Drown #5: everlong, part 2

April 2084 — Stephanie Day and Justin Kim are 24.

*soundtrack: "Everlong" by Foo Fighters

** warnings: NSFW


Stephanie was skeptical of the strange concoction Justin had made for dessert. "Lemon, chocolate sauce, and mint?"

"It’s gonna be good, wait and see."

She didn't know though. "Remember that time in seventh grade when you dared me to drink pickle juice from the jar?"

"Are you saying my ice cream will be as bad as pickle juice?"

"No, I guess it can't be that bad. You first."

"Together," he said.

"Okay."

"On three. One. Two. Three."



"You didn’t like it?"

"It was better than pickle juice," she said.

"Way better!" he said.


He finished before she did, but the ice cream wasn't that bad. He watched her lick her spoon in silence. On his face was a look of curious awe.

"What?" she asked him.

He laughed, but shook his head and didn't say.


He made the ice cream, so she washed the bowls when they were finished.


"You have some chocolate sauce here," she said and wiped the corner of his lip with her thumb, letting her thumb linger there at the corner of his mouth. His lips—it was all she could think about. And maybe now she understood what he was thinking while he watched her with that spoon in her mouth.

It wasn’t a bad kiss. It was too short though. She needed more. She’d been wanting to kiss him for six years and when it finally happened, it lasted eight seconds. She counted them. She bit her lip and sighed.

"I’m sorry," she said.

"Don’t be sorry," he said.


He was right. She wasn't sorry. She kissed his fingers, each of them individually. She kissed his shoulder and inhaled the scent of his shirt, she kissed his bare neck, she kissed his cheek scratchy with evening stubble.

"Steph, I wouldn’t stop you this time."


"I thought you were the sensible one," she teased.

"I’m off duty today."

"Uh oh." She grinned. "We might be in trouble."


"Were you done?" he asked her. "Or did you want to keep going?"

"Hang on, I'm thinking," she said.

"When you decide, I’ll be right here."

"No, I already decided about that. But I need to tell you something."

"Okay, tell me," he said.

This wasn't a heavy confession, although it felt like one. It was actually very simple. "I just want to say, it’s not like with you and Keri. I’m not mad at him. But I feel like he’s getting farther and farther away from me, but you’ve always been right here." She put her hand over his heart. He held it there. "You’ve always been here. Before him, and after, and every minute in between. I loved you first. I’ll love you always."

He didn't stop smiling, didn't look away from her eyes. She lifted her lips to his.


The way they kissed was slow and luxurious. That was exactly what kind of kisser she imagined he was. Not rushed or hasty, but careful and indulgent. He touched her face and held her hand and she felt like her knees might buckle under the weight of so much need.

"Come upstairs with me," she whispered.

He didn't question it, not for a second. She took him upstairs and neither of them had any intentions of stopping.

***

They fell into it deeply and without shame. It was too natural for guilt. Maybe she would feel guilty later. She got the feeling he had no intentions of it.

April turned to May, then May to June. That summer, the girls were healthy and happy and loved, and neither of them remembered anything ever being different. For Justin and Stephanie, it would be the beginning of the happiest and most carefree time either of them had ever known, even though, outside the little bubble of their love, the world around them was slowly slipping into frenzy. Nobody cared about their beautiful, scandalous romance. People were buying bottled water and batteries. People were buying guns and learning how to use them.

They stopped to watch the news sometimes and were taken aback by it, as if asking themselves, "Don’t you realize there’s a war going on? Don’t you realize that if those things come here, we could all die?"

But if we’re all going to die, they thought, why not die just like this? In a perfect bubble of love.


The girls slept well and they muted their passions at night. They were quiet and intense. They stopped caring what other people thought and said about it. Keri’s parents stopped harassing him about not sleeping at his own house anymore.

Everything about him was different for her. The way he made love was different. With Justin, Stephanie found that sex didn't happen with just her body, but her mind and emotions too. He never made her feel ashamed or guilty of anything. She could tell him her secrets and fantasies and kinks, however tame they may be. She never told Jeremiah that she wanted to cover their bodies in baby oil and slide together in the bathtub. She never would have wanted Jeremiah to hold her wrists to the mattress, much less ask for it. She was present with Justin, no need to detach and go anywhere in her mind. They whispered to each other, they kissed when they came together, they were the quietest lovers to ever moan silent breaths at each other's mouths. And their girls slept soundly so they never needed to stop.


Afternoon weekends when Justin wasn't working, they snuck in quickies during the girls' naptime. And if the girls slept long enough, they might even take a nap themselves when they were finished.



He nuzzled his face against her chest and kissed the tiny flat mole above her right nipple. "I’ve always loved this mole," he said.

"How did you even know about that mole before?"

"Freshman year, you used to walk from the bathroom to your bedroom in that little towel. You weren't very careful sometimes."

"I didn’t think you were watching," she said.

"Maybe not as much as I should have been."

"I always hated it."

"I love it, it's perfect," he said. "Everything about you is perfect."


It should have been the sweetest thing she ever heard, yet it only made her sad to hear it now that they were both married to other people. It felt as beautiful as it was devastating. "What took you so long?"

"I don’t know, Steffie. I don’t know how I didn’t know it sooner. I was a stupid kid and I’m sorry. But I know it now."


He kissed her cheek and her nose and her chin. He kissed her until she didn't feel sad anymore.



Then they finished the afternoon delight they'd started before naptime was over.

And just when they thought they couldn't be any more completely satisfied, Stephanie had an idea. "Are you hungry?" she asked him. "We have cookies."

"Do we have milk?"

"We have milk, too," she said.

—

footnotes: family time outtakes // cookies and milk after sex