Rehosting "If you have to ask"

An essay on the importance of dental hygiene

originally posted Jan 17, 2019

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I invited her over for dinner. Cooked up some game. My dad hunts and I used to get a lot of meat from him. Deer tenderloin cooked over red wine. Red kale salad with tomatoes. Potatoes, sauce from the meat. Oven roasted asparagus.

We had been on two dates. She had been studying for the anatomy exam for months. It was, she told me, the hardest part bar none of becoming a medical doctor. Hadn't had much time for socializing.

She seemed hesitant at first, and I was afraid it meant she didn't quite like me or that I was being too aggressive, jumping on her the moment her schedule opened up.

The moment we were done eating, she asked to see my bedroom. She was wearing red lingerie. When we were done, she laughed:

“You don’t know how awkward I felt all day wearing all this.”

The next day she sucked my dick to completion while we were watching a movie. Only one other woman has ever performed oral sex on me as anything but foreplay, but she insisted.

“All you have do to is ask, ever,” she said. “I really like to suck dick.”

Never a bad time. I'm hungry for it constantly. Give me any excuse. Nothing is sacred. Middle of a funeral, tab me on the shoulder? it’s done. Now that you’re my boyfriend, anything goes. Any time, anywhere.

My heart beats arrhythmically due to a benign medical issue. It consistently skips a beat. It’s a sort of 5/4ths rhytm. 1–2–3 1–2, 1–2–3 1–2. When I tell her about it, she pulls out her stethoscope and listens to it for 10 minutes straight, making the same face as she did on my couch.

We never go out again. Not by design, she’s just very busy with her studies. We spend evenings and nights together. When her schedule allows, she sucks my dick.

She stops. Takes it out of her mouth. Scowls.

“It smells like shit,” she says. “Your dick smells like shit.”

She gets up. She’s furious.

“What, do you think I'm stupid? Do you think you can treat me like this?”

Like what, I ask.

“Oh like you don’t know. You fucked her. You fucked her in the ass, and now you’re getting off on having me suck your dick right after.”

Who, I ask.

“Maria, you asshole. The girl that got away.”

But I haven’t seen her in nine years.

“Exactly. Like that’s not exactly what you’re doing. Not washing your dick in nine years? Just to humiliate me like this? Here I am, willing to do anything for you — anything — I will suck your dick any time you want — and you treat me this way? If that’s what you needed to get off, you could have just asked and I probably would have done it.”

She puts her shirt back on and storms out.

Next day at work, I'm killing time. Almost no one in the store, just have to keep half an eye on the customers to make sure no one pockets anything. Great work, good people. I get a lot of time to write, but mostly I don’t.

I hadn't thought about Maria in years. Maybe as much as four or five. I knew her in high school. Long brown curls, a sort of square head. Masculine laughter. Aggressive. Scared of being touched. Picky eater. Single child. Her dad liked me. Big tits. One of the first evenings at the boarding school when we were all still getting to know each other, she kissed me on the neck and took a selfie of her doing it. At the time, she uploaded all the pictures she took to Facebook. I have a copy of it on a hard-drive somewhere. I had sex with some of her friends.

Couple of years after high school, our class had a small reunion. I was one of the only guys who attended. It was hosted by a girl who hadn't liked me very much, and thought I was arrogant. Me and Maria crashed on the couch in their living room — “it’s no trouble, we've been platonic friends forever.”

We had even shared a bed platonically before. When I broke up with my first girlfriend and I was going insane from jealousy and loneliness, she cuddled me like an idiot child one night and made me feel less alone.

Everyone else had left or gone to bed. I went outside and smoked a joint with Maria. Then we went to bed and immediately started kissing.

I'm drunk and horny. She pushes my hand away when I reach for her crotch. We keep groping each other.

“It'll make too much noise, they are sleeping right on the other side of the door,” she says. “We shouldn't be doing this. You told me you thought of me like a sister.“

Her hands makes my dick feel huge. She starts sucking my dick. Sticks it all the way down her throat. I've never felt anything like it. I'm in love. I cum inside her neck. I'm in love. I hold her tight. I want her forever. All those years wasted.

Next day, no one heard anything. Or at least pretended not to. It’s hard to believe.

I take a train home. Maria lives in a different city. I hold her close. I kiss her goodbye. We never talk again.

Around noon, nine years later, I get an e-mail from my girlfriend. She knows I don’t like to use Facebook.

“I think I saw something that wasn't there.”