice was thick with desire. “Oh, Christa, I never got to show you half the things I can do with my mouth.”

  “Really?” she said breathlessly. “Like what?”

  “Well, I never got to go down on you.”

  “Right,” she said slowly. “So, um, if you were going to do that, how would you do it exactly?”

  I closed my eyes. I moved my hand faster on my dick. I pictured her on a bunk bed in her dorm room, her breasts bare. “Well, I’d have to take your pants off first.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Right. Well, maybe I should do that.”

  “Maybe you should. Because what I would do, if I had the chance, is undo your button, and unzip your zipper.”

  “Yeah?” she whispered.

  “And tug them down over your hips. Pull them all the way off.”

  I could hear the sound of fabric whispering over the phone. “They’re off.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “What do your panties look like?”

  “Um…” She giggled. “Do you want me to tell you the truth, or do you want me to make something up?”

  “Well, I’m not going to know either way, am I?”

  “Maybe you’re expecting me to be really sexy or—”

  “Never mind your panties,” I interrupted, grinning. “I’d rip them off you, anyway.”

  She laughed. “Does that mean I should take them off?”

  “Definitely,” I said. I was enjoying this. It was fun to tell her what to do, to imagine her following my instructions.

  “Okay,” she said. “At this point, Silas Drake, I am completely naked.”

  “Good,” I said. “And if I could, I would kneel between your legs, and I would kiss your nipples. And then I would kiss my way down your body, over your belly button, down over one hip bone…”

  She gasped. “I want to touch my pussy, Silas.”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t do it yet.” Even as I told her not to touch herself, I was rubbing myself, and it felt sublime.

  She groaned.

  “Touch your inner thigh instead,” I said. “That’s where I’d kiss you.”

  She moaned. “Oh my god, I am so turned on.”

  I gripped my cock tighter, jerking myself. “Me too,” I murmured. I was lit up. Sparks of delight were traveling through my body. “Touch your other thigh. Travel up… up… almost there. But stop.”

  “Fuck you,” she breathed.

  “You want to touch your pussy?”

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  “Beg me,” I whispered. I was reaching the brink of my pleasure. My cock felt like it was going to explode.

  She panted on the other end of the line. Then her voice came through, quiet, strained. “Please. Please let me touch myself.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But start with your lips. Imagine my tongue running up and down your slit, slowly and deliberately, running all around the edges of you, tasting you.”

  “Mmm… That’s nice. That’s really nice.”

  “Very gradually, very slowly, move inside. Are you wet?”

  “Are you kidding?” Her voice was hoarse. “I’m like a waterfall here.”

  I laughed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Was that not sexy?”

  “Everything about you is sexy, Christa.” I was awash in euphoria. God, I wished I was actually touching her right now, actually kissing her.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I whispered. “Touch your clit. Gently, just barely. Rub your fingers over it.”

  She cried out. “Shit,” she gasped. “That’s so good. Oh god.”

  I came.

  I didn’t mean to. It just happened. All the exquisite elation I felt built to a fever pitch, and I tumbled over the edge of bliss. My cock pulsed in my hand, and I spurted out all over my shirt.

  Shit, it was good.

  I grunted.

  Christa was breathing hard on the other side of the phone.

  I gasped.

  “Silas?” she said. “Are you there?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. Should I tell her? Nah, it might ruin it for her. “You still stroking your clit?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Does it feel nice?”

  “So nice,” she whispered.

  “Good,” I said. “Keep doing that.” I wiped my hand on my shirt and pulled it over my head, tossing it in the laundry basket. I leaned up against my headboard. “Just touch yourself nice and slow and easy.”

  “Mmm, I am,” she said. “And it’s so good. And I couldn’t have done this without you. It had to be you. You make things easier, Silas. You’re…” She sighed.

  I closed my eyes. “Just enjoy it, Christa. Just let yourself feel good.”

  “I’m going to come, I think.”

  “Good,” I said.

  She moaned. “Thank you for doing this, Silas. Thank you so much.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  Her little cries interrupted me. “This is so good. You’re so good. Everything about you is good. I don’t know what I would do…” She gasped and sighed, moaning out her pleasure through the speaker of my phone. “I love you, Silas.”

  I stiffened, sitting straight up in bed.

  “Fuck, I’m coming,” she said. “I’m coming so hard.”

  I sat frozen as she made noises on the other side of the phone, as she moaned and sobbed and yelled and said a lot of swear words. I couldn’t move.

  Did she know what she’d just said?

  Did she mean to say it?

  She probably didn’t mean it. It had probably just slipped out in the heat of passion. I heard that people did that sometimes when they didn’t mean it.

  Christa and I had been communicating as friends for months, and I’d basically gotten used to the idea that she didn’t have those kinds of feelings for me. That didn’t mean that I’d ever stopped feeling the way I did about her, however. But it had been okay, since we were talking so much. I still felt really close to her. And that was what was important to me.

  If she’d dropped completely out of my life, it would have been a gaping, aching hole.

  But she’d been my friend, and I’d been content with that.

  Until… this.

  “Silas, are you still there?”

  My mouth was dry. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Did you come?”

  “A while ago.”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  “I didn’t want to ruin it for you. After all, you haven’t had an orgasm in a long time,” I said.

  “Yeah, my last one was with you in the woods,” she said, sighing. “They were both pretty wonderful.”

  I gulped. “I want to come see you.”

  “What?”

  “I want to come to Austin,” I said. “You’ve got a couple weeks before fall classes, right? I do too. We could, um… I miss you.”

  “Um, that’s kind of out of nowhere, but okay,” she said.

  “Really?” I was surprised.

  “Really,” she said. “Actually, I’d like that a lot.”

  * * *

  “I can�
��t believe you got a hotel room.” She turned in a circle, taking in the hotel-issue decor.

  I tossed my bags in an easy chair in the corner. “What else was I supposed to do? Sleep on the floor of your dorm?”

  “Well, no, I mean, I guess it makes sense that you got a room.” She turned and grinned at me. “It really is good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you too.” She was different now. She was still pretty and bouncy, with big, brown eyes and an even bigger smile. But she had this haunted look that crossed her face sometimes. Something dark and serious. It hurt me, but it drew me to her too, because it was our shared past. It was what connected us.

  She hugged herself. “So, what do you want to do? You want me to take you to all the places that haven’t yet figured out my ID is fake? Because that is at least a third of the bars in town. Or we could do touristy stuff. We could go to SoCo. Or if you want, we could go up to the hill country. That can be really cool in the summer. There’s a big swimming hole. It’s kind of crowded sometimes, though.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just got here. I thought maybe we’d… eat or something?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, okay, that’s good.”

  We stood on opposite sides of the room, looking at each other.

  We didn’t say anything.

  It was awkward. I cleared my throat.

  She looked at her fingernails.

  “We could, uh, meet up later if you need to go somewhere,” I said.

  “No, you’re here, I want to spend time with you.” She smiled at me. “You look good, you know? Really good.”

  “You look, um…” My eyes swept her body. “I, uh, can’t think of anything that a friend is supposed to say. Can I say you look beautiful? Is that too weird?”

  She blushed. “It’s not weird.”

  “Well, you do.”

  She twisted her hands together. “We’re not really friends, are we, Silas?”

  “Sure, we are,” I said. “Hell, judging from the amount of time I talk to you, you’re like my best friend.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. Everybody I know gets sick of me talking about you.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You talk about me?”

  She swallowed. “We’ve never been friends. Not really.”

  “Why are you saying that?”

  She bit her lip. She took a deep breath. And then she walked across the room to me. She put her hands on my shoulders and dragged her fingertips over them.