THE CLOTHES THAT THEY WERE WEARING,
THE THINGS THAT THEY DID
Michael Kimball
She walked into the bathroom and started taking off her clothes. I closed the door of the medicine cabinet and watched her in the mirror. She pulled her shirt off over her head and she stepped out of her sandals. She pushed her blue jeans down over her hips and then put one hand on my shoulder so that she didn’t fall down. She lifted one foot up and pulled one leg of her blue jeans off, then did the same thing with her other hand and leg.
She pulled the shower curtain back, turned the shower on, and turned back to see if I was watching her, which I was. She turned around so that I could see even more of her and she watched me watching her.
Her: It makes me feel good when you look at me. But I was also hoping that maybe you were going to take your clothes off too.
I took off all my clothes in a hurry and threw them into the pile of her clothes on the bathroom floor. I pulled the shower curtain back, stepped over the edge of the bathtub, and she followed me into the shower. But we didn’t even pull the shower curtain closed behind us before we both jumped back out of the bathtub. The water was so cold. Neither one of us had tested the water first.
We stood there on the bathroom rug, naked and shivering and wet. We were hugging each other to stay warm. She was slippery, but I rubbed the goose bumps off the tops of her arms.
We pulled away from each other and I reached my hand back into the shower to test the temperature of the water. It was warm enough, but I turned the hot water up anyway, and we got back in. We stood facing each other under the showerhead and we let the hot water fall down our bodies. It felt like everything was slowing down around us. It felt like the hot water was holding us together.
We stepped a little back from each other and passed the soap back and forth. We took turns lathering each other up—front and arms, neck and back. I kept touching her skin until all of the soap had rinsed off of her body and her skin was warm and slick.
I picked a bottle of shampoo up from the edge of the bathtub and squeezed some of it into her hands. She rubbed her hands together and then rubbed the shampoo into my hair. She tilted my head back under the showerhead and rinsed the shampoo out of my hair—her fingers pushing back through my hair, the shampoo washing down my back. I lost myself in that—the hot water pouring off me, her hands touching all over me, my body loosening up.
She turned the shower off and pulled the shower curtain back. I reached over to the towel rack and then I dried her off with my bath towel—her face and her hair, her arms and her shoulders, her front and her back, her hips and her ass, down her one leg and up her other leg, between her legs.
She stepped out of the bathtub and walked out of the bathroom. She didn’t look back at me, but I knew that I was supposed to follow her.
The towel was wet, but I dried myself off with it too, and then threw it over the dowel for the shower curtain. I went looking for her and found her lying naked on the bed—her wet hair fanned out above her on the pillow, one of her legs bent out to the side, her arms reaching up and out for me.
I climbed into the bed with her and I lay down on my side along her body. I touched her face lightly with my fingers, outlined her cheekbones and her nose. I felt the thickness of her lips, the curve of her chin, and traced my fingers back along her jaw line to her neck. I drew my fingers down the length of her long neck and she leaned her neck and her head into my touch. I slipped my fingers into that little pool of soft skin where her shoulder and her collarbone met.
Her: Sometimes I think I just needed somebody to touch me.
She placed her hand on the inside of my thigh and made small movements with her fingers, but she didn’t move her hand any farther up. I traced her collarbone toward the middle of her chest and stopped in that soft spot at the base of her throat. I fingered that knob of bone there and then moved across her chest along her other collarbone. I moved my hand over the round of her shoulder and down her arm to her hand. I spread her fingers apart and outlined her fingers with one of my fingers.
Me: Sometimes I think I just needed somebody to touch.
I moved from her hand to her hip and then down one of her legs. I ran my hand over the top of her foot and touched my finger between all of her toes. I traced along the outline of her high arch and then around the knob of bone at her ankle.
I moved from her one foot to her other foot and then back up her other leg, along her shinbone and then around the hollows at the bottom of her kneecap. I moved up her leg along the inner side of her thigh and she opened her legs up a little bit so that I could touch more of her.
I traced around the edge of her pubic hair and she pushed her hips up a little against my hand. She dug her fingernails into my leg, but I kept going up her body. My fingers spread out over her flat stomach, which started to tremble under my touch. I circled her belly button and then moved up my hand up to her breasts. I traced my finger along the outside of one breast and then under it. I cupped the side of her one breast and thumbed the center of it until it rose up and she let out a little sigh.
I moved back down her body over her flat stomach and I ran my fingers though her pubic hair and down between her legs. I could feel the heat coming off her and I rested the palm of my hand on her pubic bone, a fingertip at the edge of her lips. I could feel how wet she was, how she had started to open up, and she started to push her hips up against my hand.
I traced a slow finger around her opening, soft at first and then pressing a little harder. She pushed back. She pushed back even harder and started to move her hips against my hand in a kind of swivel. I pushed one finger and then another finger into her and she squeezed her legs together around my hand.
I moved my fingers as much as I could and she kept squeezing my hand between her legs and my fingers inside her. She squeezed my leg and then reached her hand farther over, between my legs, and squeezed me too.
I lay on my side and I watched her face. She looked so beautiful when she was feeling so much pleasure.
She moved her hips faster and squeezed her legs harder and I keep moving my fingers inside her and my hand against her. She squeezed me so hard with her hand that it hurt, but I kind of liked it and I didn’t want her to stop. Her breathing got harder and then she turned her face and put her mouth against my chest. She screamed her muffled screams into my chest and then she went quiet and a little limp.
I liked feeling her hot breath against my chest and I liked feeling her body let go. I let her catch her breath. I liked just listening to her breathe.
She relaxed her legs and I eased my fingers out of her. She rested her head on my chest and she relaxed the hand that had been squeezing me. She traced one finger along the side and then around the tip of it. She wrapped her hand around me again and squeezed again. We just lay there like that for a while with her pulling on me.
She sat up on her one elbow, switched hands, and started to pull on me harder. She let go of me and fell back onto her back. She spread her legs some more, touched herself, and then brought her fingers up to my mouth.
She was sweet and tart and I wanted to push myself inside her. She pushed her hand under my back and tried to pull me over on top of her. I put my knees between her knees and rolled a condom on. She reached out and pulled me into her. I went down on my elbows, but kept my weight up off her body. She pulled me down on top of her and pulled my ear to her mouth.
Her: I want to feel your weight on top of me.
She was so warm and so soft and she made me feel so good that this part didn’t last very long. It was over before I wanted it to be, but we lay there like that and I let myself go soft inside her.
After a while, I reached down between us and held on to the condom before I pulled myself out of her. I didn’t want it to slip off.
I sat back on my knees, stood up, and then got out of the bed. I pulled the condom off as I walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. I dropped it into the trash, walked back to the bedroom, and stood in the doorway. She was still lying on her back in the bed and I liked that she hadn’t covered herself up. It looked like she was already asleep, but she opened her eyes up when I got back into bed with her.
Her: I just want to lie here with you and for us to be quiet.
I pulled the sheet and the blanket up over us. I pulled my hand under the covers and laid it next to her hip. It felt reassuring just to feel her body and her warmth there.
Neither one of us moved and I listened to her breathe. It wasn’t long before her breath got heavier and I knew that she was already sleeping. I listened to the evenness of it, how soothing it was, and then I must have fallen asleep too.