Simon doesn't remember the name of the woman who took his virginity. At this point, all these years later, he's not sure if he ever knew it. It was a chance encounter, quick and a little dirty but fun. Fine.
He'd been in the neighborhood pub, the one he escaped to when he didn't want to be at home, shooting pool. He wasn't that good at it, not then, but he practiced for something to do, and as he racked up the balls for a third round against himself, he apparently caught her eye.
A bit older than him, the woman was immediately forward and flirty, and it wasn't a secret, even as inexperienced as Simon was, as to what she wanted. His body must have felt some kind of desire with the way it reacted to her, blood rushing south as she slid her hands over him in the dim light of the nearly vacant bar, but when she invited him to her flat down the street, it wasn't lust that made him agree.
It was curiosity. He wondered what it would feel like to be wanted, even on a base level like this, and if it would fill up whatever hole that had been inside him for as long as he could remember.
And it did. A little.
He'd never even kissed a girl before, always too closed-off to get in any kind of position to do something like that, but that night, he kissed the woman from the pub, over and over again. He followed her movements, let her put her hands on him and place him where he needed to go, and it was something.
When their clothes came off, left in a haphazard heap around her cluttered living room, it was something more, and when she pushed him to the couch and sunk down onto him, the unfamiliar warmth almost overwhelming, for a second, it was everything.
He came too fast, and it was over too soon. That night, he slid back into his own bed, alone again. He couldn't tell if he felt better, knowing there was something he could do to soothe the ache in him, or if it was worse, having the relief for a moment then going back to nothing.
A few nights later, when the weekend hit and the pub was more crowded, he caught the eye of a pretty girl in the corner, shyly checking him out, and he got his answer.
For Simon, for years, it was better to have a little bit of comfort. Just a little bit, because he never saw a way that he could have more. A stranger from a bar, one from the grocery store that asks him to reach a high shelf and flirts a little too much ... he gets good at spotting whatever that first woman saw in him. The part of someone that's open to a quick, needy fuck.
He sees it in you. Clocks it straightaway, but he also sees something more.
It's in the way you pull back after he kisses you hard and deep, the only way he really knows how to kiss. He stops, thinking you've changed your mind, but you're still there, still close, with such a soft look in your eyes now. You initiate the kiss this time, your hands sliding up to cup his cheeks, keeping him in place as you slow things down.
It's disorienting almost, he tries to shake it off, to get back to how this is supposed to go. He yanks your shirt off, and you let him, but when he moves his hands to roughly palm at your chest, you patiently pull them back down to rest on your waist.
"Slow down," you murmur, smiling up at him. "We've got a little time."
It's muscle memory for him at this point, finding a woman and bringing her to a quiet, private place, pushing into her, feeling the brief reprieve it brings. But with you, the rhythm is all off. It's somehow very good and very bad, all at the same time.
"Thought you wanted something here," he mutters, his meaning clear -- he thought you wanted him.
"I do," you answer. "I just don't want it to be over in five minutes. That ok?"
He's not sure what else to do, so he nods. And he slows down.
It's different, sex when you're not rushing towards the end-goal. His hands, used to action in moments like this, pushing and pulling and gripping, instead find yours. Your fingers intertwine, and you kiss him, almost lazily, like youâve got all the time in the world. Like heâs worth it.
To Simon, it feels strange and new, but not really -- like it's all happening through the filmy haze of a dream, where somehow he knows every step of this dance and yet nothing at all, all at once. To you, from the soft sounds slipping from your lips, it feels right.
When it's over, and you're both breathless and sated, he feels like that boy again -- the one who'd never been kissed and who didn't know where to put his hands. But now, he notices, one hand is still grasping yours and he squeezes it, just barely.
"That ok?" he asks softly, and he's not sure if he's speaking to you or to himself.
"Perfect," you tell him, turning your head to give him a smile.
He doesn't know if he'll ever see you again. But he's memorizing the weight of your hand in his, the steady sound of your breathing as it returns to normal. And even if he never has this with you again, in the moment he knows that he's capable of it. And that's enough.
