His cock.
I swallow hard, my eyes going wide at the sight of it. He’s massive, even limp. I have to force my jaw not to drop. I’ve never seen a man’s genitals before, but I had no idea they were this big. Or maybe it’s just him. I feel my face growing flushed and I delicately hoist myself up to sit on the counter, feeling a little weak again. Somewhere in the back of my muddled mind, I wonder what it would feel like to touch it. To brush my fingertips along the head of his shaft, to feel it harden beneath my light machinations.
I inwardly shake myself of these thoughts. Get yourself together, Liv! Romantic hero-savior or not, he’s still my teacher. And I am his student. There’s got to be at least ten years’ age difference between us. Though, looking at his body now, it’s impossible to reason that he wouldn’t be every bit as limber and powerful as a man my own age. Probably more so.
But I can’t let myself think like that. Not now. What has gotten into me?
I convince myself it’s just the trauma of what’s happened to me which is clouding my judgement, but I’m lying to myself. I thought he was hot the second I set eyes on him, and was curious about him ever since, even as I tried to push it from my mind. Now that I’m alone with him, though, I’m greedy for more.
My eyes begin to catch other details of Max’s physique — scars. I squint, straining to catalogue them as he rinses off his body. There are shiny, jagged lines marring his skin, some on his arms and legs, and one particularly nasty one on his upper chest, almost to his collarbone. I wonder what could have caused him such pain. What kind of life has he led? As a gymnast, I’ve had my own share of awful injuries, and there are battle scars I bear, as well. But nothing to this extent. Who hurt him? Who made him this way? One thing is for sure: he didn’t get those scars as a mere gymnastics instructor in Paris.
The water cuts off and Max steps out of the shower stall. For a glorious split second I take in his full, glistening frame before he wraps a towel around his body. He shakes his head vigorously to loosen the excess water from his hair, almost like a fluffy dog. The gesture is so cute and out of character it draws an unbidden smile to my face.
“How did you sleep?” he asks simply, roughly combing back the hair from his face with deft fingers. It takes me a moment to rip myself out of the trancelike state I’m in, intrigued by every movement this beautiful, mysterious man makes.
“Just fine,” I lie. The truth is, I still dreamed of dark, dank places and cruelly handsome faces last night. But every time I awoke with a pained cry, I was lulled back to sleep by the comforting warmth of the man lying next to me.
“I apologize for the indecency,” he remarks, but there’s no hint of apology in his voice. I wonder if he’s only saying this out of obligation, because he doesn’t want to tread on my boundaries. But I’m relieved to hear his light, even tone. It means he’s not upset at me for barging in at him and staring at him like a horny school girl. Which, in fairness, is kind of what I feel like, so I don’t want his apologies. In my mind, there is nothing to apologize for. I needed a guardian to stay close. I asked him to come to bed with me.
He was only doing as I requested.
He was only protecting me. Again.
“It’s nothing,” I assure him, trying to strike a balance between dismissing his apology and not sounding too eager. In truth, I’d repeat my actions again, and even though he’s my instructor, I think he did the perfectly decent thing.
The strangest thing, though, that I don’t know how to deal with is my budding attraction to him. Or is it fully bloomed now? I’ve never really found myself attracted to anyone sexually before — not on this level. I’ve had silly, fleeting crushes in the past. I’ve even danced with boys at school formals. But nothing has ever stricken me so sharply as the proximity of Max’s strong, powerful body to mine.
And I know what those captors wanted to do to me. I bet they’d have even fetched a higher price on my body if they knew I was a virgin. The documentary I watched said that untouched girls were always more highly prized, and that was precisely why I kept it to myself.
So maybe it’s partly that fear bubbling over in me. I nearly had my virginity forced from me, and now I’m waking up to real, adult desires as a messed up way to deal with that. Or maybe it’s just one of those near death things where suddenly I have a new appreciation for life and experiencing all the things I never got to yet.
And sex is definitely one of those experiences.
I find myself longing to be nearer to him, constantly. Even now, as I sit perched on the bathroom counter, it’s difficult for me not to stare with desire. I can’t believe the urges coming over me. I decide to just chalk it up to my recent trauma and leave the moral questioning for another time.