It felt like morning. I stretched and yawned. Waking up next to Alicia seemed like another test, another subject to categorize. Sander was always a stir—deep and instinctual. Even in my sleep, he’d push inside me, and I’d part for him, waking with a welcoming gasp. No words. No questions. Just the slow ache of being filled and claimed before dawn. With him, sex wasn’t an act. It was a state—a rhythm threaded into sleep, breath, skin.

Shavonne was a different burn. Usually, it ended at sleep and subsided into comfort, and the mornings were about getting ready for another day at Harvard.

Waking up with Alicia felt like something fragile, something that shouldn’t be disturbed. Because in her sleep, she was relaxed and didn’t seem pulled between home, academia, and who she wanted to be.

Her raven hair lay spread underneath her, spilled over the pillow. She slept on her back, quite possibly a result of years of being confined, with composure ingrained in her very bones. Sometime during the night, she had pulled the covers over herself, her legs pulled together. Neat, tidy. Nothing like I’d left her.

I wondered what would happen if I pulled the covers and teased her skin. Would she melt, unspooling under my fingertips? Or would she snap shut, like a book someone forgot they weren’t supposed to read?

I took too long. Her eyes fluttered open, and she yawned—soft, slow. For a moment, she looked like she expected to be home. But when her gaze found mine, she melted into a smile.

“You didn’t touch me,” she said.

“You…changed during your sleep,” I avoided.

“Programming,” she scoffed. “A mind whipped into shape; my body listens rigidly. Even in sleep.”

“Did you take swimming lessons?”

She turned, brushed her fingers through my hair, and sighed again.

“Swimming, violin, figure skating,” she said. “I’m decent at all, but not a master. I was always drawn to knowledge, and I shattered so many of my mother’s dreams and expectations by being more like my brother than himself.”

I laughed.

“Pissing yourself against the L.A. skyline wasn’t an option?”

“Pissing myself was never an option,” she breathed. “Not when the water was too cold, the violin made my fingers bleed, or after five hours on the ice.”

“And yet, yesterday…”

“I didn’t invite you on a whim, Hannah,” she interrupted. “I know you know how to. I chose you.”

I knew, but it was nice hearing it from her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Sentimental. I didn’t need her to thank me, not in words. Yet, I let her. I stretched, and she watched.

“You’re beautiful, Hannah,” she sighed as she slid on top me.

“Yeah,” I said, “but I need to be more because beauty isn’t forever.”

She kissed me, bit my lip, and rubbed herself against me.

“Right now, beautiful is all we need.”

She rocked against me, slow at first, just friction, just heat. The kind of touch that wasn’t about fucking, not yet. Just feeling.

Her breath deepened, and her lips ghosted over my cheek, neither kissing nor teasing. Just being there. I let her take her time. Let her move how she wanted. Because this wasn’t about control. Not right now. She whispered something—soft, nearly lost in the space between us. I didn’t ask her to repeat it. I just slid my hands down her back, fingers splaying over smooth skin, mapping her again, learning her all over.

She pressed her forehead to mine.

This was new.

Not sex in the usual way. Not about power or ruin, but something much quieter.

I tilted my hips and pressed up into her. A little push, a little demand. She smiled as she sat up, dragging her hands down my thigh, slow and deliberate, before lifting my leg over her hip. Her touch was measured and practiced—not dominance, not submission, but something in between. A quiet knowing.

She shifted, aligning us, skin slick against skin, heat against heat. And then she moved.

A slow, rolling grind. No rush. No force. Just friction and need, just the weight of her body pressing into mine, matching breath for breath. And fuck--she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Is it even technically fucking?” she panted.

I felt fucked, and I let her know through sound and response. Breath and lack of. Sensation and release.

“You’re wet against me,” she grinned.

I bit my lip and let her have her moment. Because, frankly, she felt amazing—and being fucked in a new way, letting myself feel and just receive, was all my body wanted. And for once, my mind didn’t object.

“You’re going to make me cum,” I admitted.

She studied me, every little twitch on my face, every slight tremor in my body, and every tiny sound that escaped my lips.

“So soon, Hannah?” she said teasingly, almost mocking, fixing my gaze.

“A little…harder…” I moaned as my hips started rocking against hers. “Please?”

“Did you know figure skaters can do the splits?” she moaned, dragging the words out like a tease, like a slow unraveling of control.

And then she sank down on me, inch by inch, a deliberate, torturous descent. Not a sudden drop, not a rush—just the slow, stretching pull of her body pressing against mine, splitting herself open around me. She held my gaze, her breath shaky but steady, savoring the control, savoring the way my hands dug into her thighs.

“Now you do,” she whispered, rolling her hips, making me feel every perfect, impossible inch of her.

I opened for her, wanting her inside me, needing more, throbbing against her, aching in a way that felt endless. My release chased itself down my spine, gathering momentum. A force rose from my curled toes and clawing fingers, and the tension locked my jaw.

I was unraveling, coming apart for her, with her, against her.

"I like watching you cum," she moaned, her voice a pulse against my skin, "because, as with everything you do, you evolve with how you’re being fucked and how you fuck. Different each time, but still the same."

She could shut up and just let me cum.

But Alicia always had to observe, analyze, and turn me into something to be studied, even in my unraveling. Not that it mattered. Her voice dissolved under the thunder in my skull, the quake building low and deep inside me.

And that’s when I knew—I own everything in my orgasms.

Absolutely fucking everything, down to the last tremor of ruin.

When I came back to myself, she was still moving, still grinding against me, slick against slick, heat against heat. Her breath had changed—shaky, desperate, unraveling.

“I want to learn to cum like you,” she moaned.

Maybe later. Not now.

I lifted her onto my face, let her split open against my mouth, let her feel what she really needed.

She didn’t need to cum like me.

She just needed to cum.

We took our time finding our breath, rhythm, and senses. She let herself lay spread beside me, but I noticed it was a struggle, a forced ease. I trailed a finger down her side to see how she responded. Her thighs shut on reflex before she relaxed.

“Even relaxing is a performance, isn’t it, Alicia?” I breathed against her skin.

“One step at a time, Hannah,” she whispered. “This is progress.”

I wanted to stay like this, as did she, but we both knew we needed momentum.

“Date me,” she said.

She was asking the wrong girl; I couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, Hannah,” she said, “no one’s taken me to the movies, dined me, tried to cup a feel in inappropriate places.”

Just a girl asking for one single date. To know what the fuzz was all about. I don’t do love, but I know need. And it was such a simple need.

“Do you put out on a first date?” I smiled.

“Only one way to find out,” she said without a hint of amusement.

So, I treated her to a restaurant I couldn’t afford, we went and saw a movie none of us cared for, she let me cup a feel in the darkness, and we walked among the sinners of the Sunset Strip.

I bought her a greasy hotdog from a cart; I stole flowers from the city and kissed her when she didn’t expect me to.

And she put out on her first date.

But all things come to an end. We had one final day in Los Angeles before everything shifted back into something else. I doubt it was a coincidence that it was the last day of the year. She phoned her parents and told them she was staying in the city for one more night. It wasn’t pretty, but it was needed.

And it took effort. She trembled when she got off the phone.

“Not a big deal,” she calmed herself. “It’s not like I ditched them on our New Year celebration.”

I looked at her, fragile and strong, hesitant but determined. Beautiful like the night.

“So,” I wondered, “how do you want to do this? How do we spend our last night of exploring?”

She had already decided. I think she had chosen the moment she stepped into the room.

“We move the bed to the window, we order room service, get naked, and as the night winds down, we just roll with it.”

I grinned.

“Anything goes?”

“Everything,” she nodded.

She didn’t ask to be left tidy; she asked for ruin. She wanted to be taken apart, stripped of composure, shattered beyond recognition. And she gave as good as she took. Every bite, every grind, every bruising press of her body against mine was a demand, a retaliation, a surrender wrapped in hunger.

The fireworks outside our window paled in comparison to what was happening there, in our room. They were noise, empty spectacle. We were the explosion.

We crashed and rebuilt, tore and healed, drowned and surfaced again and again—no rhythm, no structure—just the raw, unrelenting pull of need consuming us whole. She clawed at me, dragged me under, took me deeper than I thought I could go. And I pushed back, pushed into her, pulled her apart, made her feel every second of being truly, utterly fucked.

The taste of myself forced down my throat, leaving me begging for more, her swallowing my fingers in desperate need.

We didn’t stop until our bodies begged us to.

Until we were gaping, shaking, wrecked, and spent, too empty to take more and too full to move. Until we were nothing but breath and sweat, and we were in the aftermath of something that could never be done twice.

Until we were begging for mercy without ever speaking a word.

She spilled herself over me, wrecked, spent, emptied of everything except heat and exhaustion. And then—

Her body gave in completely.

She pissed herself, pissed on me, on our ruined bed, on the aftermath of everything we had just done. Burning hot against my cunt, which answered in its own release.

I moaned into her breath, swallowed by the heat, by the weight of her, by the slow, unbearable flood of it all.

She burned against me.

And I burned beneath her.

Her weight, the heat between us, the slickness of everything we had given and taken— it settled into me, seeped through me, held me there in the wreckage.

And as she drifted off, heavy and spent, a final tremor tore through my ruined body.

Not a climax. Not quite.

Just aftershock. Aftermath. The body still remembered even as the night swallowed us whole.

***

The sun licked at our bodies on the first day of the new year as if telling us our battle wounds would heal. She lay spread and open on top of me, just like I left her. We were wet, soaked, and stinking from everything. The night was still on us, in us, around us.

I needed to pee, but I needed to stay exactly as we were more. And frankly, why not?

I let go.

She stirred against me, soft and slow, still lost in warmth.

“Mmm… did you just pee against me?” she yawned.

She giggled, kissed me, tangled her fingers into my hair. And then—a soft moan, a trickle, heat against heat.

“That it?” I asked.

“No,” she smirked.

And then she flooded us.

I laughed, feeling it seep between us, over us, wrecking the bed all over again.

“Get off me,” I laughed.

She rolled off, still in giggles, still warm, still wrecked in the way only indulgence can leave a person.

I don’t think I’d ever seen her so truly relaxed.

And that was the pity of it. Because she had to return to what was expected. Return to Lí Xuě.

Even as we slid into the shower, I saw composure put its claws in her again. The night was over, as was the indulgence. The girl who flooded me, who asked for ruin, laughed in filth—she was already slipping away.

Showering was about washing, not exploring, not touching.

By the time we stepped out of the bathroom, she was pinned back, hair flawless, dressed to perfection.

She studied the wrecked bed. Smiled at me and winked.

“This goes on my credit card,” she said. “Worth every penny.”

She walked to the window and stared for a while.

“You’d expect us to smell fouler,” she said, adjusted her skirt, brushed past me, and pulled the door open to the world outside.

As we stood outside the hotel, she asked me if I was okay getting to the airport.

I didn’t even know if I was going to the airport. Everything about L.A. had been about getting there. My credit card was nearly maxed; I might have to hook myself back home.

L.A. was never mine to stay in, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t for her anymore, either.

“If I asked you to come with me,” I started.

“I don’t date girls,” she abrupted.

We laughed. Stole one kiss. And I watched her disappear into her world.

I phoned Dad and told him I was stuck. He sighed and told me to get to the airport.

“Miss me?” I whispered.

“Not always,” he chuckled.

I didn’t know what I expected to find in Los Angeles if anything at all. But I had to admit to having found something. I had enjoyed being around Alicia and learning to see her differently. It wasn’t the moments of ruin that lingered; it was understanding what it had taken for her to let us be what we had been.

It was understanding that underneath the surface of expectations, people are fighting to be freed. Perhaps even the daddy-boys struggled. Maybe they struggled more. In their identity, under the expectations.

I realized how lucky I was. No one expected anything from me except me being me. And constantly evolving around that fact.

My phone buzzed. Kelly.

“Happy New Year xox”

I sent her a picture of the LAX terminal.

Dad managed to get me on standby. Shavonne let me know she was fighting a hangover. Lisa wondered when I’d be home. I let her know I was wondering the same thing.

“Coming or leaving?” Kelly wondered.

I’d been cumming for a week straight. It was time to leave California behind. She hadn’t offered much apart from pleasure—orgasms I could have had anywhere. You don’t cum harder in L.A. than you do in Madison. This left me wondering about the romanticization of Paris.

Romance. A less direct route to what we truly desire.

I had learned one thing, though. To truly understand people, you have to understand where they came from, their home, and their expectations.

I laughed a little. How would Alicia react to my home? My family? Everyone fucking everyone?

I also realized that Shavonne, Alicia, and I were building a bond that could potentially stretch a lifetime. Because what was psychology if you didn’t understand the sociology of it? What was chaos if Alicia didn’t know how to pull it all together? I took my ruin and evolved around it. Alicia? She could structure herself back to a different version of herself.

My phone buzzed. I had five minutes to find my gate. I texted Dad to let him know I’d gotten on a flight.

Crammed at the very back of the plane, strangers hurrying home from celebrating the arrival of a new year readied themselves for the dullness of realizing January brings a continuation of everything they knew. One of those lies we have to tell ourselves about the cycle of seasons, years, and life.

Nothing changes unless you push for it.

It was one of those flights on which joining the mile-high club wasn’t an option. No suit-and-tie guy wanted to fuck my brains out, not even high school boys too corrupt. Not that I wanted to, but you always consider your options, right?

I wondered if I’d ever be able to stay in one place, still, and rest, but my mind pulled me into trying to understand the family opposite of me. Four kids between the ages of four and ten, one worse than the other, and parents who had clearly given up communication and only yelled when things got too out of hand. If staying in a place too long made you spit out babies just because, well…that wasn’t for me.

The plane landed on schedule; it was just past ten thirty. And at long last, Dad was waiting for me.

No questions were asked, and there was barely a sigh. Twice, he tried to say something, but his words halted.

“I love you too, Dad,” I said as we sat in the car.

I gave him a blowjob to pass some time, but also because he deserved one. He almost swerved off the road as he came, but that was it. Debts paid, all forgiven—our dysfunction in a small gesture. I let him linger in my mouth before swallowing. I like cum. I think many girls envy that in me.

It was almost three in the morning before we arrived home. I got upstairs, shed my clothes, and crashed onto my bed.

I found some peace in Madison, at least at first. A steady routine of sleeping in, fucking, and just going with the flow.

Lisa worked during the day, as did everyone else. I started flipping through my books, organizing notes, and preparing for the second-semester curriculum.

It wasn’t overwhelming, but I could see how it was more demanding. I could see where others would break and where the deviants had their chance to shine. Was I a deviant? Only to them. More of everything, but instead of pushing me for theories, they now expected me to lay down proof. I knew some of my fellow students wanted me...