Chapter 26 – Get Off Me. - by Writewithoma

We had a rule, technically. The rule was that we were stopping. That we had talked about it seriously, like adults, sitting across from each other with clear eyes and clear heads and agreed that the physical part of things was making everything else harder to manage. That we cared about each other enough to try doing this differently. That we were going to be disciplined about it. We lasted eleven days. To be fair, we lasted eleven days because for most of those eleven days we weren't in the same place. Distance is an excellent enforcer of good intentions. It's proximity that undoes you. He'd called. Said come over, just to hang out, nothing else. I'd said fine. I believed him. I even believed myself. I came over in an outfit that was fully ordinary and not at all chosen with any kind of awareness, which is what I told myself the entire way there. We ate. We played. He cheated leaning close and saying something in my ear that scrambled my focus long enough for him to surge ahead and I retaliated by sitting on his lap mid-game, controller still in hand, pretending I was just getting comfortable. He made a sound that meant he was aware of exactly what I was doing and was choosing to let me think it wasn't working. We watched something after. I was on the couch, he was beside me, the rule present in the room like a third person neither of us was acknowledging. Then he shifted and his hand found the small of my back and I said, without looking at him, "Don't." "I'm not doing anything," he said. "Your hand is doing something." "My hand is just resting." "Your hand has never just rested in its life and you know it." He moved his hand. I looked at the screen. Thirty seconds passed. His hand came back. "I said don't." "I heard you." I turned to look at him. He met my eyes with an expression of complete innocence that would have been more convincing if his thumb wasn't moving in slow circles at my waist. I removed his hand. Put it back on his own knee. Turned back to the screen. Forty seconds. Look I am a person with self control. I have demonstrated self control on many occasions in many areas of my life. I am not without discipline. But then he shifted again and somehow I ended up tucked under his arm, and he was warm and he smelled the way he smelled and eleven days is a very long time actually, and I turned my face up to say something cutting and he kissed me before I got the words out. The rule dissolved approximately there. His hands were everywhere and mine were in his shirt and things were moving fast in the direction we had specifically agreed not to move in, and at some point I surfaced enough to say against his mouth, "We said we weren't doing this." "Mm," he said, not stopping. "We had a rule." "I remember the rule." "So" "So we can re-establish the rule tomorrow," he said, with the calm confidence of someone who had already made his decision and was simply executing it, and I opened my mouth to argue and he did something that made every argument I'd ever constructed in my life completely inaccessible. Later much later, the night fully dark outside, both of us wrecked and horizontal he said, staring at the ceiling: "We broke the rule." "You broke the rule," I said. "I was the victim." He turned his head to look at me. "You were on top." "I was trying to establish dominance." "That's not what that's called." I threw a pillow at him. He caught it. Of course he caught it. Set it aside. Looked back at the ceiling with the expression of a man computing something. "Okay," I said, after a moment. "So we restart. New rule. Starting now." "Starting now," he agreed. "I mean it this time." "I know." "I'm serious." He looked at me. Something in his eyes was warm and slightly amused and trying not to be. "I know you're serious." "So don't" "I won't." "You always say that." "I know." I stared at him. He stared back. The room was quiet. The city outside continued unbothered. "Get off me," I said, which would have been more effective if he wasn't already on his side of the bed. He smiled that slow, devastating smile that started in his eyes. "I'm not even touching you." "Pre-emptively," I said. "Get off me pre-emptively." He laughed then. Real and long and unguarded, and I felt it in my chest the way I felt everything he did immediately, completely, with no defence against it at all. I turned away from him. Pulled the sheet up. Stared at the wall. Behind me, still laughing quietly, he moved close and slid his arm around me from behind. I let him. Obviously I let him. "We're terrible at rules," I said to the wall. "The worst," he agreed, into my hair. "We should try harder." "Probably." "I'm going to try harder." "Okay." "Starting tomorrow." "Sure," he said. In a tone that meant he loved me and didn't believe me for a single second. He was right not to. But that night, in the warmth of him at my back and the quiet of the room and the particular peace that came after, I wasn't thinking about rules or cycles or the things we hadn't fixed yet. I was just there. Fully, helplessly there. And for now just for now that was enough.

Forbidden Love Story

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