My Love, My Drug, My Release

Chapter 9: Before the Dreaming

There's smut in this chapter, these ** will be around it.

I sat at the kitchen table, hungrily stuffing my face with leftover finger foods. I wasn't stoned anymore, I didn't think. Mostly it just felt like a sheet of celophane had just been pulled off my brain. 

"Lo, what on earth are you still doing up?" Paul stumbled into the kitchen, looking a little tired as though he'd been working very hard to fall asleep and failing miserably, wearing a crimson t-shirt that looked almost black in the dim light and, instead of his usual pajama pants, just white jockeys. He had the furriest calves, then the hair thinned on his upper leg, but I could just catch a glimpse of where it grew darker high up on his inner thigh...

"Seriously, you need to sleep, you've got school tomorrow." He grabbed the few bits of food left in front of me and threw them in the trash then jerked his head towards the stairs and I headed up them, slowly, and hovered at the threshold of my open doorway. 

"What's the problem?" he snapped from in front of me.

I hesitated, not knowing how best to phrase what I was feeling. And also not wanting to come across as insincere or ungrateful. "I hate my birthday."

"Well, good news, it's 1:30 in the bloody morning, it's officially not your birthday anymore." His voice was rough and staccato, and it felt sharp against my skin. He must've noticed the way my body curled in on itself because he put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've said that. Do you want me to stay with you a while?"

I nodded and let him guide me inside. I climbed under the sheets, and he followed without pause. He laid on his back this time and, after a second of hesitation, I put my head on his chest. He inhaled sharply, but I stayed, and, eventually, he reached over to wrap his arm around me. I loved the way he smelled. Not like pot, like I'm sure I did, but cigarettes and naturally made soap and his woodsy cologne.

I gently placed a hand on his stomach. He had been kind of chubby when he and Linda got married, not that he was bad-looking, but he'd been working out more and eating differently or something and had slimmed down a bit. I don't think anyone, including Paul himself, had a vested interest in his appearance, something I envied constantly. I let my hand skim the thin fabric of his t-shirt, feeling his abdominal muscles contract underneath it. I adjusted my body so I was entirely on my side, my forehead pressed neatly in the crook of his neck.

Without thinking it through, or maybe after thinking it through too much, I placed a soft kiss against his bare skin.

"What the fuck, Lo?" he said roughly, still keeping his voice down for the sake of Mary and Linda.

He gave me a disgusted look and turned to leave, but I grabbed his arm in a moment of desperation. "Please, Paul, just listen to me, let me explain."

He pressed out an exhale and turned to face me. "Okay, I'm listening."

"Last year, for my birthday, I felt sort of forgotten because you and Linda were spending so much time together and I was so worried about Jack and I was just depressed. I asked Brandon to come over. He and I hung out in this room." I glanced up at him; he had an unreadable expression on his face, the only thing I could make out was that he was definitely not bored. "He was my first. And my last. And I can't stop thinking about him. I can feel him next to me all the time, especially at night. I feel like he's all I know of love and I don't want him to be the only one who's been with me and in me and the only one who's touched me. I feel like my body is not my own, that it belongs to him." I swallowed hard, feeling a terror so acute it was physically painful at my next words. "I just was thinking that maybe, since you care about me so much, and I know you do, that you could just help me this once, only once, and it wouldn't mean anything, just as almost a cleansing act. Just so I could have been with at least one person who actually loves me."

There was a deadly silence in the room as I felt my heart shuddering in my chest, eyes watery with tears. What had I done? What if he told Linda?

"Lorraine, listen..." he said finally. "There are going to be plenty of men who you'll be... intimate with who will love you very much, trust me."

"I know, but that might not happen for years, and I'm terrified all the time of just being in my own skin, and I can't sleep in this fucking bed where he and I-"

"I understand." After a moment, he reached down and adjusted my fringe, running a hand down the side of my face. "You can't tell Linda, okay, or anyone."

I nodded and he climbed into the bed, hovering over me on his hand and knees. What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I kept my face slightly turned away from him as he gently kissed my jaw.

"Is this okay?" he asked.

"Yes." This was actually what I'd really wanted. I was worried he would just stick it in to get it over with, but I'd hoped he'd be gentle with me, like he was.

**He took off my sleep shirt, my face going completely red. I hated my boobs; they were so small, especially lying down, and I knew Paul liked girls with more curves, but he didn't seem turned off and ran his hands over them in a methodical way. He kissed his way down my chest to my lower stomach, which mostly flattened out when I was lying down, and hooked his fingers onto my shorts and panties.

I gasped sharply, realizing this was actually about to happen, and he paused, eyes finding mine. I quickly looked away and tried desperately to calm myself. I felt him kiss my stomach again and, without warning, gave me an enormous raspberry.

I couldn't help my bark out a laugh and quickly clapped my hand over my mouth to muffle my giggles. I could feel him smiling against my belly before giving me another one. I reached down and gripped his hair in my hand. I was so giggly and euphoric, I hardly noticed him pulling down my shorts and kissing me between my legs. 

Brandon had never done this. It wasn't bad, sometimes even pleasant, but also very weird; I couldn't stop thinking about how there was a tongue poking around down there.

When he came back up to kiss me, I almost cried. Something about it was so strange, so unnerving. I should've thought it was wrong, he should've thought it was wrong, but I didn't. When he entered me, it hurt, for the briefest second, a pinching sensation on the bottom of the entrance, but it was gone quickly. He put his face next to mine, and I hugged him close to me. It was better this way, not looking each other in the eyes. I wondered if he was imagining someone else. And then I wondered if I should be imagining someone else too, and why I wasn't.

He finished on my stomach, and I was glad at least one of us was thinking about not getting me pregnant.** Then, like a fish, he flopped over onto his back. He took several long, deep breaths, and I was briefly petrified he'd fallen asleep, before pulling on his jockeys and standing up. 

For a moment, he just looked down at me, not smiling, not frowning, mouth a flat line. Then, out of nowhere, he said, "I don't want you talking to Keith anymore," before walking out.

Hey guys, so, Lorraine's birthday (which has spanned a few chapters) was the first thing I thought of when writing this story, the seed that this whole thing has grown around. It's still just the beginning of the book, relative to how much there is left, but it feels incredible to have been able to write this sequence. I have a lot more planned out, ideas that have come to me as I've been writing, and I plan to update soon since they're really flowing right now, but first I just wanted to really thank everyone who's stayed with this story through fifteen chapters of setup, y'all are my heros!!