Bent at the Knee

Hands betray the words we desperately try to swallow. Hands are emotional. The way a man touches you reveals much if you pay attention; what kind of lover he is, how he loves. His hands were beautiful and tragic. His fingers wept at his sides and swept across everything he touched with a whimsical disillusionment, as I would come to learn, just like the rest of him. 

“What do you want from me?” His was an accusation. 

His voice was so powerfully commanding it bent my will to speak the truth. “I want you. I don’t know. Can’t we just see what happens?” 

He avoided my eyes. His attention fixed on an inconsequential object, but likely somewhere far beyond that. 

“You have a boyfriend.” 

“You said you were okay with this.” 

He combed his long, elegant fingers through his hair, his nervous tick. 

“Figure out what you want from me before you resent me.” 

How could I have known that was the moment? The moment where had we both been honest, we could have had happiness. How could I have known it was a farce? Honesty and happiness are reserved for those who have never had a broken heart. 

“Figure out what you want from me!” I was mocking, playful. 

“I have.” He was not. 

The point of no return is only recognized once it has been passed. Time is linear. Love is not. 

~~~

“Don’t move.” 

His voice is dripping with heat, just like I am. 

I’ve been here many times before. On his bed, under his eyes, the scene of our clandestine affairs. I’d trembled many times from the anticipation of forbidden fruit. Now, I tremble with a touch of intimidation, a sense that the fruit has begun to rot. 

His fingertips touch my ankles, then slowly, sensually slide up my thighs. He stops, careful not to go too high. He is testing. How much do I want him? He wants to see; he needs to see. I fear showing too much. This—us—was meant to be temporary, a salve for my seven-year-itch. A shiny toy; a novel distraction; a vacation I return home from, fulfilled and satiated. 

I want to scream. I am addicted, and he can’t know. I want to latch onto his hips, dig my nails into the contoured lines of his back, bury my face in his chest and disappear inside him. How insidious it feels not to share this passionate pain with the architect of my desire. I am hiding in plain sight. 

Steeled blue eyes lock with mine. It is only a look, a passing apparition, but I am exposed. He knows. I am his. My knees weep apart. I submit. 

I never want this to end, but I know he doesn’t want this. Me. He doesn’t want me. He wants my sex, hot and throbbing, when it’s in front of him. And then, it is out of sight, out of mind. He is cruel. And yet, I am crueler. I straddle the line between two worlds. I set the rules. And still I am powerless. Minimized to the basest of instincts, I am a slave to the swell of my sex. A sensation climbs me, rib by rib, reverberating in the hollow of my chest. I have crossed that line. 

His mouth, hot and hungry, slowly sucks my nipple. My hand shoots out to touch him. He grabs my wrist, restraining me. His lips lift off my nipple, just barely. 

“I said don’t move.” His voice like silk. 

I feel the heat of his breath against my breast. My body quivers to touch him. “Please. I need—” I don’t have the chance to choke out the rest. 

Decisively, he pins my arms above my head, fastening them in place. 

“I said no.” His eyes scan my splayed body.

I want him to eat me. All of me. 

Lust is not patient or selfless like love. Lust is the sultry sister of love, the sly devil that inflames your loins and impersonates love in all ways, but this—it does not care for happiness. Lust is the vengeful lover that wants you to curl and writhe in her absence. Attraction is beautiful, fatally so. 

Firm hands grip my thighs and pry them apart. My sex is glistening. His tongue licks me, long and slow. I cannot think; I cannot focus. I am splitting the seams of my carefully composed humanity. 

That fiendish tongue teases me, circling my clit, greedily sucking the taste of me. I cry out, my hips lifting to meet his tongue. His hands cup my ass, spreading my cheeks as he does. He breathes the essence of me, sweet and savage. Relentlessly he sucks me; he licks me, edging me closer and closer. I am vibrating with violent electricity. My body cannot contain this need. 

I need it all. And it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I need more. No matter how much I receive, I am empty. I’m overwhelmed with need; the need to be loved; the need to be penetrated, the need to be connected; to need to be fucked. But it’s not enough; it’s never enough. What’s wrong with me? 

“I need to taste you.” Without fear, I restrain the words because expressing them would end us. 

My body ragdolls onto the mattress. He stands, his hunched shoulders straightening. From the foot of the bed, he regards me like a predator would his prey. 

Wordlessly, he slides his pants down his muscular thighs. His cock, full and hard, bounces from the confines of his waistband. He is beautiful. Tall and sinewy. His skin weathered with tattoos and time, patterns of color concealing scars and past crimes. He fists his cock; it twitches in his grasp. I can smell him from here. My mouth salivates. 

“Is this what you want?” He asks. 

“Yes.” I hiss. 

“Where do you want it?” 

“My mouth.” Without hesitation. 

He beckons me with his free hand. His calm composure mocking me. I feel like an animal as I slink off the bed, crawling on all fours towards his towering figure. I love how he minimizes me.

Eye-level with his cock, I lap at the drop of cum pooling at the tip. I did this to him. I made his cock thick and angry. The thought sends unbearable heat between my legs. 

I look up at him. His eyes glow in the dim light—translucent. I need him to see me. “Feed me your cock.” 

He stifles a noise. My eyes twinkle in delight at the sound. He is breaking. Yes, show me your humanity. Show me you feel this too. Trapped between our bodies is the only honesty we have. 

He presses his fingers into my mouth. I hungrily suck them. With moist fingers, he fists my hair. The skin of my eyes stretches back from the pressure. He draws me closer to his cock. This is my favorite part of the game we play, thinly veiled affection behind arousal. 

I wrap my mouth around his soft flesh. I moan. This cock belongs to me. I lick up the soft underside of him. I think of all the women whose mouths sucked his cock before me. My heart aches in earnestness. I work my mouth up and down, possessively. I want it all. 

I hear his breathing pick up. I open my throat and swallow him to the hilt, saliva dripping from the corners of my mouth. His moan is delicious. I could drink him forever. I want to suck his cock better than any woman before me; I want him to think of me, only me, even when another woman has his cock in her mouth. If you can’t love me, desire me more than anyone else. It has to be me. 

I cup his balls, gently massaging. He twitches in my mouth. He’s close. I feel his balls constricting under my practiced fingertips. I aggressively work his length. 

Abruptly, he pulls me off by the fist in my hair. 

“That’s enough.” 

I look up at him from behind a stray lock, my lips pouting. I want more. He knows it, which is why he is withholding. This is his game; he is calculating. He has weaponized his sex. 

I lick at the tip, long and dripping, one last time. His eyes glaze over with a feral edge. 

One day, far removed from now, I will learn to pity his aloofness. One day, far removed from now, I will realize he was only mirroring me. This depth of attraction is a gift—a gift he would never understand because I made the mistake of not choosing him.

He picks me up, effortlessly hooking his forearms under my thighs. In one fell swoop, he presses my back against the textured wall. And he pushes his cock up into me, hard. My sex greedily opens for him. He belongs inside me. This feels like home. 

One day, he will understand my empty suffering; of lust and ego arresting me to obligation; of trauma and fear crippling me. Or perhaps, he does and resents me nonetheless. 

Make this go away. Fuck me. Please. Dear god. Like that—just like that. There is no aphrodisiac more powerful than belonging, ownership. I would let you own me; mark me; tame me; burn me—anything. If only you’d make me yours.

And he’ll never know. Don’t leave. I need this. I need you. I need something, and right now, it’s this—and you. I don’t know where the lie is. I can’t detach this experience from you. I need your part in this. Please play it. 

He crushes his lips against mine. I breathe him in. He moans, I mewl. 

Desire is the albatross that would destroy all things. 

He aggressively thrusts his hips against mine. He has something to prove; he is staking his claim. He is punishing me. Yes, please, use me, hurt me, anything! His balls slap against my ass. The sound of skin slapping skin provokes something in me. Does my punishment heal you or hurt you? You deserve better than me; a liar; a coward. 

I am broken. 

He mistakes the wrenched sounds from my throat for pleasure when they were the twisted echoes of agony. I am pantomiming passion. I study every detail of his hard body and face because I know I can’t keep it. Something that will leave becomes beautiful and precious. I need to remember every detail; I need to immortalize it in memory. 

Let me feel you, smell you, taste you. 

Read me. I can’t speak the words! 

I love you; the sentiment ghosts my parted lips, never fully formed, dissipating into the familiar serenade of unhinged animalism. 

I am bent at the knees.

Forgive me. I am yours.

Photo by Polinach