That Early
Morning Desire
to Masturbate
She strokes herself with the light,
delicate touch, deceptively gentle,
giving just enough to make her ache for more.
Just enough to stoke the hot glow low
in her belly, just enough to maintain
the fiction of a man’s legs tangled in hers.
She lies there, still half-asleep. She shifts
just a little, just enough under the twist of
sheets so that her thigh brushes against the
cool outside of the bunched duvet, abandoned
in the night. Its feather-light touch makes her heart race.
The morning sun glows through her closed eyelids
and she’s comfortable here, cocooned in the clean,
scratchy motel sheets. Her cool, clever fingers
blaze a trail along her inner thigh, down to brush
against the back of her knee, and upward, raising
goosebumps in their wake.
As it reaches the top of her thigh, the trail slows,
turns inward, tracing the soft hollow where thigh
and pelvis meet. She parts her legs a little in
an almost-unconscious gesture.
Her heart is racing, and the wash of arousal seeping through her system brings a corresponding surge of adrenaline that threatens to drag her away from her phantoms and into the light of day.
Other thoughts are creeping around the edges of her brain now, and she forces them back, keeping her breathing even, keeping her eyes closed. She needs this. Needs him, if only for a little while.
More awake now, and fighting it every inch of the way, she lets her own hand take over the fading trails of his ghost-touch. His voice is quiet now, just a memory, traces of it hidden in the hum of the air conditioner.
A rumble, making her bones vibrate at just the right frequency, and she trails her own fingers down, across the slight curve of her belly, inside the jut of her hip bone, threading through the curls of her pubic hair, trailing lightly across her suddenly-aching clit.
She strokes herself with the light, delicate touch, deceptively gentle, giving just enough to make her ache for more. Just enough to stoke the hot glow low in her belly, just enough to maintain the fiction of a man’s legs tangled in hers.
Heat builds under her hand, and she arches against the sheets, stroking a little harder. Beneath her closed eyelids that imagined man is touching her everywhere, caressing the curve of her breast, cool mouth fixing on one hardened nipple, and right at this moment, it’s not her own hands but his.
I want you so much, he whispers. It sends a jolt of heat
through her. Slick moisture gathers under her fingers,
and she abandons the slow tease and lets herself go.
Stroking harder, her breath comes in ragged gasps now. She squeezes her eyes shut against the soft glow spreading through the room.
Arching her head back against the pillow, she whispers his name as she comes. And from somewhere, reaching back out of the dream, his hand brushes against her cheek, and comes away wet.
A little later, she wakes fully into the new morning, the room filled with sunlight and already warm with the promise of a summer day to come.
Her legs are tangled up in the sheets, warm now from her own body heat, and the pillow is damp from her own sweat.