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The first time it happened, Samira had spent a week obsessing. Should she shave? Did she need cuter lingerie? Jack had never minded before, but this was new. This was a deliberate decision to have sex—she’d gone so far as to put it both on her phone and the calendar tacked up on the fridge, chickening out at the last minute and labeling it: Dinner at Jack’s. That was putting it nicely. She was on the chopping block, spread out on a plate for him to eat.
Though they’d agreed on driving to his place together, Samira changed her mind at the last minute and showered at home, shivering in anticipation as she smoothed lotion over her skin, adjusted the straps of the cherry-red set she’d bought after worrying that Jack wouldn’t think she was serious if she showed up in her hospital-ready sports bra and boy shorts. Carefully, she dabbed vanilla oil into her ankles, behind her ears.
This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She’d never done this thing before for a man—never so much as shaved her legs before a third date. But Jack? For the past two weeks—since they’d found the one night their schedules didn’t overlap—he’d been murmuring in her ear every way he’d take her apart. Let me take care of you, sweetheart, he’d said this morning at shift change. His fingers curled around the hem of her top, thumb running the line of her hip. Let me help you.
Now, he smiled at her at the door, pressing her into the cabinets to kiss her, sour beer lingering on his tongue. His hair was damp, the curls shorter than normal: he’d gotten a hair cut today. Cute. He was dressed casual, out of his hospital clothes.
“You ate?”
Samira nodded. “Dal and rice.” Satiating, but not so filling that she’d be uncomfortable. “Made some yesterday.”
“Good.” Jack led her to his room. She dropped her bag onto the bench at the foot of his bed, peeling her socks off and rolling them up neatly. He watched her as she arranged everything, mouth tilted up in approval. His room was the same as it always was: anticlimactic, almost, to think this was it.
She straightened, surreptitiously tugging the hem of her shirt down so the neckline exposed a thin red strap. Jack caught it instantly, eyes going dark. “Do you want me to take my clothes off?”
“No,” he said. “Bed, if you would.”
After a second, Samira sat on the bed, back straight, the backs of her knees touching the cool sheets. Two months into their pact for mutual stress relief; they’d never had time to wait, to move smoothly from step to step. By this time last week he had her stretched open on three fingers, tongue rolling against her clit, his other hand keeping her down so she couldn’t buck up and ruin the game. They hadn’t talked about this: his tendency to give her instructions, off-handed, like he was just speaking aloud. Telling the Samira in his head to open up, relax, take it.
They hadn’t talked about her tendency to listen, either, like this was the natural continuation from the hospital to the bedroom. A ten blade turning into pass the lube, baby? and use your hands too, doesn’t have to be your mouth doing all the work. In a strange way, Samira found it interesting. She’d never given men control over her. Couldn’t trust they would do it right. Jack had proven himself, time and time again. After a long shift, it was easy to fall into the rhythm he set. No matter what she felt good. Was it so bad, anyway, to want to take a break?
She fisted the sheets in her palms, feeling the smooth fabric crinkle underneath. “How do you want me?”
Jack tilted his head. “Stay there for a sec.”
He moved to the bedside table, pulling out a thin stretch of black ribbon. Her breath hitched. When he saw her watching his hands, he smiled. He was silent as he wrapped the ribbon around her head, taking care that the sealed end rested atop her eyelashes, enough pressure that she couldn’t open her eyes without jostling the blindfold. Tight, the knot insistent against her head. Her breaths had gone shallow, air whispering through her teeth.
She heard him step back. “Jack?”
“Just grabbing a drink,” he said. His footsteps thudded, limp-step. She strained to hear the snap of a beer can being cracked open. Instead, she heard the front door open, and then snick closed, the air conditioner whirring quietly.
“Mother fucker,” Samira hissed, and tore the blindfold off. The door to the bedroom hung open, enough light from the living room passing through to show that Jack had, indeed, left.
For a while she did sit there, waiting. Jack always kept his apartment cold; she left her sweatpants on, her shirt slipping down her shoulders every few minutes. It wasn’t worth it to strip and freeze in the lacy scraps of her lingerie. After it was clear he wasn’t coming back anytime soon, she picked through his desk.
There were a few printouts he’d marked with pink highlighter—S copy, scrawled in the margins—and she took the opportunity to flip through them, mentally noting the titles so she could catch him off guard with it. He liked doing that, he’d told her. Teaching her things. Made him feel needed. Well, she’d show him.
When the doorknob rattled, she froze. Quickly, she tucked everything back into place and grabbed the loop of ribbon, adjusting it over her eyes just as she heard Jack chuckle at the door.
“Someone didn’t listen.”
Samira made a face. The ribbon almost slipped off with the motion; a hand came to fix it in place. She shivered at the warmth, calluses rough on her skin. With her eyes closed, she was hypersensitive to touch, blood rushing in her ears. “Were you growing the wheat for your beer yourself?”
“I didn’t lie,” Jack said. “I went to the bar and had a drink. One beer.” He paused for a second, something sly in his voice. “I ran into Robby.”
She stiffened. “Did you.”
“Yeah.” He tilted her chin up, thumbing her mouth. “He asked me about you. If I was treating you right.”
“Well, are you?”
Three weeks back Robby had caught them walking out of a supply room. His face had twisted, confusion and disapproval, and—worst of all—he hadn’t looked at her once as he hissed to Jack about all the ways they could screw things up. Somehow, Jack had calmed him down. But Robby hadn’t been acting the same since. He’d managed to keep her off of every trauma case he could, piling admin nonsense on her like she didn’t have enough paperwork to go through as chief resident.
“I don’t know.” His voice sounded distant, far-away. Maybe it was the blindfold. That it fucked up all her other senses, too. He pushed the neck of her shirt down, snapping her bra strap against her shoulder. “You tell me.”
She arched into his touch, baring her neck so he could trace a finger up her skin, resting at her pulsing carotid. “What did you say to him?”
Jack laughed, slow and mean. “What did you want me to say?”
“He can fuck off,” Samira said. She yelped as the hand on her neck pushed her down, pinning her against the bed. They hadn’t talked about this, but they’d decided on a word to stop: catheter. For a second it danced on her tongue. But she’d wanted this. And so did he.
“I’m going to take your clothes off, baby.” Before she could nod, his hands pulled her shirt up. Her stomach bared, red fabric crisscrossing against her waist up to her breasts. Fuck, she heard. Jesus. “Go on. Tell me what you’d say to him.”
“He’s a hypocrite,” as he nudged her up, tugging her shirt off her head, the blindfold catching at the neck for a second before his hand covered her eyes. She inhaled deep, the sharp antiseptic smell of him, watch catching her on the cheek as he redid the ribbon. As he got a hand under her sweatpants, “He’s acting as though we didn’t all know about Heather.”
A snort above her. His hands, teasing at the band of her pants. She lifted her hips obligingly, shivering as the cold air hit her skin. “Robby’s a self-serving idiot who can’t let anyone around him be happy. Did you know, this morning, he pushed me out of the trauma room? I haven’t used my shears in a week. I’ve been on Chairs and scheduling. Why am I even chief resident if he doesn’t trust me?”
“He trusts you,” Jack said. His hands swept across her, squeezing her waist, lingering at the curve of her breast. “Just give him some time to adjust. Let him settle.”
“I just want to prove it to him,” Samira said, a moan forced out of her as he pushed her bra up, blunt-cut nails digging into her breasts, just the right side of painful. “I just want him to know it’s not ‘cause of you that I’m—that I’m a good doctor. That I’m ready.”
“Because you want him to fuck you.”
Samira froze. She could hear Jack’s low laugh, his touch unending. Trailing up to unclasp her bra, a hand cupping her panties. She was soaked already, the thin fabric hiding nothing. He hissed above her, a low throaty sound. “I—”
“It’s okay,” Jack soothed. “Didn’t we discuss this last time? It’s okay, Samira. Normal, in fact, to want—”
That kind of attention, he’d said last week. All nice like it hadn’t made her guts twist, fear bleeding through every inch of her mind; somehow she’d been reduced to every other stupid girl crushing on her teacher. That wasn’t it, though. She didn’t want Robby’s love. His approval was enough. The knowledge she’d finally cleared whatever bar he’d set for her four years back, the standard he kept raising so she wouldn’t meet it.
“No, I—I don’t want that. I was just—” his thumb pressed against her, dragging up the hot line of her cunt. She threw her head back, panting breaths falling hot on her mouth. “I was wondering what Heather saw in him. Why she ever—”
He pulled her panties down, the straps tangling around her thighs, held in place. “You said it yourself. Robby’s attractive.”
Samira made a derisive sound. “Isn't this supposed to be about you?”
“No,” Jack said, and tugged her panties all the way off, the sound of elastic snapping. “It’s about you. What you want. What makes you feel good.”
“Robby doesn’t make me feel good.”
“Really?” He thumbed at her clit, two fingers curved down teasingly. “Is that why you’re so wet?”
She flushed. Her hips jerked up. “I’m not—”
“Do you need it harder?”
Samira dug her hands into the bedspread. Her chest heaved, muscles trembling. Jack was right. She was worked up. “Yeah,” she said after a beat, grinding against the meat of his palm. “Can you—?”
He pushed in two fingers, curving them up deep as he pressed the heel of his thumb against her clit, rocking slowly. The bed dipped as he moved atop her, rough hospital scrubs against her skin. She arched up, seeking pressure, touch. He didn’t give her an inch, just moved his fingers slow and steady in her. Unbidden, the memory flashed, the blindfold robbing her of sight, the opportunity to think of anything but Robby’s cruel mouth. Do better, slow-mo.
“Like that?” Jack asked. “Or do you want—”
His fingers thrust in sharp, so deep she could feel it in her stomach, her cunt fluttering around the stretch. With his other hand, he pushed her wrists together, knocking her legs wide with his knees. That’s what she had told him last week. That she just wanted to stop thinking. To let good things happen to her. Now, her fingers flexed, useless and pinned in place, thighs shaking as heat built up in her.
“Come on,” Jack said. “Can you come like this? …Or do you need me to talk about Robby again?”
“No,” Samira said, the sound tearing in her throat. “No, don’t—”
“See? I’m taking care of you. Just like he said.” He let go of her wrists to thumb at her clit, a little clumsy; must have been his non dominant hand. “Fuck, look at you, Samira. Just like he wanted.”
“Stop—talking about him—”
“He’s my best friend,” Jack said, twisting his fingers in her cruelly. “Can’t help it.”
“I want your mouth,” she said, arching away like it would stop the pleasure building in her, like it would somehow banish the repeating loop in her head of Robby catching them, the way he’d glanced at her rumpled top. He’d told her to fix her bra. So he knew, then, what she looked like normally. “Can you just—”
“What, and ruin the fun?”
“I want,” she said, the rest of her sentence floating into air. Her muscles went tight, her entire body a tense curl, waiting for permission to snap. Just a little more—
“Harder?”
She nodded blindly, toes curling. Then—he pulled away, her skin screaming for touch in his absence. “Jack!”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, come on,” and he nudged her to turn, pulling her hips up just enough that he could reach under her to circle her clit, the heavy weight of his cock pressing against her.
They’d stopped using condoms a month in. She had an IUD; they’d traded results. It didn’t feel any different to her, but she always loved the hitch in a man’s breath when they pushed in, the way she could make them feel. Nothing between them.
“Please,” Samira begged. “Come on, come on—”
Slowly, he pushed the tip in her, the angle making him feel so much bigger than normal. She was just turned-on, too close to the edge. That was all. It felt as though it took him a year to bottom out, huge hands pressing into her thighs, dragging her back onto him. He bent over her, the metal of his chain cold on her back. She jerked. She hadn’t realized Jack was wearing his dog tags.
“Okay?” he breathed into her ear. Suddenly so much closer than he’d been all night. She nodded, whining moans falling off her tongue. Before Jack she always thought she had been faking the noises she made in bed. It was like she couldn’t control herself anymore, her body a foreign instrument that he knew how to play.
The headboard thumped against the wall with his thrusts, her whole body rocking in time. He kept losing his place on her clit until she grabbed his hand and kept it right where she needed, dimly aware that he’d removed his ring. When’d he—
Her voice twisted high as he hiked her hips up, rolling into her so deep sparks burst across her eyes.
“Come on,” Jack said, urgent. “Baby, come on, you’re so close. Do it for me. Let me make you feel better. Come on, sweetheart,” and she buried her wail into a pillow, a hot wave of pleasure washing over her, dragging her into the depths.
Her legs gave out. It was only his hands holding her up as he fucked her through it, grip bruising. She was trembling, muscles useless. His thrusts sped up, shallower, faster, utilitarian.
“You want—?” Samira didn’t give him the chance to finish before she was mumbling yes, please, please. Jack’s breath stuttered.
“Fuck,” he said quietly. Funny: even after spending the day out of the hospital, his voice was still rough from barking orders.
“It’s okay, you can just,” she said, slowly rocking back to meet him, sickening hot pleasure running through her at the way his grip tightened on her ass. “I don’t mind.”
He got his fingers on her clit again, working her through another orgasm with his military efficiency, her cunt clenching weakly at him. Thighs damp from her wetness. She wasn’t sure when he came, only that he said, Fuck, and Samira. Jack was right. He was such close friends with Robby that he even sounded like him.
She more felt Robby’s presence than saw him enter the room. It was as though the air shifted, turning cold. Samira jerked up, stylus dangling from her fingers. Her iPad buzzed accusatorially with the HIPAA compliance forms she needed to submit by Sunday.
Robby dragged a hand over his face. He’d looked worse these past few days, talking to her even less. She hadn’t stepped out of her tiny office in a week. “Mohan,” he said.
“Something I can help you with?”
He didn’t look at her. “I need you on the floor.”
“But the—”
“I’ll take care of the paperwork.” He lowered his hand, caught her eye for a second. He was right-handed, she realized. “Go do what you do best.”
Samira’s mouth twitched with an involuntary smile. Forgiven at last, somehow. She grabbed her stethoscope off her desk, ducking past Robby to the door. “See you out there?”
“Yeah,” he said. “See you there.”