“Look, if you want patience, talk to your mother. If you want to get shit done, come to me.”
― Maximus_Damage
After slamming the door metaphorically in Mrs. Howser’s face, I pushed Jonathan back against it, kissing the hell out of him while She-Ra and Catra buzzed around our feet and rubbed their heads against our legs. And okay, while the cats were cute as anything, I couldn’t make out in front of them. It felt … wrong somehow. Like they were silently passing judgment.
I unlatched my mouth from his, and panting, managed to say, “Bedroom, now. Cats watching. Icky.”
“Agreed,” he said, kissing and holding me as we made our way awkwardly toward my bedroom, me walking backward.
He gave me a gentle push when we reached the end of the ginormous bed, and I flopped down, opening my arms wide to accept him on top of me. Only, he surprised me. He knelt on the floor beside my legs, and starting with the left foot, he took off my stocking. Then the right. Next, he reached up and undid the zipper on the side of my skirt, slid it and my panties off, and tossed them in a pile of black tulle. I had never felt so exposed since my sexual escapades as a teenager, and that was a long time ago—before cellulite. My legs involuntarily quivered with anticipation and nerves as he spread them slowly, then settled between them, bringing his mouth to my core.
Let me say this: if I thought Jonathan was a good kisser, I knew nothing. Because what he was doing now with his mouth and tongue was like a man possessed, with one goal—to bring me to climax. I bucked my hips up and dug my hands into my quilt, fisting the fabric as the pleasure rolled over me, giving me one of the best orgasms of my life. Possibly the best. Oh, who was I kidding, it was definitely the best because it was Jonathan and because I had never wanted anyone so much in my life.
I reached down to grab his hand and pull him up on the bed beside me, and I could see his erection tenting his pants.
I grinned. “Reciprocation is a vocation any lover should indulge with exultation,” I said dreamily. “I’ll get to you as soon as I can catch my breath and my arms stop being limp noodles.”
“I’m in no hurry, as long as I can play with your breasts while I wait,” he said cheekily.
I groaned, wondering how his hands would feel on me―on top of the endorphins running through my body―but started pulling at my cardigan anyway. I let him unfasten my bra, and he sent that sailing in the same direction as my skirt and underwear. There was something decadent about being completely naked while he was clothed, as though I were laid out for him to worship.
He kissed me hungrily, then wrapped both arms around me and urged me up to the pillows where we could stretch out without hanging halfway off the bed. I accidentally bit his tongue in the move, which turned his little moans of pleasure into a loud grunt of pain.
“Okay, love, no more kissing for a few, at least until my tongue returns to its original size,” he said. I covered my face in my hands in embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry!” I cried, unable to believe I had klutzed up a kiss.
Actually, I could completely believe it. If it wasn’t lipstick on my teeth, it was almost biting off my lover’s tongue.
He managed a chuckle, and gently peeled my hands from my face.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’ll be a funny story one day.”
I stiffened a bit. Would there be a “one day” for Jonathan and me? We’d been having such a good time, but could that hold up in the real world, outside this bubble of a charmed weekend with no real responsibilities and no one else getting in the way? My thoughts were interrupted by him promptly rolling me over from where I was on my side to flat on my back and climbing on top of me.
“I can’t wait anymore. You’re too damn appealing all laid out for me like this.” He started to tear at his clothes like a man possessed, and once he had his pants and boxers down, he stopped and said, “Condom. Damn, I almost forgot.”
“Me too,” I confessed. I’d never been irresponsible in that way before, but this explosive chemistry between us made me as dumb as a rock.
He reached into the bedside table, fished around for the strip of condoms, and rolled one on. Next thing I knew, he was lifting my left leg and bending it at the knee, thrusting inside me so fast and hard, I gasped. And it was so, so good. As we joined our bodies, I had this sense of something bigger happening, something I had never felt before. Like I had been asleep, and now was awakening.
As we lay tangled together in my sheets, the quilt long having gone the same route as our clothes, we felt each other everywhere, with fingers, lips, and—very carefully—with tongues. I felt warm and safe, and wanted to stay snuggled together for as long as humanly possible.
Which, sadly, ended now. I knew it, and so did he because my cell’s alarm had gone off, scaring the crap out of both of us. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as I thought about driving Jonathan back to the airport. How strange, that he had arrived as Wrath, my archnemesis, and was leaving as Jonathan, my lover. Leaving being the operative word.
I made to rise from the bed, but he pulled me back down into his arms. “No one is going to know you’re a girl until you say so,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell anyone, not even Deathdrop.”
And with that, I started to cry. Big, fat, embarrassing tears rolled down my face out of nowhere. I wiped them quickly on the edge of my sheet as I nodded.
“Hey, I was trying to reassure you, not make you break out the waterworks,” he said.
“That means so much to me. When you first arrived, I knew I would be outed, and now I can do it when I want. It means you respect me. It’s just … a lot. Thank you.” I took a large, steadying breath and focused on the task at hand. “We should get rolling. I don’t even know if you’re packed, and we definitely need showers. Like regular, no hanky-panky showers. There’s no time for anything else.”
“As my lady wills it,” Jonathan replied, kissing the back of my hand. “Now, no more tears. I’m packed, so we only need to shower, and I don’t see any reason why we can’t save water and share, as long as you can manage to keep your hands to yourself.”
“Me? You’re ten times worse,” I retorted, wiping my eyes.
“We’ll have to wait and see. Last one there has to wash the other’s hair!”
He had a good head start on me with those ridiculously long legs, but I made it to the bathroom door first. We laughed as we shut the door on two very invasive cats.
The trip back to the airport was quiet, whereas all our other trips had been punctuated by bouts of car karaoke. I thought back to Thursday when I first made this trip, and the dread that had coiled inside me at the thought of meeting and being stuck with Wrath. How life could change so quickly!
Four days later, and I was anxious about never seeing Jonathan again. We hadn’t discussed keeping in touch, though we’ve normally been in daily contact via Magecraft. But would he want more? Would he want to see me again, to try whatever this was long distance? That was a big commitment, and not the easiest one to keep. And considering I didn’t even have his phone number, it wasn’t looking great.
As if reading my mind, Jonathan asked if he could borrow my phone. I said yes, and a moment later I heard a beep going off from his pants pocket.
“There, now we have each other’s phone numbers,” he said, grinning. He reached across the console and rested his hand on top of mine. “Look, I get that this sucks, and we haven’t had time to talk about how this will work or anything. I want you to know that what happened between you and me, that kind of thing never happens to me. And I wouldn’t want it to, not with just anyone. You’re special to me, Max. I don’t think I’m ready to say more than that, not when we are about to say goodbye, but you have to believe that you are important to me in ways I didn’t even know existed.”
As I pulled into the airport parking, a lump formed in my throat. “That means a lot to me, Jonathan. Or should I go back to calling you Wrath, since we’ll be seeing each other in-game from now on?”
“Hey, who says we won’t talk outside of Magecraft? I gave you my digits, woman. I expect texts, calls, Skype, email, faxes, telegrams, courier pigeons, the works. Though you might as well stick to Wrath in-game because I don’t want to be the only freak with a real name in there, but it’s Jonathan anywhere else, okay? And you, Maximus in-game and Max out?”
“Just Max. Maxine when you’re feeling frisky,” I joked.
“Okay, Maxine, let’s get this duffel of mine onto a luggage cart and get inside. I think we overdid it with that shower, and I don’t want to miss my flight.”
“I told you we didn’t have time for hanky-panky but did you believe me? No, of course not. Typical man.”
“Me?! You were all over me.”
“You loved it.”
“You know it.”
Jonathan insisted on pushing his own duffel, and we made it to departures with enough time to say a short goodbye. A very public goodbye. There were tears again this time, only they weren’t mine, they were his, welling up in his eyes but not spilling over.
I reached up and held his face gently in my hands and said, “Sir Wrath of the Swamp Realm. My Jonathan. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again may the gods hold you in the palms of their hands.”
“Well, that really was a goodbye, wasn’t it? Better than anything I’ve got,” he managed to say.
“It’s an Irish blessing, though I messed it up a bit since I don’t believe in just one god. But, as they say, the show must go on and so must your flight. Whether you’re there or not, so you better get going.”
He leaned down and embraced me, squeezing the air out of me.
“I won’t forget you, Maxine Peters. Never. Not as long as I draw breath.”
I gulped down a lump in my throat and replied, “Now what more could a girl ask for than that?”
He nodded, and with one last kiss, he broke apart from me and headed through the security barricade. I watched him go, until he rounded a corner and was out of sight.
“And then he was just gone,” I said to Lois over Skype, trying not to weep and wail like it was the end of the world.
"That's generally what happens when you drop someone off at the airport, Max," she replied.
It was only 5:00 p.m., and I was in the flannel penguin pajamas, the box of wine having migrated from the fridge to my bedside table. I had remade the bed, and for a crazed minute considered saving the soiled sheets from earlier, the way new brides in centuries past would. After a second of indecision at the washing machine, I threw in the sheets, realizing I was not the star of a historical romance novel.
“Max, normally I wouldn’t ask this, but how much wine have you had?”
“Like, three or four glasses,” I replied, and then burped.
“Okay, Mama Lois is officially cutting you off. I know you. You can’t hold your booze worth a damn, and three glasses for you is like six for me. Enough wine and misery.”
I nodded numbly and leaned over to scritch She-Ra behind her ears and rub Catra’s tummy. With Jonathan gone, they had formally reclaimed their positions in my bed, one of them on either side of me.
“So what did he say to you as a goodbye? Was it like an awkward kind of ‘see ya’ or what?” she asked, sipping her iced tea.
“He said he would never forget me as long as he drew breath,” I replied, sighing.
Lois’s iced tea came flying out of her mouth. “He said that? That’s like some next-level shit, Max. Have you reconsidered my theory that that boy is stark raving mad about you, and you let him leave?” She frantically wiped at her laptop with a cloth while I rolled my eyes.
“Let him leave? Lo, how could I have gotten him to stay? For the love of the gods, his life is in Florida.”
“In some backwoods swamp in Florida that he might consider leaving if he knew how you feel about him!”
“I don’t know how I feel about him!”
I leaned over and buried my face in my pillow. My pillow that smelled like him, all sandalwood and sunshine. I hadn’t gotten to play with that hair nearly long enough.
“Ack, gotta run, Elsa is screaming her head off,” Lois said, turning to the monitor one last time. “Look, I think you owe it to both of you to find out how you feel. And that’s only going to happen with a lot of soul-searching. Maybe getting to know him a bit more outside of the context of the game. And keep the wine to one or two glasses a night in case of emergency, you lush.”
“G’night, Peily.”
“Night, Maximus.”