Chapter 22: What I Want

My room above the shop had a narrow bed, a slanted ceiling, and one window that looked over Brady Street.

I had cleaned it twice.

At nine that night I heard his boots on the back stairs, and I opened the door before he could knock.

"You said upstairs," he said.

"I said I'd tell you what I owed you."

"Tell me."

I shut the door behind him and turned the lock.

For three years I had never said what I wanted in a bed, or at a table, or in a car on the way to a dinner I did not care about.

I had learned to want what was already on offer.

"Take your coat off," I said.

He took it off.

"Your shirt."

He unbuttoned it, with his eyes on me, and let it fall.

I put my mouth on the shoulder where the glass had been in his coat.

"I want to go slow first," I said. "Then I don't."

"All right."

"I want your hands on my back, and I don't want you to ask."

He put them there.

They were big and warm and not quite steady, and I felt them through my sweater, and I pulled it over my head myself.

He took in a breath.

"Lie down," I said, and I pushed him gently onto the bed.

I undid his belt, and I took his jeans down, and I kissed the inside of his thigh.

His cock was already hard, heavy against his stomach.

I wrapped my hand around it and ran my tongue up the length of it slowly.

"Fuck, Cora."

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