My boyfriend wants me to put my tongue in his mouth. His mouth tastes like bitter hops. He tells me to put my fingers in his mouth.
“Right hand, or left?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says.
I put my left index finger in his mouth. His taste buds are rough, like he’s burned his tongue.
“Push it deeper,” he says.
When I twist my finger around, I can feel the ridges on the roof of his mouth, the smooth gums, the jagged surfaces of his molars, the oddly regular dips of his fillings.
“Deeper,” he says, and I can feel where the back of his tongue curves down into the darkness of his throat. I’m an explorer, probing into him. I can feel his uvula. His tonsils. I wish I could probe deeper, to feel into the soft center of him, but this is as far as my stubby finger will go.