Seven(3)

She’d known this relationship had an established end-point from the very beginning, and that was the only reason she let herself indulge in it. Owen was not a safe or a sensible choice for a serious relationship, since he was so far out of her league. Falling in love with him would be a huge mistake—she’d end up with nothing but a broken heart—so six months of fun was all she could allow herself.

She had three more weekends left with him, and she wasn’t going to spoil them by getting upset about the fact that their time was ending.

“What’s wrong, love?” he asked, adjusting his hand at the small of her back and guiding her away from the family approaching who was taking up the entire sidewalk.

“Nothing,” she said with a grin, feeling better now that she’d given herself a mental lecture about reality. She’d always been good at giving herself mental lectures. “Just thinking about the magic penis of seven orgasms.”

An elderly man who was walking past them gave a visible start and scandalized stare.

“I say again, if you have any particular complaints about our sex life, I’d prefer for you to state them outright.”

Owen sounded so offended that Amy couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t get all sensitive. You know the sex is fantastic. I’m just saying it’s normal sex. We don’t swing off the balcony or use props and costumes. And I don’t come a zillion times every time you fuck me.”

“True.” His face relaxed visibly and his shoulders became less tense. “A zillion might be an overly ambitious expectation from one fuck. Even with me.”

She choked on another laugh. “Your arrogance knows no bounds. But, seriously, I’m willing to grant your sex-god status, but having seven orgasms at once seems to be stretching the bounds of plausibility.”

The intensity of Owen’s frown surprised her. “Why do you assume it’s so remarkable?”

“Because it is! It’s ridiculous. One or two, sure. Maybe three if it’s from oral. But seven? Uh-uh. There’s no way. Not during one sexual encounter.”

“I don’t believe it’s impossible.”

She rolled her eyes, arguing partly because she believed it was true but mostly because it distracted her from a poignancy that rose up in strength as they entered the little lunch bistro, where they ate lunch at least every other week.

Only a couple more times to have lunch here with Owen. She couldn’t even imagine Saturdays without him.

Shaking the feeling away, she said, “Okay, maybe it’s not impossible for some hypothetical woman who can come at the drop of a hat. But it’s sure as hell impossible for me.”

Owen pulled out the chair for her at their table—he did that sort of thing unconsciously, which was just another thing to make him attractive—and then studied her soberly when he took the chair across from her. “I don’t think it’s impossible for you.”

“You really think you could make me come seven times?”

“I do.”

“In the space of an hour or two?”

“Yes.”

“With your cock, not your mouth?”

The middle-aged woman getting up from the table next to theirs gasped and dropped her wallet.

“Yes. I could.”

Amy shook her head. “No way.”

“I’ll prove it.”

“Good luck.”

“I’m serious.”

“You can be serious until the cows come home. I’m not going to come seven times.”

He’d opened his mouth to reply, but the server came over to take their order, and they lost the thread of the conversation.

Amy assumed it was over. After all, Owen wouldn’t want to take on a challenge he would certainly lose. Before she’d met Owen, she’d never thought she was particularly good at sex, but in the last five months she’d discovered she could be incredibly passionate and enthusiastic in bed. But she was the kind of person who worked hard and took life seriously and never expected silly fantasies to somehow become reality.

Seven orgasms in one go was definitely a silly fantasy.

As they ate lunch, they chatted about work and about the global economic situation and about the movie they’d watched last night and about Plato—a fairly typical conversational pattern for them—and they were just finishing up when she noticed that Wes, one of her partners in the dental practice, was paying for his take-out order at the counter.

She called out to him, and he waved, coming over when he was through in line.

Wes was the same age as Amy—twenty-eight—and he was attractive in a quiet way, with brown hair and glasses. They’d gone through dental school together and even gone out for a couple of months until they’d mutually realized they could never work as a couple. They’d been friends ever since, though, and they’d both joined his father’s practice here in Baltimore when they’d gotten their degrees.