The Girl He Used to Know (Page 26)

Jonathan was on his knees, rolling on a condom. “Spread your legs.”

I did and he entered me. It was better because I only had to concentrate on one thing, but I couldn’t get the rising sensations back. Jonathan groaned, so it must have felt good to him, but I didn’t know how to find my rhythm again, and everything felt a bit off. I felt like I needed to start again from the beginning, but Jonathan seemed closer to the end.

“I can’t hold off much longer,” he gasped.

I didn’t know what to do. It still felt good with him inside me, but there was no way I was going to have an orgasm.

“Annika, really. I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and I’d barely gotten the words out when he groaned and shook in a way he never had before. He was out of breath and panting into my neck and squeezing me tight, and I could feel him throbbing inside of me.

“Oh my God,” he said, and the last word came out soft, like a whisper. It seemed like it felt extra good for him and I was glad about that because I worried I’d messed it up somehow. He kissed my forehead, my cheek, my mouth. “Didn’t it feel good to you?”

“It did,” I said.

“You didn’t come. Did you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“I can touch you again. I can start over and make you feel good.”

“That’s okay.”

He was silent then. “Oh.”

He got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back, he slid under the covers and put his arms loosely around me. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” I said. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d done wrong, but I knew I’d done something.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my fault.”

I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to that, so rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I didn’t say anything at all. Jonathan rolled onto his back. Eventually we fell asleep, although it seemed like it took us both an extra long time.

* * *

I woke up a few hours later, and I couldn’t get back to sleep because I worried that whatever had happened earlier would finally convince Jonathan there was something wrong with me and that I was the worst girlfriend in the world. I replayed what had happened over and over in my mind, right up until the point he’d deviated from our usual routine. A funny thing happened then. The desire I hadn’t been able to hold on to earlier suddenly came roaring back. I didn’t have enough experience to know that it worked like that sometimes—that it could be unpredictably elusive, and return when you least expected it.

Neither one of us was wearing any clothes. Jonathan was lying on his side—not quite spooning me, because although I’d grown to love cuddling after sex, I’d finally admitted it was difficult for me to fall asleep with his arms around me, but close enough that I could feel the presence of another person when I moved. I turned so that I was facing him and pressed my body against his. There was something thrilling about the feel of his nakedness, the warmth of his skin, and the fact that he was unaware of what I was doing. I pressed against him a little harder, and he stirred but still didn’t wake up. I felt him grow hard against me, which I found baffling.

How does that work? What will happen if I touch him?

I fluttered kisses down his neck and, growing bolder, I reached between his legs and wrapped my hand around him, remembering what he’d taught me. He woke up with a groan so loud it startled me.

“Is it okay that I did that?” I yanked my hand away in case the answer was no. He grabbed for it, put it back.

“Yeah, it’s more than okay. It’s great. It just caught me by surprise.” His words came out in fits and starts, as if he were having trouble regulating his breathing. He kissed me, roughly, and I kissed him back with every bit as much force.

Jonathan always wanted the lights on when we had sex. Janice said that was because men were more visual than women. I never minded, but I did struggle with the face-to-face aspect of being intimate with someone. When Jonathan touched me, he often looked deep into my eyes, but I’d have to squeeze mine shut in order to concentrate. The pitch-black darkness of the hotel room did not allow for eye contact, and it unleashed something in me I’d never experienced before. I felt confident, uninhibited, in control. We were a blur of hands and mouths, each of us trying to give more than we took. He kissed his way down my body and when he put his face between my legs, I didn’t stop him, because I wanted him to do it. It was intense but it wasn’t too much for me after all. As the incredible sensations coursed through me I twisted my fingers in his hair and made so much noise I hoped I never ran into the people in the room next to us.

Jonathan reached for a condom on the nightstand and put it on. “Holy shit, what is happening,” he said when I climbed on top of him. He started laughing, and so did I because, for once, I got it. I understood that I was doing exactly what he’d hoped for earlier. Not necessarily the sex, although that was happening, too, but my willingness to break free from familiar patterns and try something different.

It felt so good that I never wanted it to end. I didn’t think it was possible to feel closer to Jonathan than I already did, but that night in our hotel room, I learned that the closeness of two people had no limits.

Out of all the firsts I experienced with Jonathan, that was the one I treasured the most.

24

Annika

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

1991

When we walked into the ballroom, my palms grew damp. The thrum of the players’ conversations filled the area, and my pulse quickened. We were one of the only collegiate teams that was student led and didn’t have a coach, so we were on our own and would have to rely on one another for guidance and support. If one of our team members were suddenly unable to compete and I had to step up, I wasn’t sure I would be able to.

“Are you nervous?” I asked Jonathan. “I’m very nervous.”

He smiled and grabbed my hand, swinging it as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’m not nervous. I’m ready. We’ve got an excellent team. I have a good feeling about the tournament.” In addition to Eric and Jonathan, a graduate student in physics named Vivek Rao and a phenomenally talented junior from Wisconsin named Casey Baumgartner would round out the team.

I watched Jonathan play that day, in awe of his talent and so proud that this smart and kind guy belonged to me. It was clear from the start that Illinois was a serious contender to go all the way, and as each day of the competition blurred into the next, they kept winning.

I took care of Jonathan the way he often took care of me. I made sure to have something for him to eat or drink between his matches. I kept track of who he would be playing, and when and where. I helped him unwind and it did feel a little like Jonathan and I were playing house when we returned to our hotel room at the end of the day. Though I wasn’t the kind of person who imagined things like marriage proposals and what kind of house we would buy, I loved the way it felt to share a living space with Jonathan, even temporarily.

It made me feel secure and happy and calm.

* * *

On the last day of the tournament, Vivek Rao defeated Gata Kamsky in seventy-three moves in the fourth-round game, clinching the championship for Illinois. What surprised me the most as we gathered, shouting and cheering, around Vivek was the slight regret I felt at not being called into play after all.

* * *

We stormed into the bar afterward, high on our victory, surrounded by a crush of competitors. Jonathan walked in front of me, paving the way with his body, holding tightly to my hand as he pulled me through the crowd to a small table in the back. Once we claimed it, he settled me on a stool that backed to the wall. “Is this okay?” he asked. It was loud and he had to yell a little, but to my surprise, it was okay. Because of the way he positioned me, I could see everything that was going on without worrying about someone jostling me or invading my space. I had a wall to my left and Jonathan stood next to the table on my right, making me feel like I was in my own little protected corner. He ordered himself a beer and asked me what I wanted.

“Do they have wine coolers?” I asked.

“I’m sure they do. What flavor?”

“Cherry.” Those were the kind Janice always brought home from the store.

It was nice sitting there eating nachos and drinking my wine cooler, but a short while later the band that had been setting up in the corner started playing. The whine of the guitar and the crash of the drums felt like knives slicing into my eardrums. I put my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will away the awful sounds.

Jonathan pulled my hands from my ears, shouting, “Annika, what’s wrong?”

“Too loud.” I put my hands back, because it felt like my brain might explode and leak out my ears. Jonathan put his arm around me and led me from the bar. In the lobby, he set me down on a bench and crouched in front of me.

“Are you okay?”

“It was just so loud!”

“Yes, it was loud.” He grabbed my hands and held them. “Do you want to go back to our room?”

“Can we?”