A Beginner's Guide to Gold Digging: Chapter 18

A Beginner's Guide to Boat Stuff

Lily

I’d said it. I’d admitted it. I was a bisexual woman, and I had a wicked hot boyfriend, and he was being honest with me and he wasn’t ashamed to be seen with me! Olivia always had been, and it felt like that was true of most of the people I dated, but Cris… Oh, Cris. 

We’d made brunch after we got back, then went for a swim, then he’d carried me to his bed and fucked my brains out again. I was laying there under his sheets, my legs jelly and my back sore and my every cell saturated with delicious afterglow. 

Life was good. 

He stood in the doorway, stark naked and with that beautiful (brain, why are you… Wait, no, I’m allowed to think that. I’m literally dating him) BEAUTIFUL smile painting his face. I was allowed to look. I was allowed to gawk. I was allowed to… To be attracted to him. To like what I saw and always want more. 

“God, you look so fucking good in my bed,” he said, raking his hands through his hair. “And on my cock. And especially when it’s both at once.”

I buried my face in his pillow while I giggled, drinking in the smell of our lovemaking. “Dgnhksdf.”

He chuckled, then sat on the bed and started rubbing my shoulders. His hands were rough; not overly so, but enough to make it clear he knew what he was doing. A bit soft as well, but not too soft. Just right. Goldilocks conditions. I moaned, and he said, “What’s that?”

“I said ‘don’t you get me horny again.’ We’ve already banged four times in twenty-four hours, and I’m worried one of us is gonna pull a muscle if we keep at it,” I returned. 

He responded by grabbing me by the shoulders and turning me over onto my back. And just like that, I was horny again. Something about him looming over me, holding me down, manhandling me, being rough-

The dreams echoed in my mind, alongside several months of intrusive thoughts. The shame slashed at me, jagged and icy and destructive. I could feel it taking the strength from me each second. Sunset trickled in through the window, the warm, orange-gold dusklight bathing us both in its lovely rays. It helped a bit with the agony, but not as much as I would have liked. 

Cris took one hand off my shoulder and put it on my cheek, still planking above me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing-”

“Angel,” Cris cut me off, “We’re being honest with each other. Remember?”

“I’m making a face, aren’t I?”

“Little bit, yeah,” he said, kissing my forehead and then rolling off of me. He laid next to me and stroked my hair, each finger handling my curls with care and… And… Delicacy. “Look… I don’t want to push you too hard, but at the same time… I gotta ask, does this have anything to do with those dreams you’re embarrassed to tell me about?”

“It’s less embarrassment and more… Shame.”

“About?”

I curled my knees against my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. 

“Hoh boy,” Cris breathed. He kept fingering my curls while he pressed a kiss to my neck. “Well, I have good news for you.”

“What?” I whispered. 

“You’re talking to a devout Catholic. Few people understand shame and guilt the way we do. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“You know I’m Catholic too, right? Italian family and all that.”

“When was the last time you went to church?” Cris asked. 

“Uh… Hmm… Okay, fair point,” I replied. “But I have the basic framework. If I’m to give Confession, it shouldn’t be out in the open like this.”

“Lily, it’s literally just us here,” Cris said. 

“Yeah, but what if your dad shows up? Or one of your sisters? Or Rose and Julia?”

He paused a moment, turning me to face him again, which both helped and also really really really didn’t. “Okay. In that case, let’s go where we’ll be completely alone. Just us. And God, too, but mostly just us.”

I crinkled my brow. “What did you have in mind?”

***

A man in a tight t-shirt pushing a sailboat out onto the water by himself was not something I would have thought did it for me, but damn, seeing Cris and his muscles pushing the small sloop over the sand from its home in the garage until the wooden bow met water was certainly something. His muscles bulged and he was groaning and sweating when he did it, then raised the mast and sails and stood atop the deck extending his hand to me as his chest heaved up and down. 

A kaleidoscope of butterflies flapped their wings inside me as I took his hand. I sat on the deck and drank in the sights and scents, the majesty of the Atlantic as the sun was finishing its descent into the night sky. A full moon was pushing through the veil, an endless canopy of stars beginning to appear behind it. Cris fiddled with the rudder to get us out a few feet as he raised the sail and let the wind carry us forward into the water. The shore wasn’t too far off when we dropped anchor, but it was still a nice feeling: the ocean below us, black and blue and stretching out seemingly forever. The night sky above us, an infinite canvas of possibility. And this beautiful man on the boat with me, sitting on the seat opposite me, squeezing my hand. 

“Talk to me, angel,” Cris said, thumbing my palm. 

“Shouldn’t I be laying down on a couch for this?” I said, not meeting his eyes. 

“I’m not your therapist, Lily. And I’m sure as shit not a priest,” Cris said. “I’m your boyfriend. And I’m here to listen. Whatever it is you’re ashamed to tell me, I promise, nobody will know it but us.”

Ice coagulated inside my veins, and part of me wanted to jump overboard and swim to Sicily. But this thing would still be inside my head no matter where I went. And so would my feelings for Cris. “So,” I started, “That night you came over, slept on my floor after I met your family? You said that was the night you started to figure out that I was into you.”

“Yeah?”

I breathed in a deep breath of ocean-air. Good for the lungs and soul, it was. “That night, I had this dream, where you and I were intimate.”

“Okay,” Cris said, clearly pleased to hear it. 

“But, you… In the dream, you forced me.”

Cris blinked. He opened his mouth. 

I cut him off before he could speak: “Specifically, you tied me to your bed with ropes, used them to spread my legs apart, and, uh… Then you forced me. And the whole time, I was saying how this wasn’t right, how it wasn’t what I supposed to be, and you were saying that it’s just what I am, and that maybe I wasn’t really a lesbian after all.”

He blinked again, mouth still hanging open. But he didn’t let go of my hand. 

“And when I woke up, I tried to write it off as a nightmare, tried to convince myself I was just getting hit with some comp-het, but every time I was around you I kept feeling so right and so happy and so free and so fucking alive and it freaked me out. And I tried so hard to bury it because it didn’t feel like I was allowed to be that kind of girl, but the dreams just kept happening, and kept getting more and more… Intense.” Beneath us, the boat swayed with the shifting of the ocean. I gulped, squeezing my eyes shut. Oh God, he was gonna hate me now. He was gonna take the ring off my finger and chuck it in the ocean. He was gonna be horrified and offended that I would ever think he would do something like that, even in my most twisted and terrible and immoral dreams. “Pretty messed up, right?”

His hand found my cheek, his thumb sliding over my lips. “Angel. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not disgusting, you just have a kink. Everyone has them.”

“And mine is apparently about being violated.”

Gently, he whispered, “Yeah, you have a… I think it’s called a CNC kink?”

“What’s that?”

“Consensual non-consent,” Cris said. “It’s actually pretty common among women.”

“It’s gross, though! It’s horrible. It’s not-”

“Not what you’re supposed to be?” Cris smiled gently. “Lily, if it’s a safe way for you to let yourself feel your attraction to me, maybe it’s not a bad thing, then? I mean, it’s just a fetish. You don’t actually want to be-”

“God, no!” I cut him off.

“Okay,” he said, pressing our foreheads together, keeping me steady with one hand on my cheek and another on my thigh. “So it’s just a kink. I’ll admit, I don’t entirely get it, but if it’s something that makes you feel good, then I’m okay with it.”

“You can’t possibly mean that-”

“I’m done lying to you,” Cris said. “I’m done filtering what I really think around you. And I’m fine with this. I told you, if it’s you, I’m into it. It’s that cut-and-dry for me. Besides, while I’ve never tried something like it before, I’ve seen it at kink dungeons.”

“You’ve been to kink dungeons?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Of course I have. You’re surprised by this?” 

“... No, not really.”

“So if your kink is part of what helped you realize you were into me, if it’s part of what brought us together, then I’m onboard. Is it something you’d wanna explore more?”

“Just… Just like that? I tell you about this weird, immoral deviancy I have-”

“Lily,” he said in a warning tone. 

“Sorry. I tell you about this apparently completely natural and in no way horrifying fetish I have, and you’re just… Gonna help me indulge it?”

“I mean, yeah? We’re dating. That’s what couples do for each other. At least, I think it is. Did none of your partners ever-”

“A few of them asked, but I just told them I’m vanilla and they could run the show,” I said with a tiny smile. “I never really thought about it. I… It’s like everything about my sexuality is behind this brick wall in the back of my brain and I never tried to tear it down because I was afraid of what would be on the other side. Androphilia, for instance. Oh God, what even am I?”

“A bi girl with a few kinks and a boyfriend who’s more than happy to satisfy them for her,” Cris said, kissing me gently on the lips. “And don’t you dare say that’s disgusting- that’s the woman I love you’re talking about.”

I kissed him back. “Thank you.”

“How do you feel?”

“Lighter,” I whispered. “Safer.”

“Less ashamed?”

“A little bit.”

“Good,” he kissed me once more. 

“What about you? Do you have any… Any kinks?”

“I get off on satisfying women,” Cris said.

“Does that have anything to do with your whole ‘can’t finish unless she does first’ thing?”

“I think so?” Cris said, leaning against the mast. I scooted over and sat in his lap, put his arms around me so that his fingers interlocked over my stomach. 

“How long has that been a thing?”

“Long as I can remember,” Cris said. “Uh, not to be too graphic-”

“Cris, we are so far past that threshold it’s not even in the same time zone as us.”

“Good point. So, uh, I lost my virginity at fifteen-”

“Damn. Good for you.”

“Heh. Thanks. But, uh, here’s the thing. It was, uh, at a Halloween party my sophomore year. This girl who’s name I don’t even remember anymore just kinda pulls me off the dance floor and drags me upstairs and throws me onto her bed. And girls paying any attention to me at all is a brand new experience at this point, so I’m wicked nervous and I… I just ask what I’m supposed to do. And then she figured out I was a virgin so she started laughing at me-”

“Oh my God, what a bitch!”

“Oh, she wasn’t that bad. I mean, I basically had to assure her that I knew how sex worked but I didn’t know where to start, so she kinda… Walked me through eating her out. And I wound up jizzing in my pants while I was doing it.”

“Oh. Oh my.”

“Yeah, it was super embarrassing. I enjoyed it, but it was still kinda embarrassing. So, she tells her friends downstairs about it-”

“The fuck?!”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t that bad-”

“Cris, that’s wicked messed up!”
“Why?”

“A lady isn’t supposed to kiss and tell!”

“Well, she never kissed me, so-”

“She didn’t even- she laughed at you, got you to give her oral, let you cum in your pants, and then told all her friends about it without even giving you a kiss? Did you eat pussy before you had your first kiss?”

“Yeah,” Cris said. Then he blinked, tilted his head to the side, and added, “I guess that does sound kinda weird when you say it like that.”

“Yes, dear. Yes.”

“There was an upside though!”

I groaned. “What was the upside?”

“I got to eat pussy, and then her friends all asked me to eat them out too, and suddenly I was the guy in our school who did that when most of the others were still too bothered by the smell to go down on their girls-”

“Cowards,” I sneered. 

“Agreed. Pussy is delicious.”

“I know, right?” I grinned. Then we fist-bumped. Oh, this was definitely a relationship dynamic I could get used to. 

“So anyway, after I think four different girls, one of them finally let me put it in them, but while we were banging, I kept almost finishing but then not. And it wasn’t until she came that I was able to. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, mostly just figured it was because none of those girls were the one I was actually into-”

“You mean Julia?”

“Yes, Julia,” Cris said. “But then… Stuff happened and I went to college and it was still a thing for me so I just kinda focused on making sure my partners were getting off. Which… Yeah, it helped me get laid a lot, to be honest, but most of the girls left after they got off.”

“What, they just climbed off your dick, gave you a high five, and left?”

“No, of course. We shook hands.”

“Pffftttt. Goddammit.”

“I wish that was a joke. Most of them really did give me a handshake.”

“Did any of them even bother to ask what you wanted?” I said, turning to face him, rubbing his hairy thigh with my hand as I looked into his eyes with abject concern. 

“Uhhh…. A few of them?” Cris said. 

“Out of how many?”

“Uh… Shit.”

“You’ve had so many women you’ve lost track?” I stifled a laugh.

“Yes, I know, I’m a douchebag. It’s definitely over fifty though.”

“Holy fucking shit!”

“Gross, huh?”

“Not remotely,” I shook my head. “Honestly it explains why you’re so good at it.”

“Thank you. Also, I get tested once a month. I don’t have any STDs, I promise.”

“What about, like, an illegitimate child somewhere?”

“Anything’s possible,” Cris shrugged. “But not to my knowledge, no.” 

“Do you… Do you wanna be a dad?”

“Maybe? I’m not sure. It’s always just been something that was expected of me. If I had a kid, I’d definitely wanna be in the kid’s life. But that’s… That’s just taking responsibility, you know? Never really considered how I felt about it.”

“Lotta that going around, huh,” I said, eyebrows raised. 

“We really are two of a kind,” he said, pressing a kiss down onto my shoulder. “Do you… I mean, would you be okay with it? If I had a kid? Do you wanna be a mom?”

“I… I think I’m twenty-five and sterile and I haven’t really considered the idea of parenthood either,” I admitted.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Yes. Uh, back on topic: so the girls who actually bothered to ask how you liked it, what did you tell them?”

“I liked it when they were mean to me,” Cris said.

“Yeah, that sounds like you,” I laughed. 

“And I liked it when they bit me or pulled my hair or slapped me. I guess I like it rough.”

“... Perhaps our fantasies are compatible, then,” I said, blinking rapidly as a slide show of spicy images flickered inside my minds’ eye. 

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Though, uh, perhaps we should have this conversation back at the house.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel your dick pressing into my back, and as tempting as boat sex sounds, I’m not sure this thing is big enough.”

“But am I big enough?” Cris laughed. 

“God, you’re a douchebag.”

He stood up and started adjusting the sail. “Yes, but I’m your douchebag.”

I snort-laughed. It honestly wasn’t that funny, but… Well, it was him. “Yes, dear. Yes.”

We made our way back to shore, Cris taking down the sail and mast and putting the boat back into the garage. Arm in arm, we walked back inside together. 

“I really love it here,” I said. 

“Yeah?” Cris said as we went inside the house. 

I locked the door behind us. “Yeah. I’ve always loved the Cape, but this town, this house… It’s magical.”

“We can come back as often as you want,” Cris said. “Maybe… Maybe this can be our weekend home?”

“I’d like that,” I said, kissing his square jaw and sticking my hand in the back pocket of his shorts. 

“Okay, so, I do need to be real with you: my back is killing me right now-”

“Fair enough. I could use some ice on my hips, too,” I grinned as we climbed up the stairs. “Unfortunately, we were just talking about kinky sex at length.”

“Oh, I’m aware. Little Crispin is aware as well.”

“Ain’t nothing little about that thing, babe,” I laughed as we passed the second floor and started towards the third. I was sleeping in his room, in his bed tonight. It was unspoken, but… God, I wanted to wake up to him tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that-

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he grinned. 

“Okay, I have an idea,” I said. “If you hate it, tell me.”

“Shoot.”

“We could lay in bed fondling each other while we watch TV.”

“I like it. And it’s Saturday- is there wrestling on? Feels like there’s plenty on the menu there. We can gawk at the lady-wrestlers together, you can decide if you find any of the guys hot.”

“God, where have you been all my life?” I sighed. 

“Not with you, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s a fucking crime,” Cris said as we made it into his bedroom. 

“What do you wanna do tomorrow?” I asked as we started stripping off our clothes. 

“I figure we head back into the city mid-afternoon,” Cris said. “Before that? Whatever we want. However we want. As much as we want. I’ll have to face the music with my dad after we get back-” 

“I’ll come with you,” I offered. 

“You don’t have to-”

“I want to,” I said, flopping onto the bed and rolling over onto my back. “I wanna… What’s the expression? Stand by my man!”

He crawled under the covers with me. “You’re really going all in on this, huh?”
“Gotta get acclimated to the new me,” I said, reaching between his legs. “Plus… If it’s a whole screaming match or whatever, you can… You can crash at my place again. Not on the floor or the couch- my room. You’ve… You’ve never seen my bedroom and I wanna correct that.”

“Cool,” he grinned as his hand found my breast and squeezed. 

I chewed my lower lip and moaned while I coaxed his dick to full-mast. He clicked on the television and queued up that night’s wrestling show. “And hey. Whatever happens, no matter how much shit you’re in with your family… I’m yours. I’m on your side. Your team. Okay?”

His only response was to kiss me, full of tongue and hunger. My teeth chewed his lower lip this time, bringing out a tiny drop of blood as I thumbed the underside of his erection. His groan of pained pleasure was everything. 

“Good talk,” I sighed. 

We kept on playing with each other as we watched our show, bodies lined up next to one another, desire flaring up. I was all mixed up in him now, and him with me, and that was just the way we both wanted it. 

Life was good.