How Do You Make Something Like Love?

May 29, three days later. My place.

Ella Sue’s in her room, talking on the phone with Sean Corolla. The two of them have been talking almost non-stop since that day at the beach. Ella Sue told me last night that they’re “very into each other but not exclusive,” which is a good thing, considering that we were in bed together at the time.

Strangely enough, setting up Ella Sue with Sean seems to have been the thing to tip her score over the edge, and she now sits at 100 points with me on the Affection Multiplier. That revelation may or may not have been how we ended up in bed last night.

That’s also about all the good news that I have. I sit on our couch in our living room, staring blankly at the television screen, turning over my invitation to the Playboy Party tonight, when the doorbell rings.

We’re not expecting anyone.

I walk up to the front door and take a look through the peephole. It’s Tiffany Najbreit, dressed undercover in an oversized grey hoodie and dark sunglasses. There’s a battered Prius parked by the side of the road that I didn’t know she owned, but I guess that’s kind of the point of the vehicle.

“How are you holding up?” I ask as I open up the door.

“Hey Claude,” she says, slipping inside. “Is this a bad time? I’m feeling… I don’t know, a bit…”

“Yes! Exactly! And then when she cheated on him with the other guy??”

Ella Sue’s voice rings out from her room, interrupting Tiffany mid-sentence. She looks off at the direction of Ella Sue’s door.

“Let’s head into my room,” I suggest. “It’s fairly sound-proofed when the door’s shut.”

A few seconds later, we’re sitting on my bed, the door closed shut, Ella Sue’s voice hardly audible.

“Tomorrow’s going to be a hard day,” I say quietly, taking her hand into mine.

“What I want… I don’t want to be thinking about him tomorrow. I’d like to be able to pretend that it’s somebody else. Somebody like you,” she says, holding my hand very tightly.

“That’s right,” I murmur. From my spot next to her, I wrap my arms around her, hugging her tight. “It’ll be just like I’m there tomorrow. You’ll be a brave little actress for an hour, and then it will all be over. We can take a warm, hot bath together afterwards. I just had one of those—you know how relaxing it can be? It’s great…”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me,” she says, shaking her head. “I know what’s going to happen.”

There’s a moment of long silence between us.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Those two words aren’t enough to capture the immensity of the failure that I feel inside, so I say more. “I tried to stop this from happening. I thought my plan would work. We got so close… Hanna Maria agreed, we had the whole thing lined up, and then… Well, if there’s anything I can do now…”

I shake my head, frustrated, angered, despondent.

“Thanks for trying,” Tiffany says, giving me a tight smile. It means a lot, that she’s trying so hard to remain strong through this, not lashing out at me. “You’ve got your own problems to worry about. Your deadline with Dr. Kee is coming up soon, isn’t it?”

“I’m working on that. With any luck, the Playboy Party tonight will do the trick,” I say. “But if there’s anything I can do, just let me know, because…”

This time, I’m cut off by a ferocious kiss from Tiffany. She grips my shirt tightly, her mouth all over mine, aggressive kisses like she’s trying to eat me, the tiny points of her teeth digging into my lip, my face, my neck, her breath sweet and hot on my skin.

“You can make love to me,” she says. “Help me forget about tomorrow. Give me something to hold on to tomorrow.”

“That I can do,” I say, going with the moment, and I practically tear off her hoodie, revealing the faded t-shirt she wears beneath; that goes too a second later, alongside her pants and her panties and every other article of clothing she has on.

After I’m nude too, she practically jumps me, her mouth finding mine, a hand of hers stroking my cock, coaxing it into hardness with her magic touch. I fall onto my back, my cock standing up in the air, while she rubs her pussy against my length, her wetness so tempting to thrust into, but I hold back, knowing this is her moment.

She takes things slowly, rocking against me as my tip just barely enters her, the warmth enticing, and I close my eyes, hissing in satisfaction as she, gyrating her hips in large circles downwards, sinks lower and lower down on me, until before I know it, my entirety is inside of her. We start slow, the gentle motions of her body gradually transitioning into a kind of sex I’m more familiar with.

She rides me cowgirl, fucking herself on me, her eyes closed shut, losing herself in the pleasure.

“Oh fuck, Markus,” she moans quietly as she sinks down on me again, “oh fuck, oh fuck…”

She rides me slowly, taking my length in drawn out motions, like a sailboat bobbing up and down with the passing tides, her breathing slow and steady. I hold her hands tight, steadying her, feeling her heat against me, her weight so much easier to support now that my body isn’t trying to destroy itself.

I start to understand what she means by ‘make love’ now. She is passionate with the soft sighs that escape her lips, her hips interlocking with mine for brief moments of perfect union, our bodies joined in something higher, light and goodness seeming to flow from that point where I am in her, and I feel myself carried away with her, swept along an unexpected tide of emotion.

She climaxes silently, her body shuddering over mine, legs quivering, mouth open in a wide ‘O’, her eyes still closed as she looks up at the light in the ceiling, back arched ever-so-slightly, her pussy so tight around me that I feel like I could cum right there and then, but something keeps me from going over the edge.

Seconds later, she opens her eyes, and she leans down, pressing her cheek to mine.

“Thank you,” she whispers. "I love you."

“Anything for you,” I whisper back, kissing her on the lips, feeling her arms wrap around me as we make out, I’m still inside her, that good warmth so total.

“You should cum too,” she whispers into my ear.

“I would like that very much—” I begin saying, when a loud voice from outside interrupts me.

“Did I hear Tiffany’s voice earlier, is she here?”

Ella Sue barges into the room and her eyes widen very, very much as she sees me naked and fucking Tiffany Najbreit before her very eyes.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry I just wanted to meet you and say hi and I thought it would be a surprise like when I met Sean but I couldn’t wait and I should have knocked and…”

I’m dying inside, Tiffany must be so embarrassed, this was supposed to be a moment between the two of us, she’s dealing with so much and now Ella Sue’s intruded, and I struggle to find the right words, my heart sinking as I realise that I might have ruined any chance of the two of them ever being friendly.

Then, I actually look over at Tiffany.