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I nodded again and felt his lips on me once more, trailing across my cheek, down my neck, between my breasts. He unfastened the front clasp of my bra and laid open the cups, staring at my hard nipples. I closed my eyes on instinct.

“‘This is the female form’,” he quoted, dragging his forefinger around my breasts. Slowly. Softly. It almost tickled, but I knew to take him seriously, so I didn’t laugh.

“‘A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot’,” he continued, letting his hand glide over my breasts. He rolled his thumb over one nipple then the other, making me gasp and squirm.

“‘It attracts with fierce, undeniable attraction’,” Mark said, and then he leaned over and licked my nipples.

I arched my body to him, begging him to take more of me into his mouth.

He spoke into my breast, “‘I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it’.” And then he pressed his lips to mine, and I panted into his mouth while his hands ran the length of my body.

“‘Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth—’” His hand was between my legs, stroking me over my panties. “‘—and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed’.”

He increased the pressure of his fingers until I moaned.

“‘Mad filaments—’” His fingers moved aside my panties and touched me softly.

“Mark . . .”

“Oh, you want me to fast forward?” he teased. “Let’s see, mad filaments and something about something being ungovernable . . . I got it.” He hooked his fingers around my panties and slipped them off, tossing them over his shoulder. “Ah, that’s it,” he said, studying me between my legs.”

“What’s it?”

He bent over me once more and whispered in my ear, “I think it’s ‘love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching’.”

I wanted to die. I cried out instead when he slipped a finger in me. He kept it there for a long time while he whispered incomprehensible things in my ear. I don’t know if he was still quoting the poem. All I know is that I couldn’t concentrate on it, especially when he slipped a second finger inside.

I bucked, and he let me. I twisted my body, and he let me. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders, and he let me. But he never took his fingers out. He kept them there, and I could feel myself stretching tight around him.

“Please, Mark.” I don’t know why I begged him.

“Cadence, I’ll take care of you,” he replied, moving his fingers in and out of me slowly.

And then he withdrew them completely and kissed down my body until his mouth was between my legs. He did things to me that brought me to the edge of what would have been a screaming orgasm, but I never got there because he stopped.

“Unfair!” I cried, pounding the sheets on either side of me.

He chuckled and sat up on his heels.

“Oh, I know what happens to you when you come. And I don’t want you passing out yet, Cadence. I have a lot of other things I need to do to you first.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“Cadence?”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna get naked now. If that’s okay.”

I tensed. I don’t know why. Obviously I expected him to get naked with me if we were going to have sex. But I was scared to see him with no clothes on.

I realized I had a choice in this moment: I could be really immature and make him hide under the covers out of sight, or I could try something else.

“So what do you think?” Mark asked.

I answered him by sitting up on my knees. “Will you let me?”

“Let you undress me?”

I nodded. This was the “something else” I was going to try: undressing a man.

“Sure.”

I pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. I stared at his chest for a moment before tentatively running my hands over it. I leaned in to kiss him, trailing my mouth all the way down to his navel. I heard him grunt and took it as a sign that I’d done something right.

I unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans. He sat on the bed and helped me slide off his pants. And then it was just him sitting there in his boxer briefs. And I was naked hovering over him, completely unsure of what to do. I thought I needed to talk it out.

“Okay. I’m gonna take off your underwear and then probably just look at you for a little while because I’ve never seen a dick in real life. As you know.”

Mark grinned. “Okay.”

“And I’m not going to try to act like I know what I’m doing, all right? I don’t know how to touch it. I have a rudimentary understanding of what it does and how it works, but I’m sure I have a lot more to learn.”

Mark chuckled. “It’s really not complicated.”

I nodded. “And I don’t know how I feel about putting my mouth on it quite yet, but that’s mostly because I don’t know how to blow a guy, so I’m just gonna see how I feel after I take your underwear off.”

“I understand.”

“And I don’t want you to scare me with it. Like, forcing my face on it or rubbing me all over my body with it. I don’t think that’s gonna do it for me.”

Mark massaged his forehead. “I won’t rub my dick all over you, Cadence.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. Are you ready?”

“Umm . . . I’m gonna be honest with you right now.”

“Okay.”

“This conversation we just had? Yeah . . . not really sexually stimulating. So, um, now I’m kind of flaccid.”

My face dropped, and he saw.

“But I can get hard again, Cadence! I didn’t mean that you don’t get me aroused. It’s just, everything you said was more humorous than sexy. Does that hurt your feelings?”

I shook my head and smiled. “No. I’m sorry I’m such an amateur, though.”

“I like you that way. I really do.”

“Honest?”

“Honest to God.”

“Leave God out of this,” I said.

Mark laughed.

“Okay. Lie down.”

He complied. I hooked my fingers around the waistband of his underwear and pulled them down as quickly as I could. He hissed.

“Easy does it, Cadence,” he said. Apparently he got hard again rather quickly because the waistband caught on his penis as I was yanking his underwear down.

I laughed. “Oh man, this is gonna be a learning experience.”

“Are you laughing at my dick?”

“No! I’m laughing at how clumsy I am!”

Mark tucked his hands behind his head and watched my face as I scrutinized him.

“So there you have it,” I said thoughtfully.

“Yep.”

I reached out my hand, letting it hover over his penis. It twitched.

“Oh my God, Mark! It moved!”

“It’ll do that, Cadence.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I wrapped my fingers around him tentatively and just sat there, holding it. He closed his eyes, and I never saw such bliss on another person’s face.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked softly. I didn’t want to disturb whatever fantasy he had playing through his mind, but I needed to know.

“Nothing, Cadence. Just do exactly what you’re doing,” he whispered.

So I did. I sat there beside him, holding his penis, watching the smile creep over his lips as he daydreamed. And then he opened his eyes and looked at me.

“I’m gonna make love to you now.”

My heart burst in my chest.

“Are you ready?”

I squeezed his penis on instinct.

“Um . . . I think so.”

“Lie down,” he ordered. “It’s gonna hurt, okay? But only for a little bit. Do you trust me?”

I nodded.

Mark buried his face between my legs once more.

“Just making sure you’re still nice and wet,” he said, and I blushed profusely.

After a series of licks and kisses, he hovered over me as I watched him put on a condom.

“I’m gonna hurt you, Cadence. But it’s not because I want to,” he said, steering himself between my legs. He pushed gently, and I felt a completely new sensation. Like my world was opening up to him, but not willingly.

He kissed my cheek and pushed a little farther in.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I gripped his shoulders hard. He pushed again.

“Ouch.”

“I know.” He trapped my face between his hands and forced me to look at him. “Did I tell you how scared I was the day I cleaned the flour off your hands and face?”

“No.”

“Well—” He moved his hips once more, letting me get used to his size before he thrust all the way. “I knew I was taking a huge risk—”

“Mark . . .”

“And that you might call me out for being completely inappropriate—”

He pushed hard, and I cried. I couldn’t help it. I knew I would cry. I knew it would hurt. God, it really fucking hurt! Girls who say it’s not so bad? Yeah, I’m calling complete bullshit on that!

“—but you didn’t do that at all,” he went on, moving his hips back and forth in a slow, monotonous motion. “You let me, and that’s when I thought that maybe this could work.”

He leaned over and kissed my forehead, and nose, and cheeks, and chin.

“It hurts,” I whimpered, trying hard to ignore the burning between my legs. I’d caught on fire, and he wasn’t putting out the flames. He was stoking them instead, forcing them higher and brighter. I’d burn alive.

“It won’t hurt forever,” he replied.

I shook my head. I didn’t believe him.

“I promise, Cadence,” Mark said. And the more he moved in me, the more my body began to accept him. And the more my body began to accept him, the better I felt.

I was surprised at the first sexual sensation. I thought I wouldn’t feel any the first time—that it would be too painful to enjoy. But I was enjoying it, and more alarmingly, I realized that I liked being stretched taut, trapped under him, at the mercy of his thrusts. It was painful pleasure.

I wanted to submit to it fully, so I relaxed my tense muscles, forcing myself to turn into rubber. He noticed the subtle shift in my body and doubled his efforts, thrusting longer and deeper, demanding a verbal response. He got it. I screamed out, and he covered my mouth with his. It was a hungry move, like he wanted to taste my distress.

But then he eased up, moving slowly and gently inside me once more. And I wasn’t sure I liked it. I also wasn’t sure I could ask him to go harder again. I wasn’t an experienced lover. I couldn’t know what I wanted. Maybe this is how it went. Hard then soft. Hard then soft.

I shifted under him.

“Is this completely horrible for you?” he asked.

“No, Mark. Why would you say that?”

“Just getting a sense that you want it over and done with.”

“Not at all. It doesn’t hurt anymore. I mean not so much, anyway,” I said.

“I shouldn’t have been rough with you just now. Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” I blushed and looked to my right.

“What is it, Cadence?”

“I don’t think I can ask. I think if I do you’ll think something’s wrong with me.”

“I would never think that. You can ask me anything,” Mark said.

I was quiet for a moment, and then it exploded from my mouth. “I don’t want you to be gentle anymore!”

“Huh?”

“I want you to be rough like you were a minute ago.” I felt like some weirdo who enjoys pain.

Mark’s lips curled into a smile. A knowing smile. What the hell did he know that I didn’t?

“And don’t make me tell you why,” I continued.

“You don’t have to,” he replied.

“Oh, so I guess you think you know why?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe you can explain it to me, because I don’t know what’s going on in my freak brain right now! Why do I want you to be rough with me? What’s wrong with me?!”

“Cadence, relax,” Mark said. “It’s natural.”

“Natural? For who? I don’t wanna be smacked around, Mark.”

“No one’s gonna smack you around,” he replied. I swear I felt him swell inside me. My eyes grew wide.

“You wanna smack me around, don’t you?” I cried.

“No, Cadence. But I’ll make love to you hard if you want me to,” he said.

I nodded.

And then he moved in me once more, but this time he never took his eyes off my face. He stared at me the whole time he thrust into me until he exploded with a strained cry.

I was proud of myself. I made him do that. I made him feel that good.

He collapsed on my body, making sure to put most of his weight on his forearms.

“Oh man,” he said, chuckling. “Once we cleared all that up, I didn’t take long, did I?”

“Is it usually longer?” I asked.

He laughed again. “Well, women usually like it to last as long as possible . . . unless the sex is really bad, I guess.”

I giggled.

“Was the sex bad?” he asked.