Allergies

Henry turned over almost as soon as the lights were out. He was too warm under the covers, but he made no move to push them off. They probably didn’t help anything. But they provided an illusion of shieldedness. His left hand ran along Vi’s hip to her bare thighs, then dipped down between them. Her back was turned to him, lying on her side, but her legs were splayed, and his hand easily found purchase between them. Unlike him, she was dressed for the thick comforter: a small tank top and thin pair of cotton panties. He’d made the mistake of growing up sleeping in sweats and long-sleeved shirts, not quite comfortable in less, and now he sweated at Vi’s side.

She sweated, too, panties sticking to her vulva. Her climber’s core flexed and her hips rolled, butt nudging closer to Henry.

At the foot of the bed, Jeremy cleared his throat. Not in response to anything, just something he did often. He suffered constant congestion, and he wasn’t quite asleep yet. Hence the blanket, and also hence Vi’s eagerness. 

From the first time they’d fucked, quietly yet insistently beneath a dorm room blanket at eighteen, it had been apparent that the proximity of others was a massive turn-on for her. In the years since—through two breakups and a lot of vague nights together—Henry had come to understand that it was just that: proximity. They didn’t have to be people she wanted to fuck. She didn’t want them joining in. She didn’t care if they were aware or not. She just wanted them to be there. No other factor mattered to her, nothing added or detracted. As long as they didn’t participate, and they were nearby, she flowed.

Tonight, her old high school friend Jeremy, visiting for the holidays, served, sniffling from the sleeping bag. Henry was less agnostic than Vi, and hoped Jeremy wouldn’t pick up on what they were doing. He blamed himself for this hope; it was a weak shyness. Vi had tried to get through to him, and he’d encouraged her attempts. Why did he care so much about privacy? About people not knowing he was fucking?

He pushed the almost ethereal fabric aside and felt Vi’s slick labia. She squirmed, reached behind her, grabbed his butt, pulled him closer. As he dipped a finger into her, his erection made contact with her ass through the fabric of his pajamas. He leaned in and brushed her ear with his lips.

“How far do you want to go?”

It was a whisper he needed Jeremy to not hear, but he had to ask. He and Vi were friends, nothing more and sometimes even less. They had no agreement, no arrangement. They’d tried “friends with benefits” on for size and almost immediately discarded it. Right now he was just someone who was crashing at her place for the night because he was in the area. The sleeping bag was occupied, so here Henry was, flush with Vi in her twin bed, one finger already inside her. She wasn’t objecting, but that wasn’t enthusiastic consent, and the lines were often too blurry with their history.

“Don’t make me say it,” she murmured, and Henry pulled back, carefully replacing her underwear and adjusting his erection before rolling onto his back.

He didn’t have more to say with Jeremy in earshot. They’d had this conversation too many times as is. He wanted more communication, clearer boundaries, better-defined roles. She hated talking to him about these things—probably because their serious conversations had a tendency to end poorly—and wanted an easy dick. And it would be so easy, given her inordinate wetness, to be that dick, to push down his sweats and slide between her legs. But he couldn’t. Too many guys were creeps or predators. She’d suffered too much for her peculiar views of sex. He would do nothing more without making absolutely sure that it was what she wanted.

Sure, he’d fingered her without asking, but that was almost a polite greeting for them. The line in the sand lay beyond that, and he wouldn’t cross it.

Vi let out a huff, pushed her sodden panties off her butt, and grabbed at Henry’s hand, all without turning to face him. He evaded capture, escaping her grasp once and then keeping both hands out of her reach. Finally her hand settled on his crotch, clumsily feeling his cock through his bottoms.

“What’s your problem?” she asked, voice somewhere between bored and annoyed, not whispering.

Instantly, Henry knew he would lose this contest. She didn’t care what Jeremy heard them discuss. She didn’t care if she drew Jeremy’s attention to Henry’s hard-on, to the rummaging beneath the covers.

“Nothing,” he said clearly. “Just getting comfortable.”

He rolled back over, spooning Vi, hand quickly closing over her mouth. She made a muffled noise but didn’t struggle. Breathing heat into her ear, he tried a line with which he wasn’t entirely happy.

“I think I can consent to whatever you want to do, as long as you keep quiet. I’ll be still and you can guide me where you want.”

This satisfied Vi, and she nodded before nibbling at the underside of Henry’s middle finger. He slid it into her mouth, running it along her teeth and gums, wrestling with her tongue. She sucked it powerfully, thirstily. After a moment, he retrieved it, trailing her saliva down her chin and sternum, between her breasts, and then over the rough fabric of her tank top and through her thatchy pubic hair, before finally settling between her legs at her clit. Her left hand, still on his cock, squeezed like a vise as he gave her her first relief. Vi’s right hand snaked out from under her body and pressed his finger hard against her.

The first time he’d fingered Vi—the first time he’d fingered any woman—, he’d been worried about being too rough. She had reassured him, insisting that she needed massive pressure to get off. In the meantime, he’d had partners who never talked to him again solely on the basis of how rudely he’d stimulated their clits, but it remained what she liked. He ground hard against her clit, understanding the command of her hand on his, part of him worrying that the slippery sound of her saliva and juices mixing would alert Jeremy to their antics, the other part dying to plunge his aching cock into her pussy, sounds be damned.

Vi grew wetter by the second, panting lightly and heaving until she tensed tellingly in Henry’s arms. Then the dam truly broke. He held her down to limit the swishing sound of limbs flailing against blanket in orgasmic bliss, feeling the bed dampen beneath him, letting go only when she gave her second nod of the night.

When Vi had recovered somewhat, Henry reached for the nightstand and grabbed her cellphone. He entered her screen lock password and opened her notes app.

“You should let Jeremy fuck you” he typed, then passed it to Vi.

She didn’t dignify that with a typed reply, choosing instead to glare at him in the dim moonlight visible through cracks in her shades. Henry fished to retrieve the phone, and returned to typing.

“I know you’re not done after one.”

He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t know why: was it an itch he wanted scratched? For her to be the sluttiest imaginable, for her pussy to be as easy as she hoped to find cocks? Teasing her about fucking other men was just a natural thing for Henry, from the first time he’d asked her about her ex’s cock while balls deep in her. She always demurred. Always insisted she only wanted him, a behavior so consistent that he almost believed it despite their long history together: a history riddled with cheating and lies.

Before Henry could pass the phone back to Vi, Jeremy stirred, unzipping the sleeping bag and rising, a thick shadow against the far wall. Despite himself, Henry’s heart rate sped up at the thought that maybe Jeremy knew what was going on, was in on everything, was about to climb into the bed. Of course, the guy just shuffled off to the bathroom. Thirty seconds passed. A minute passed. When it became clear that Jeremy was taking his time, Vi spoke.

“Fuck me.”

“What about Jeremy?”

“Whatever. Fuck me.”

Henry wanted to. He realized his cock was already out, Vi’s hand moving up and down its length under the covers. Her naked pussy was inches away. He wanted it so badly. Still, he hesitated.

“Let me get a condom.”

“Fuck condoms,” she hissed.

“With all due respect, I don’t know who you’re fucking, Vi. We should be responsible.”

She slapped his cock, then turned to straddled him, holding his arms down against the bed, one square in the center of the wet spot she’d made. She was incredibly strong. “Don’t talk to me about responsibility, Henry. How long have we been doing this? We make it work.”

“Do we?” he asked, exulting internally at the feel of her labia dragging on the head of his cock. He was almost dizzy with the heat beneath the cover, and her cunt was hottest of all, intoxicating. “Is this what working looks like?”

“I’m happy,” she snarled. “What’s the problem?”

“Safety—”

“Shut up.” Vi glared at him as she lowered herself onto him, her vagina widening to accommodate his girth.

This, too, was a conversation they’d had dozens of times, a conversation that like so many others consistently ended poorly. Vi didn’t like condoms. She’d experienced more than one tear, and worrying about them tearing turned her off, locked her down. She’d explained on so many occasions that she’d rather be unsafe and enjoy it than freak out about trying to be safe. Henry couldn’t stop interrogating this preference, just as he couldn’t stop fucking her. She felt so good raw.

Besides, as Vi pointed out smugly, her mons pushing against Henry’s intestines, “you consented.”

Some part of his brain objected to this formulation, but it was a distant part. He held her tight, arms crossed around her back, her tank top against his shirt, her butt undulating as she rode him with one hand pressed between their crotches, doubtless working her clit. 

Henry knew he would last a while, longer than the time they had while Jeremy used the bathroom. He didn’t have the best endurance overall. He’d spent himself inside women within a few minutes on countless occasions, all excitement and thrill quickly escaping into a condom. But when he fucked Vi, when he fucked Vi bareback, things were different. Was it anxiety? Was it immorality? Something deep in his psyche acted as a block, and he could pump her for an hour without cumming.

The toilet flushed and the bathroom door opened, and that set Vi off. She clamped down on Henry’s cock, bit his neck, fought herself to stay still as her second orgasm crashed through her. The sudden pressure surprised Henry, and in an instant he, too, was at the edge. Despite his dim view of the pull-out method, Henry struggled for control and maintained himself, not willing to ejaculate inside her vagina.

As Jeremy shuffled back into the room, Vi slipped off of Henry and rolled onto her side, this time facing him. She had a dumb grin on her face, and her eyes sparkled in the filtered moonlight. One finger lazily traced the curve of Henry’s erection, then flicked it.

“Missed your chance,” she mouthed.

“Your mouth,” Henry mouthed back.

Vi giggled—giggled!, absolutely mortifying Henry—and then nabbed her phone and typed a note.

“You can jack off in the bathroom, or fuck Jeremy, I’m good.”

Henry would regret it later, but he reached for Vi’s head, aiming to palm it and direct it downward. Even as his arm moved he felt scummy. She wiggled free, eyes still twinkling, and stuck her tongue out. She hated blowjobs, and kept no secret about the fact. She shoved her phone in his face, the illuminated text too close to his eyes to read, but the point was well-made.

He grimaced and made a low bridge, sliding his pajama bottoms back up and stashing his well-lubricated cock. It screamed for release, and he pushed the covers back to make his way to the bathroom. As he did, Vi’s naked thighs and belly became exposed to the dim light, and desire resurged in Henry. It should have been so easy, so pleasurable to emit his seed deep in that juncture. Vi wouldn’t have minded.

Henry noticed something else, though, as he stood: Jeremy was wide awake, staring up at the ceiling. Their eyes met in the gloom.

“Can’t sleep?” Henry asked softly.

“You know how it is with my allergies,” said Jeremy, voice raspy.

In the bathroom, Henry ejaculated into a wad of toilet paper, then flushed it. He peed for good measure and washed his hands thoroughly, enjoying how quickly Vi’s faucet warmed. The hot stream of water reassured him somewhat. After these episodes with Vi were over, there was always a small hollowness. What was he doing with his life, he wondered, frittering away his nights in the uncomfortably narrow bed of an ex, having ambiguous sex of questionable quality?

He dried his hands and returned to bed. Jeremy’s eyes were closed. So were Vi’s. The night sky beyond the shades had darkened somewhat, and he found his own eyelids drooping as he crawled beneath the covers. Vi’s back was turned to him, and he spooned her, nuzzling her neck through her curly brown hair. His left arm draped over her shoulder, then traveled down her dozing form. Slowly, tenderly, he wedged his hand between her legs. She was still naked from the belly button down, and he found her vulva without difficulty, still wet, still inviting. As his middle finger slipped back inside her, she purred and thrust her butt against his deflated penis.

“Good night,” he tried to whisper.

“Good night,” replied Jeremy from the foot of the bed, between loud swallowing sounds.