21 Questions: Chapter Eight (Role Play Edition)

 

 

 

You pace back and forth, your legs propelling you like turbines as they practically swerve across the carpet.

 

You can’t stay still, restless with barely-contained excitement for tomorrow. A billion thoughts race through your mind, all surrounding the newest major development in your life, the most pressing of which you’re currently focused on:

 

What the hell you’re going to wear.

 

You stand in front of your tall mirror, the single item in your bedroom that looks like you spent a hundred times more on it than you actually did. You examine your latest outfit with a critical eye, frowning at the way the faded blue cardigan currently tenting your body washes you out. You shrug it off you with an impatient groan, tossing it with the other rejected items on your bed.

 

You dash back to your wardrobe for the millionth time, ignoring the fact that it looks more like a slit in the wall than an actual closet. You scour your admittedly limited collection, rummaging through all the formal wear you own, picking out one item after the next, but nothing seems satisfactory.

 

You’re a frugal person, both by choice and necessity so you don’t spend a lot on clothes—the stack of Benjamins you have to shell out for rent each month, notwithstanding—but you hope that what you have can tide you over for your first week and is at least “prim and proper” enough to not look out of place in a firm as elite as Earth Capital.

 

It’s going to be your first official day on the job and you want to give off a good impression.

 

No.

 

A great one.

 

After a few more minutes of playing hide and seek with timeworn fabrics, you realize you have to go shopping for brand new office attire—much sooner than later. Unlike a lot of Californian companies, Earth Cap is traditionally corporate through and through, and their clothing policy reflects that. While you have a thing for casual wear and office environments that don’t impose strict dress codes, successfully completing this internship is your number one priority right now—and that means fitting in.

 

And, speaking of fitting in, a part of you really feels like this is your chance to do just that; to finally have a place where you belong. Around like-minded comrades who share the same fundamental thoughts and sentiments.

 

To have…a home.

 

A thing that has evaded you your entire life.

 

For a while, you genuinely thought you’d found that with Peace by Peace. But, over the years, you came to realize that, as much as you like it there, things just never…clicked. Not really. Not in the way they should.

 

You know for a fact that if you hadn’t felt the way you did about Adam, you would’ve left a long time ago. And even that was unrequited.

 

Earth Capital might actually change all that.

 

You settle on a cream, long-sleeved blouse and a charcoal-grey pencil skirt, pairing off the outfit with some simple black pumps.

 

Conservative is always best, you decide, much to your chagrin only because you know it’s what your parents constantly preach. Though, you’re sure they’d be riotously insistent on your skirt reaching your ankles and your heels only going as high as a horizontal sheet of paper.

 

But, then again, if it were up to them, you wouldn’t even be majoring in environmental science, let alone interning at Earth Cap. And you sure as fuck wouldn’t be living with Michaela. Or be using words like ‘fuck’.

 

You shove unwelcome thoughts of your human makers from your mind before they have a chance to ruin your mood.

 

You smile to yourself, growing giddy with excitement all over again. With your outfit picked and all your details for tomorrow thoroughly—almost obsessively—organized, you take a quick, hot shower, hoping it’ll help mellow you out before you turn in for the night. But, somehow, all it does is heighten your impatience.

 

You roam the apartment aimlessly, hoping to shed some of the thrill and anticipation, but it feels like you’re walking in circles—in more ways than one.

 

So, as usual, you resort to the one thing you know will help sedate your runaway brain.

 

You grab your e-reader and settle into bed, snuggling into your pillow as you hold it up to your face.

 

It switches on, its display lighting up as the page you bookmarked last night appears before you.

 

A sex scene.

 

One you’ve read five times already.

 

One you’re about to read again.

 

Your eyes swallow up the words in front of them, eagerly consuming one after the other even as you urge yourself to slow down.

 

No need to rush, a low, still voice in your head whispers. Take your time. Savor it.

 

Before you know it, you’re rolling on your back, palming the tablet with a single hand as the other moves to your pajama bottoms.

 

Your gaze never leaves the screen, earnestly locked on to the text as it plays out in your head. Slowly, your fingers slide beneath your waist band, waiting only a beat before dipping below the film of your panties…and are met with moistening flesh.

 

Your hand goes static as you adjust to the contrast of cool fingertips against a heated core. But it’s not long before it starts to move of its own volition, lightly stroking your mound. Up. Down. Back and forth. Slowly. Almost…teasing. As if you’re afraid to touch yourself—which wasn’t far from the truth not too long ago.

 

You keep reading, your skin faintly abuzz, turning flush as more seconds tick by. Impulsively, your fingers dip further, their contact growing insistent, more intentional; rubbing on your folds and spreading the wet heat gathered between them over your clit. You grip the tablet harder, clutching it almost violently as they move faster, pushing against your opening. The tip of the index pokes through ever so slightly before dragging itself back up to the small, sensitive bud at your center.

 

A strained gasp tumbles from your throat when you push down on it; a sharp, ticklish sensation piercing you, fanning into diffused warmth, amplified each time you repeat the action. You lick at your lips, the spontaneous, involuntary gesture spurring you on, obligating you to move faster. Harder. Until you’re practically molding your flesh.

 

Your hips jerk involuntarily, your breath scattering, morphing into hushed gasps. You pinch your bottom lip between your teeth, subduing the sound of your voice— something you’re still not comfortable with.

 

Steadily, a familiar tension fills your body; a delicious, culminating pressure. Rising. And rising. An—

 

Impulsively, your fingers part from your flesh, like repelling magnets. Abrupt. Instantaneous.

 

You blink against a sudden, familiar heaviness.

 

Fuck. Not again.

 

Once more, you find yourself in an awkward, embarrassing position.

 

Literally.

 

You…can’t finish.

 

You’ve never been able to.

 

Not once.

 

You hate this feeling; this debilitating guilt that devotedly rears its ugly head each and every time you do this.

 

You know you shouldn’t be. That masturbating is healthy. Good for you. An empowering act for every sexually-conscious person. The ultimate, physical demonstration of self-love.

 

But a lifetime of indoctrination among extreme, overzealous Baptists has taught you the complete opposite and consequently ensured nothing but negative, shameful sentiments when you so much as attempt to imagine what sex is like. Even when you’re alone. Even with nary a soul to watch your “transgression”.

 

But God is watching.

 

He’s always watching.

 

All the time.

 

Those words have been hammered into your brain over and over again.

 

You’re the furthest thing from a shrink, but even a five-year-old can tell this is a one-hundred-percent psychological issue:

 

You’re internally at war with yourself over what you want and what you’ve been taught you want.

 

Pretty much the story of most people’s lives. Yours just happens to be one of the more offbeat cases. It certainly feels that way.

 

And you hate that you still can’t overcome it. That you can’t form a solution even though you know what the problem is.

 

It took you until your junior year to work up the courage to even try it. And, once you’d finally managed to touch yourself, you couldn’t finish what you’d started. Not even when you employed liquid courage for assistance. 

 

You toss your e-reader to the side with a frustrated huff, a long, somewhat defeatist sigh succeeding it.

 

For all your ponderings and visualizations of sex, you have to wonder how in the world you plan on actually having any if you can’t even manage a single, elementary orgasm on your own.

 

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