Chapter 7: The Edge of the Precipice
The word “insane” hung in the air between us, a verdict. I was still naked, my skin prickling in the cool, cologne-scented air. His hands were on my bare shoulders, a cage of warmth and restraint. My lips felt swollen, scratched by his stubble, a tangible proof of the line we’d just obliterated.
I didn’t nod. I didn’t agree or disagree. A deeper, more terrifying logic had taken hold. The intellectual horror of my situation had melted into a single, primal need: to feel something real, to use this alien body to connect to the one solid point in my universe. Him.
My hands, small and ridiculous with their chipped pink nails, slid from his chest down the hard planes of his stomach. The cotton of his t-shirt turned to the softer band of his sweatpants’ waistband. I hooked my fingers into it.
I felt him tense. “Justin, don’t.”
The use of my name was a bucket of ice water. It clarified nothing. It just made the need sharper, more desperate. He was calling to the ghost, while the flesh he was touching trembled with a life of its own.
“I have to,” I heard myself say, my voice a thin, high reed. “I have to know what this is for. I have to know if I can still…”
I didn’t finish the thought. I pulled.
The sweatpants slid down his hips, taking his boxer-briefs with them. They pooled around his ankles. The lamplight caught the formidable reality of him, the sheer, intimidating scale. My old body had been adequate. His was something else—a thick, heavy weight that seemed to defy the ordinary physics of the human form. A sudden, visceral fear, a memory of my own male confidence, shriveled inside this smaller frame. This was a territory I could not navigate.
Yet my body didn’t recoil. A fresh, slick heat bloomed between my legs, a silent, traitorous welcome.
I sank to my knees. The plush burgundy carpet was rough against my bare shins. From this vantage, the disparity was godlike. I had to tilt my head back to see his face, shadowed and strained. The rest of my view was filled with him.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird in a delicate cage. I reached out, my hand disappearing as it wrapped around the base. The skin was hot, velvety over an unyielding core. My fingers didn’t meet. The sheer girth was a fact that my mind, trained on different proportions, struggled to process. This was my best friend. This was Mark. And this was also a physical impossibility.
I lowered my head.
The first touch of my lips to the tip was a collision of sensations. The salt-bitter taste of skin. The shocking softness of the skin against the plush, unfamiliar give of my own lips. I opened my mouth, trying to accommodate him, and immediately felt a strain in my jaw. The stretch was profound, uncomfortable, a blunt pressure against the roof of my mouth. I pulled back, gasping, a string of saliva connecting my lip to him.
His whole body was a tensed cable. A choked sound escaped him.
A dark, twisted part of me—the part that was still Justin, the part that used to trade crude jokes with this man—recognized the power in this. The surrender and the domination, twisted into one act. I pushed forward again, taking more.
The rhythm was clumsy, foreign. I used my tongue, exploring the shape, and the taste intensified. My own body responded with another pulse of that internal warmth, a deep, echoing clench of muscles I couldn’t voluntarily control. My breasts, hanging heavy and unsupported, swayed slightly with the motion. Every movement in this body had a secondary, softer echo. My hair fell around my face, a blonde curtain smelling of his citrus shampoo, not mine.
His hands came down, not gripping my head, but settling onto my shoulders again, fingers digging in. “Stop,” he gritted out, but his hips gave a tiny, involuntary thrust forward, burying himself deeper into my throat.
I gagged. My eyes watered. The sensation was overwhelming—a suffocating fullness, a loss of control so complete it felt like annihilation. I pulled back, coughing, dragging in air with a ragged, feminine sound.
I looked up at him, tears blurring my vision. His expression was shattered, a war between lust and anguish.
“I can’t…” I whispered, the admission bitter on my tongue. “It doesn’t fit.”
A rough, humorless laugh escaped him. He reached down, his hands under my arms, and lifted me as if I weighed nothing. My feet left the carpet, my body ascending until I was level with his face, then higher, before he deposited me on the edge of the vast king-sized bed. The black duvet was cool under my thighs and bare ass.
He stood over me, still gloriously, terrifyingly exposed. “None of this fits,” he said, his voice raw.
He leaned over, bracing his hands on the mattress on either side of my hips, caging me. The sheer size of him blocked out the light. “This body… Sabrina’s body… it’s built for this. It wants this. Do you feel it?”
I did. The throbbing between my legs was a constant, pleading drumbeat. The slickness was undeniable. I gave a tiny, shameful nod.
“And you’re in there,” he continued, his eyes searching my drowned-blue ones. “My friend is in there, screaming. What the hell are we doing?”
“Surviving,” I breathed. It was the only answer I had. The pretense was gone. The girlfriend charade was ashes. This was something darker, more real. A mutual exploration of a wound.
He lowered his head, but not to my mouth. He pressed his forehead against my shoulder, his breath hot on my collarbone. I felt his tremor. The mighty Mark Mooers, trembling.
My hands came up, touching the short, soft hair at the back of his head. The gesture felt maternal, alien. I guided his head lower.
His lips touched the upper curve of my breast. A jolt, pure and electric, shot directly to my core. He kissed a path downward, his mouth scorching, until he took the peak into his mouth.
I cried out.
The sensation was beyond anything my own fumbling exploration had produced. It was a direct, resonant pull, a thread of pure sensation tautening from my nipple to the deepest part of my pelvis. My back arched off the bed without my permission, a silent offering. My fingers fisted in his hair.
He switched his attention to the other breast, and the sensation doubled, a feedback loop of aching pleasure. My hips rolled off the mattress, seeking friction, finding only air. The soft, mewling sounds coming from my throat were someone else’s voice.
He drew back, his lips wet. His eyes were black with a conflict I deeply understood. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered, a last lifeline thrown into the storm.
I looked at him, at my best friend, at the only keeper of my truth. The old life was gone. The new one was a terrifying blank page. This, at least, was a feeling. A terrible, clarifying feeling.
I reached between my own legs, my fingers sliding easily through the slick folds. I gasped at my own touch. I kept my eyes locked on his as I guided his hand down, replacing my fingers with his.
The first broad, warm press of his fingertip against that tiny, desperate nub made my vision stutter. My legs fell open, a gesture of utter vulnerability.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I said.