The Sun and the Moon (Giving You ... #1) (5 page)

I noticed that my skin was very soft.

I’d never noticed how soft before.

I kept going, uncertainly touching my pubic hair. Idly, I wondered if I should remove it and be bare. That wasn’t something I'd ever considered, but now it seemed to be in the way.

Wait. Focus. Masturbation. Yeah, what a word. Almost as good as manflesh. Or mansmell.

Focus, Amelia.

My last thought was, oh hell, I'm going in.

With a tentative graze, I touched myself, realizing that I was all wet, and had been all wet all day. My panties were soaked. For Ryan.

But also just for me.

My sexuality mattered.

I pressed into the flesh at the front of my pubic bone instinctively, because it felt good there. I could feel a vein throbbing. I stopped stroking, and let go for a moment, and then realized that it would feel better if I kept going than if I stopped. Huh. Maybe this was where my cute, little orgasm had been hiding. Not with my antidepressants or with Paul the accountant, but with me, with my desire.

I’d never felt such desire before. Of course there were hormones coursing through my body when I lost my virginity. And I certainly felt something for him. Ugh, him. But when my depression entered, my desire left, and my orgasm was nowhere to be seen.

Now, I desired Ryan. The Sun God of my dreams. Mr. Passion.

I reached down further and explored. I could just see his eyes and freckles. His golden skin. Those abs. The V.

The V did it. Sexy fucking body. That kiss. Cool skin and hot mouth. I started to pant. Oh my God, I made myself pant.

I felt like I deserved a trophy for panting.

Setting aside an errant thought of my repressed past—why oh why did I think of things at times like this?—I stroked and caressed, pressing my folds, moving my fingers wherever it felt good.

After a bit, I added the fingers from my other hand.  One hand had a finger inside while the other parted my skin and rubbed my clit, faster and faster.

Because I was so sensitive and desperate from being distracted by thoughts of Ryan all day, I got a little wetter, I could smell myself, my muscles got a little tighter, my world closed in so that it was nothing but my own pleasure, and lo and behold, the dawn of an orgasm arrived. I could tell: my body started to tense, I clenched my muscles, it felt oh-so-good, and I stroked and I stroked, and then, finally, finally, the shuddering, the release, which I had not felt for so long, and my brain was bathed in pleasure, my body quivering and happy.

Ta-da!

Now I really wanted a trophy. The orgasm was good, although not earth shattering, but I was almost in tears because my body still worked.

I was alive!

The Prozac hadn’t stolen my orgasm.

Or if it had, I’d stolen it back.

Still, funnily enough, it surprised me and took me over so quickly that I stopped stroking, and then realized, again, with some embarrassment, to myself that only I would notice, that I had to keep going. So I did. I felt my sex convulse and contract. That felt very good. Frankly, it also felt naughty. I could get over that.

Maybe.

Okay, so I looked around as if someone was going to catch me. I’d finally broken a Rule.

But wow. I should’ve done this a long time ago. I could almost feel the power of the release in my brain. The good hormones, or whatever the fuck it was that got released when you had an orgasm, were bathing my brain with the good shit, and I felt relaxed. Sated. Whole. Hmmm. The fucking antidepressants didn't own me.

I wondered how many other Rules I should break?

So I knew that it was late and that I should go to sleep, but I needed to figure out where I knew Ryan from. He clearly seemed to know me. Had I met him at Harvard? If so, what was he doing managing a coffee shop? I didn't mean to be a snob, but still.

Yeah, I was a snob. Deal with it.

Maybe he was a friend of my parents? No. A friend of a friend? No. I have friends, but not that many. And I would remember him. So did I know him from childhood? I had no idea. I grew up around here. Maybe he went to Waterford High?

After I cleaned up and put on my pajamas, I went to my bookshelf and pulled out my high school yearbooks. I started with my freshman yearbook and went through the names, looking for all the Ryans. I found a few but they weren’t him. I looked in the sections for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. While there were some Ryans, I didn't see him.

Maybe he was younger than me. It could be hard to tell. I pulled out another book. And another.  Finally, I got to my senior year.

Now I was completely distracted. It was way past midnight, after I had been working crazy hours, and I was reading things that people had written to me more than a decade before. My back was tired from sitting on the floor, surrounded by yearbooks, and I was remembering people and pictures and events from a long time ago. There were a lot of memories in those yearbooks. Yeah, I was the bomb in high school.

I wondered what I was now.

Finally, I paged to the freshman section of my senior year and there he was:
Ryan Kyle Fielding
.  He looked little and sweet, with big eyes, a tan, and surfer hair, even at that age. He was adorable. But I didn’t remember him. I wondered why he remembered me. On that thought, I crawled into bed, hoping to sleep some before I had to get up early, and start being a lawyer again.

THE INSTITUTIONAL FLUORESCENT
lights overhead sped by as I was pushed down the bright, white hospital corridor, strapped to the gurney.

One light. Two lights. Three lights.

I stopped counting as I looked up at the nurses' faces as they rushed me to the operating room. Two women and a man, moving me down the hall. There was a rail along the walls, for protection.

I couldn't even walk.

They wheeled me into the operating room with an enormous light—high powered wattage, illuminating everything.

I’d never seen a light so big.

I was prepped for surgery. They gave me a shot in my arm. I didn't know what it was. They added something to my IV. I didn't know what that was either.

The anesthesiologist said that it was morphine and that I would soon start to feel it.

I did.

The anesthesiologist asked me if I could feel my belly.

What belly?

No, I couldn't.

Then it all went black and I couldn’t see any more lights.

And then I woke up in my room, sweating.

Another fucking nightmare.

Homework

MY PHONE VIBRATED WITH
a text.

Staying sane?

My buddy Hugo had sent it. I met him at the mental hospital when I’d checked myself in. I
loved
the fact that I had a close friend from a mental hospital. It led to interesting answers to the question, "Where did you two meet?" We were the same age, and we clicked in therapy sessions, and while going through the program.

I found recovery from my suicidal ideations to be easier with a friend. We understood each other's issues and we understood that sometimes we just needed to talk with someone. So our friendship worked on a lot of levels. He was one of the few who knew all of my secrets.

A beautiful man, half Caucasian, half African-American, he had greenish eyes, dark skin, tattoos, and serious biceps. Time at the gym meant that he had a brawny body, which matched his rough-around-the-edges personality. He was also bisexual and extremely sexual, at all times, with essentially anyone attractive and available.

And he was a felon, which frankly made me laugh, because even though I was a lawyer, I was also prissy; I didn’t hang out with criminals, except him. His felony conviction stemmed from some marijuana charges that he got before he received his marijuana card. Well, that plus selling to an undercover police officer in San Diego. And some other, um, crimes. I liked to tease him about it. But we had a lot in common since he liked Harry Potter too. Well, specifically, he liked Lee Jordan's character, and told me about it in intricate, sexual detail. Perv.

Never was sane, darling.

Me neither. Busy?

Oh, and he repeatedly asked me out. Even though he lived with a woman, he checked Tinder—and Grindr—constantly, and he spent his time constantly trying to hook up with, well, humans, including me.

Yep. Trial. Will need to blow off some steam after though.

After I sent that text, I questioned it. I couldn't go drinking with him because he was an alcoholic and I wasn't. But of course he picked up on my text in a different way:

I can help you with that.

Flirt. Still, I was used to fending him off.

Love ya darling but never.

Never say never.

I texted my friend Marie, the one who has been by my side since third grade.

Hugo flirted with me again.

I felt a bit like I was tattling, but I normally told her everything. She knew how good-looking he was, but she also knew how flirty he was since he flirted with her, too.

That boy …

Then I realized that I hadn’t told her about Ryan. That discussion would need to be done in person, I thought.

Yeah. Come play with me after trial is done? Need to drink.

Wouldn't miss it.

She certainly wouldn't, the party girl.

I spent the remainder of my week and the weekend preparing for trial. But finally, our exhibit books were made, trial briefs marked, pretrial motions all taken care of, and I’d spent more time than I cared to preparing my client and other witnesses for their testimony. In the back of my mind lurked my homework from my therapist.

Was I really buying a vibrator?  Breaking my rule of no toys? Did that count as a toy? It wasn't, like, a spanking bench. Maybe I would just buy a book. So much for focusing on my trial.

I became an attorney six years ago, and after the next year I’d be considered for partnership. The mid-size firm that I worked for in Santa Barbara had a great clientele, region-wide presence, and dedication to excellence. Or so we told ourselves and our clients. But seriously, it was a great place. Since I was "just" an associate attorney, and had not been promoted to partner—meaning that I was an employee, not an owner of the company—I worked with a partner on this trial as his second in command. The first-in-command partner was gorgeous, intense, and clearly not interested in me: Jake Slausen.

Four years older than me, and practically a foot taller, Jake embodied the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. During these late nights, I totally ogled his blue eyes—I swore they were made out of cut gemstones—and chiseled cheekbones. I just hoped that I did it in stealth-mode. He was good looking in a way that was completely distracting. Lucky for me, he was also completely unavailable because one, I worked for him and two, he was a serious workaholic. A further good thing, for me, was that his personality stunk. He had no time for anything but work. I had heard from the guys in the office that if they needed to talk to him, they had to follow him down the hall and talk in the bathroom because he wouldn't take the time to talk in his office if he was focused on a case. Weirdo.

Nevertheless, eye candy was always a good thing.

By Sunday night, we were as ready for the trial as we were going to be and I went home. I decided that what my bank thought of me didn’t matter—it probably didn't scrutinize the purchases on my statements anyway—so I downloaded six naughty books on my e-reader and bought a deluxe vibrator from some Swedish company, paying for expedited shipping. I had a break on Monday because the trial didn’t start until Tuesday. In the meanwhile, I had a few appointments to keep.

The next day I went to my therapist. Even though our trial would begin the following day, I made a point to see my therapist. I might even add an extra day this week because of the increased stress of trial—and the way a certain Sun God affected me.