Chapter 4: The test
The antiseptic sting of the clinic was still in Ella’s nostrils three days later, layered now with the phantom scent of latex and Ben Smith’s unsettlingly clean, masculine presence. She’d scrubbed herself raw in the shower, trying to erase the feeling of the speculum, the pressure, the undeniable heat his touch had ignited. It hadn’t worked. The memory of his focused intensity between her legs was seared into her mind, tangled with the mortifying, slick evidence of her own body’s betrayal. Physiology, he’d called it. A cold, clinical word that did nothing to explain the firestorm.
Worse, tangled up with the shame, was the persistent, unwanted image: the defined outline beneath his scrubs, the presence she’d noticed that first day and couldn’t unsee. It haunted her. During lesson planning. While grading spelling tests filled with crooked letters. While James kissed her goodnight outside her apartment door with his usual tender restraint. His kiss felt like a peck, a formality. Ben Smith hadn’t even touched her there, and her body had screamed.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop glowing, the quiet hum of her apartment amplifying the frantic buzz in her head. Google was a terrifying abyss. ‘How to prepare for wedding night’ yielded impossibly perfect couples and vague advice about ‘relaxing’. ‘Virgin anxiety’ brought up forums filled with horror stories or dismissive ‘just do it’ comments. ‘Blowjob’... that felt like jumping off a cliff. Her cheeks burned as she typed it, fingers clumsy. The sheer variety was overwhelming. Techniques, positions, potential pitfalls… how could anyone know how to do this instinctively? How could she possibly not disappoint James?
A cascade of images flooded her screen – explicit, graphic, utterly foreign. Her stomach churned, a mix of revulsion and a terrifying, niggling curiosity she instantly suppressed. This wasn't her. This wasn't what she'd saved herself for. This was crude, transactional. Nothing like the gentle, loving intimacy she pictured with James. But the picture felt blurry now, overshadowed by the jarring intensity of her reaction to Ben. How could she offer James something she’d never explored? Something that felt… practiced? Was there a way to practice? The thought was ludicrous, yet it pulsed there, insistent.
She slammed the laptop shut, the sound sharp in the quiet room. This was madness. She needed real advice. Medical advice. From a doctor. Specifically, the doctor whose proximity made her skin prickle and whose professional detachment felt like a thin veneer over… something else entirely.
The clinic felt smaller this time. Colder. The receptionist barely looked up as Ella checked in. Her palms were slick. She’d practiced what to say in the shower, in the car, over and over. Just ask about marital advice. About relaxation techniques. Keep it clinical. Banishing the image of his scrubs, the outline, the memory of her own wetness, was impossible. It sat like a lead weight in her stomach.
When the nurse called her name, Ella’s legs felt wooden. Exam Room Four this time. The paper on the table was pristine, waiting to be ruined. She perched on the edge, the crinkle deafening. She stared at the diagram of the female reproductive system on the wall, its clean lines a mockery of the messy reality inside her.
The door opened. Ben walked in, a chart in hand. Blue scrubs again. Dark hair slightly messy. His gaze swept the room, landing on her. There was a fractional pause, a microsecond where his expression shifted from brisk efficiency to… recognition? Assessment? Then it was gone, smoothed into professional neutrality.
"Ella," he acknowledged, moving to the small sink. The sound of water running, the snap of gloves. "Follow-up consultation?" He turned, drying his hands, leaning back against the counter in that familiar, infuriatingly relaxed pose. His eyes, sharp and impossibly green, held hers. He knew why she was here. He knew she wasn't here for a cough.
She couldn't sit still. She stood up abruptly, the paper tearing. "Yes. Sort of. I… I had questions." Her voice sounded thin, high-pitched. "About… before. The wedding." She paced a small circle in front of the table, unable to look at him directly. "James. He’s… wonderful. So patient." She wrung her hands. "But I… I worry. About… pleasing him."
Ben remained motionless against the counter, a silent observer. His stillness was unnerving.
"I know the… penetration part… we talked about relaxation," she rushed on, the words tumbling out in a desperate jumble. "But what about… other things?" The air felt thick. Her face was on fire. She forced herself to stop pacing, to face him. His gaze was unwavering, intense. It pinned her. "Like…" She swallowed, the sound dry. "Oral sex?"
There it was. Hanging in the sterile air between them. She saw the slightest flare in his eyes, a tightening of his jaw muscle beneath the stubble. A beat of silence stretched, taut as a wire. The fluorescent lights hummed.
"Blowjobs?" he clarified, his voice low, devoid of inflection but resonating with a sudden, heavy weight. He didn't move.
Ella flinched at the bluntness of the word coming from him. She nodded, mute, her hands twisting together.
Ben pushed off the counter. Not towards her, but the movement broke his statue-like stillness. He took one slow step, then stopped, maintaining a careful distance. His voice remained calm, clinical almost, but layered beneath it was something else – a focused intensity that made the small room feel even smaller. "What specifically is your concern?"
The question threw her. Specifics? How could she articulate the sheer terror of the unknown, the fear of incompetence, the pressure to be something she wasn't? "I… I don't know how," she blurted, the confession raw. "I've never… I wouldn't know what to do. Or…" The image from Google flashed – explicit, overwhelming. "Or what he might expect." Her voice cracked. "Was there… is there… a way to practice?" She cringed inwardly as soon as she said it. It sounded absurd. Pathetic.
Ben didn't react immediately. He watched her, his gaze traveling from her flushed face down to her nervously twisting hands, then back up. It wasn't a leer. It was an assessment. Calculating. The air crackled, thick with unsaid things – her mortification, his undeniably male presence, the memory of her body's stark response to him, the sheer vulnerability of her question. The silence stretched, charged.
His next words were deliberate, measured, each syllable dropping like a stone. "Practice," he repeated, the word hanging. He took another infinitesimal step closer. Not threatening, but closing the space. His proximity seemed to magnify the outline beneath his scrubs, making it impossible for Ella to look anywhere else. Her breath hitched. The sterile smell was overridden by the faint, clean scent of him. "Ella," he said, his voice dropping lower, a roughness edging into the professional tone. "What exactly are you asking me?"
The implication slammed into her. Was she asking him? The heat between her own legs flared hot and sudden, a traitorous echo of the exam room. Her gaze darted from his face, down his chest, snagging helplessly on the undeniable swell confined by the blue cotton. Her mind short-circuited. Images collided: Ben's skilled hands, the look in his eyes, that outline, her Google-induced panic, James's kind, patient face.
Horror washed over her, cold and sickening. What had she just implied? What was he thinking? Her carefully constructed persona – the chaste fiancée, the teacher – crumbled to dust in that charged silence. She saw it reflected in his eyes, that piercing green gaze that saw too much. He wasn't disgusted. He wasn't dismissing her. He was… waiting. Assessing the unreal possibility hanging in the air.
The momentum broke. Ella stumbled back a step, hitting the edge of the exam table. The crinkle of paper was obscenely loud. "No!" The word burst out, too loud, too desperate. "God, no! That's not—" She couldn't finish. She couldn't look at him. She fumbled blindly behind her for her purse, knocking it to the floor. Sweat slicked her palms. "I need to go." The words were a choked whisper. "I shouldn't have… I'm sorry."
She didn't wait for a response. Didn't dare look back. She snatched her purse off the floor, yanked the door open, and fled down the brightly lit hallway, the sterile air burning her lungs, Ben Smith’s piercing gaze and the devastating weight of her own unthinkable implication burning a hole through her last shred of composure. Behind her, in the silent exam room, Ben remained completely still, the outline beneath his scrubs more pronounced than ever against the clinical white of the walls. The only sound was the fading echo of her frantic footsteps and the low, relentless hum of the clinic lights.
The fluorescent hum of the hallway lights drilled into Ella’s skull as she practically ran towards the exit, her sensible flats slapping against the linoleum. Her face burned hotter than the shame coiling in her gut. Practice? What insane, desperate part of her brain had even formed that question? Ben Smith’s sharp, assessing gaze seemed burned onto her retinas, seeing right through her flimsy excuses to the raw, confusing hunger beneath. The memory of his stillness, the pronounced outline beneath his scrubs as she fled, sent another wave of heat crashing between her legs, utterly traitorous.
She fumbled with the heavy clinic door, her hands slick and shaking, desperate for the anonymity of the parking lot. Cool evening air hit her flushed skin like a slap, doing little to douse the internal firestorm. Leaning against her sensible hatchback, she gulped breaths, trying to anchor herself in the mundane reality of cracked asphalt and the distant sound of traffic. James’s kind, patient face swam into her mind, intensifying the guilt. He deserved her honesty, her devotion, not this… this frantic, illicit fascination with a man whose touch had awakened something primal she didn’t understand.
The clinic door hissed open behind her. Ella froze, her breath catching painfully in her throat. She didn’t need to turn. She felt him. The air thickened, charged with the same unsettling energy that had crackled in the exam room. Footsteps approached, deliberate, unhurried, stopping a few feet away. The scent of antiseptic clung to him, mixed now with something warmer, distinctly male. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for professional dismissal, disgust, anything but—
"Ella." Ben’s voice was low, closer than she expected, cutting through the twilight hum of the city. It wasn’t cold, nor was it gentle. It held a focused intensity that vibrated in her bones. "You left before we finished."
She forced herself to turn, her back pressing hard against the cool metal of the car door. He stood silhouetted against the clinic’s bright entrance, his face shadowed, but his green eyes catching the light, pinning her. He’d shed the white coat. Just the blue scrubs now, clinging to the lean lines of his torso, the powerful thighs. That undeniable presence was starkly visible even in the dimmer light. Her gaze flickered down, then snapped back to his face, cheeks flaming anew.
"I… I said everything I needed to," she stammered, her voice thin and unconvincing even to her own ears. "It was inappropriate. I’m sorry I wasted your time." She fumbled for her car keys in her purse, her fingers numb.
Ben took a single step forward, closing the distance just enough to make the space between them feel intimate, charged. He didn’t touch her. His gaze held hers, unwavering, stripping away her flimsy pretense. "Inappropriate?" he echoed, a faint, almost imperceptible edge beneath the calm professionalism. "Asking for guidance about marital intimacy? That’s within the scope of patient education, Ella." He paused, letting the words hang. "Though the specifics… presented unique challenges."
The implication hung heavy. Practice. The word echoed silently between them. Ella felt exposed, flayed open under his scrutiny. She looked away, focusing on a flickering streetlight down the block. "It was a stupid question," she whispered, humiliation tightening her throat. "Forget I said it."
"I don’t think I can," Ben said quietly. His voice dropped lower, rougher, losing the last vestige of detached doctor. "Because the underlying concern seems genuine. Performance anxiety. Fear of the unknown." He took another half-step. She could feel the warmth radiating from him now, smell the clean cotton of his scrubs mixed with his own scent. Her pulse hammered against her ribs. "You want to feel prepared. Confident. For James."
She nodded mutely, unable to speak, unable to look away from his shadowed face. The streetlight caught the sharp angle of his jaw, the intensity in his eyes. He was so close. Too close. The memory of his skilled fingers, the unexpected surge of pleasure during the exam, warred violently with her guilt and confusion.
Ben’s gaze drifted slowly down her face, lingering on her lips for a heartbeat before meeting her eyes again. The air crackled. His next words were deliberate, measured, each one landing with the weight of a stone dropped into still water. "If practical experience," he said, the phrase sounding absurdly clinical yet laden with dangerous meaning, "is truly what you feel you need…" He paused, letting the silence stretch, thick with unspoken possibilities. His eyes held hers, a silent challenge, an acknowledgment of the electric current arcing between them. "Perhaps," Ben said, his voice barely above a whisper now, rough and intimate, "I could offer help."
Ella’s breath jammed in her throat. The cool evening air vanished, replaced by a sudden, suffocating heat radiating from Ben’s proximity. His words – "I could offer help" – hung between them, dense and dangerous, stripping the clinical facade from the moment. Her gaze snapped back to his face, finding no trace of detached professionalism now. Only a raw, focused intensity that mirrored the frantic hammering of her own pulse against her ribs. The memory of his hands, the confusing flood of sensation during the exam, surged back, warring violently with the image of James’s trusting smile.
"Help?" The word scraped out, thin and disbelieving. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her car keys, the metal biting into her palm. A cold knot of panic tangled with a treacherous, unwelcome thread of heat low in her belly. This was insane. Unthinkable. Yet, she didn’t bolt. She stood frozen against the car, trapped by his gaze and the terrifying implication blooming in the twilight.
Ben didn’t retreat. He shifted his weight, a subtle movement that brought him fractionally closer. The streetlight glinted off his dark hair, deepened the shadows on the sharp planes of his face. His eyes, impossibly green, held hers captive. "Guidance," he clarified, his voice a low rasp that vibrated through her. "Clarity. To alleviate the anxiety you expressed." He tilted his head, a predatory stillness settling over him. "You asked about practice, Ella. Unorthodox, certainly." A beat. "But effective."
The crassness of the word in this context, outside the sterile exam room, outside her frantic Google search, slammed into her anew. Practice. It sounded so cheap. So transactional. So utterly divorced from the trembling anticipation she felt for her wedding night. Yet, the sheer terror of fumbling, of disappointing James, was a tangible weight. Her gaze flickered helplessly down Ben’s body, drawn like a magnet to the undeniable evidence of his own arousal straining against the thin blue cotton. A choked sound escaped her.
"Effective for what?" she whispered, the question catching. Her voice felt alien, strained. "Learning a… technique?"
Ben’s lips curved, not quite a smile. More a grim acknowledgment of the precipice they stood on. "Technique is part of it. Mechanics." He took the final step, closing the distance completely. He didn’t touch her, but his body radiated heat, blocking her view of the street, filling her senses with the scent of antiseptic layered over warm skin and something uniquely him. His presence was overwhelming, a physical pressure. "More importantly," he murmured, his breath ghosting over her temple, "it’s about understanding the response. Yours. His." His voice dropped, roughened. "Building confidence through…" He paused, letting the heavy silence fill the space before finishing, "practical experience."
The phrase landed like a physical blow. Practical experience. Her own frantic, mortified question thrown back at her, stripped bare and offered not as absurdity, but as a dark, tangible possibility. It echoed in her head, colliding with the frantic drumming of her heart, the stifling heat of his proximity, the stark image of James’s kind face superimposed over Ben’s shadowed intensity.
Her mouth opened. Closed. The cool metal of the car pressed against her back. Ben’s gaze was unwavering, patient, waiting. The clinic light haloed his outline, emphasizing the sharp angles, the predatory stillness. The air hummed with tension, thick with the scent of gasoline, damp pavement, and the charged silence between them. The ring on her finger, James’s ring, felt suddenly heavy, cold. Her throat tightened. The words, when they finally came, were barely a breath, ripped from the heart of her confusion, her fear, and the terrifying, unwanted fascination coiling deep inside.
"Practical experience," Ella repeated, her voice a raw whisper, echoing his dangerous offer back into the charged air. It wasn’t a question. It was an eerie, hollow confirmation hanging between them.
Ben’s reaction was instantaneous. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes, already dark and intense, seemed to absorb the scant light, fixated on her lips. He moved. Not away. One hand came up, palm flat against the cold metal of the car door beside her head, caging her without contact. The other hand lifted slowly, deliberately. She saw the glint of a fresh latex glove pulled taut over his long fingers. He didn’t look at it. His gaze remained locked on hers, a silent, unflinching demand for her consent, her capitulation, written in the stark green depths. The soft, final snap of the glove settling against his skin punctuated the stillness.
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The soft, final snap of the glove settling against his skin punctuated the stillness. Ella stared at the latex-covered hand hovering near her face, then back at Ben's unblinking gaze. Her throat clicked dryly. "Okay," she whispered, the word scraping raw. "Yes."
Ben's eyes narrowed fractionally. "Confirm it," he demanded, voice low and rough-edged. "No ambiguity."
"I accept," Ella choked out, her knuckles bone-white against the car door. "God help me."
A muscle flexed in Ben's jaw. "Good." He moved decisively, the clinical detachment momentarily stripping away. His gloved thumb brushed the corner of her mouth, startlingly cool. "Open." The command brooked no hesitation.
Ella parted trembling lips. Ben traced her lower lip slowly with the latex pad. "Relax the jaw," he instructed, his other hand sliding firmly to cradle the base of her skull. She flinched at the contact. "I need access. And you need to know this." His thumb pressed gently against her tongue. The chemical taste bloomed. "I'm significantly above average." His eyes held hers, unflinching. "Statistically speaking."
Her startled inhale hitched. Her gaze flickered helplessly down his body where the truth strained against blue cotton.
"This," Ben continued, the thumb applying slight downward pressure, "isn't about... eroticism. Not now." His voice was clipped, practical. "It's anatomy. Physiology." He pushed deeper until the pad met the resistance at the back of her throat. Ella gagged violently, a raw, involuntary sound tearing from her as her body jerked back. Ben held her head steady, his grip firm but not cruel. "That's your reflex," he stated flatly, withdrawing the thumb just enough to let her gasp. Saliva slicked her chin. "We'll navigate it. Understand this: If you can accommodate me..." He paused, letting the implication hang thick in the cooling air. "...James will be effortless."
He withdrew his hand completely. The latex snapped sharply as he peeled it off. His bare fingers, warm now, tilted her chin up, forcing her watery eyes to meet his. No pity there. Only intense, focused assessment. "Ready?"