Chapter 28: The Squirting Tutorial
The word “stable” hung in the air of the car, a flimsy raft in a choppy sea. Stable wasn’t good. Stable wasn’t awake. Stable was just not worse. Ethan’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, the city blurring past his window into a smear of grey and neon. The scent of Mia, of them, still clung to his skin, a stark, carnal contrast to the sterility waiting for them.
Mia watched his profile, the rigid set of his jaw. She placed her hand on his thigh, over the denim. He didn’t look at her, but his muscles twitched under her touch, and after a moment, one of his hands left the wheel to cover hers, squeezing so tight it almost hurt.
“He’s a tough old bastard,” she said, her voice softer than she intended.
A hollow, breathless sound escaped him, not quite a laugh. “Stubborn as hell. Won’t listen to the doctors.” He threw her a quick, sideways glance, the green of his eyes dimmed. “Thanks for coming.”
“Where else would I be?”
The hospital was a monument to muted panic. The smell of antiseptic and despair coated everything. They found Robert Bellweather in the ICU, a mountain of a man reduced to a series of beeping lines and a pale imprint on the sheets. Ethan stood in the doorway, frozen. Mia saw the little boy in him then, the one who’d crawled into her tent during a thunderstorm, scared of the noise.
She pushed him gently forward. “Go on.”
He approached the bed, his movements stiff. He picked up his father’s limp hand, enveloping it in both of his. “Hey, Dad,” he murmured, his voice cracking on the second word.
Mia lingered by the door, giving them their fragment of privacy. She watched Ethan talk, low and steady, about nothing—the drive over, the unseasonably warm weather, a ridiculous movie they’d seen together last month. The monologue was a lifeline he was throwing to the unconscious man, a recitation of the normal world.
An hour later, they were back in the car, the silence now a heavy, shared thing. The earlier passion felt like a dream from another lifetime, brutally punctured by the relentless beep of a heart monitor.
His apartment was dark when they returned. He flicked on a light, and the familiar chaos of his living room seemed suddenly pathetic, a child’s diorama of a life. The blanket they’d used was still crumpled on the floor.
Ethan walked to the kitchen, pulled out two glasses, and filled them with tap water. He drank his in one long gulp. Mia leaned against the counter, watching the tension cord his shoulders.
“They don’t know when he’ll wake up,” Ethan said to the sink. “Or… if he’ll wake up the same. Something about oxygen to the brain. They use a lot of words to say ‘we’re waiting to see.’”
She came up behind him, pressed her front to his back, wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her cheek between his shoulder blades. He was so warm. So solid. And vibrating with a helpless, terrified energy.
“I’m here,” she whispered. It was all she had.
He turned in her arms, his face etched with a grief too fresh for tears. His eyes searched hers, not for answers, but for an anchor. He found it. His mouth came down on hers, not with passion, but with a frantic, claiming need. It was a kiss of confirmation, a physical reassurance that she was real, he was real, this connection between them was a tangible thing in a world that had just gone fluid and cruel.
He walked her backward, through the doorway, into the dim gold of his bedroom. The half-unpacked boxes loomed like silent spectators. He didn’t turn on the light. The streetlamp glow through the window painted stripes across his face.
Her back met the wall beside his dresser. He broke the kiss, his breath coming in harsh gusts against her lips. His hands came up to frame her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones.
“I need,” he started, then stopped, swallowing hard. “I need to not think for a while.”
“I know,” she breathed.
Her own fingers, which had felt so sure on his skin that morning, now trembled as they went to the buttons of his shirt. The casual cotton she’d seen him in a thousand times felt like a barrier. She worked the first one, then the second. His chest rose and fell under her touch.
“Show me,” she whispered, the words barely audible, a secret passed in the dark. “Show me how to lose control completely. Take me with you.”
A sound, half-groan, half-sigh, rumbled in his chest. He captured her wrists, his grip firm, and pinned them gently to the wall above her head. He held them there with one hand, his gaze locked on hers. There was no sweet hesitation in him now, only a deep, flowing current of something darker, something driven by fear and a primal need to feel alive.
“I will,” he promised, his voice low and rough.
His free hand slid down her side, over the curve of her hip, gathering the fabric of her dress. He pushed it up, past her thighs, her waist, until she raised her arms and he pulled it over her head, discarding it. Her bra followed, a swift, unceremonious flick of his fingers. He released her wrists, only to drop to his knees before her.
The first touch of his mouth on her stomach made her jump. He kissed a slow, deliberate path downward, his lips searing her skin. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her panties and drew them down her legs. The cool air kissed her exposed skin, followed instantly by the heat of his breath.
He didn’t start where she expected. He kissed the inside of her knee, then higher, along the tender skin of her inner thigh, his stubble a delicious abrasion. He was drawing out the anticipation, building the pressure until her legs shook. When his tongue finally, slowly, made contact with her core, it was a flat, broad stroke that made her cry out, her head thumping back against the wall.
He held her hips, keeping her in place. His tongue circled her clit with a focused, lazy precision, again and again, until her hips began to jerk involuntarily, seeking more pressure, more friction.
“Ethan… please…”
“Please what?” His voice was muffled against her.
“Don’t stop.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
He plunged his tongue inside her, fucking her with it, before returning to her clit, sucking it gently into his mouth. The dual sensation short-circuited her thoughts. Pleasure, sharp and coiling, began to gather in her belly. She was close, so close, teetering on that bright, trembling edge.
He pulled away.
She whimpered, a sound of pure frustration. He looked up at her from his knees, his mouth glistening, his eyes black in the dim light. “Not yet,” he said softly, and the command in his tone sent a fresh shock of arousal through her.
He stood in one fluid motion. With hands that were surprisingly sure, he spun her around to face the wall. The plaster was cool against her cheek and her palms as she braced herself.
“Hands here,” he directed, placing them flat against the wall. “Stay.”
He stepped back. She heard the rustle of his clothes, the clink of his belt buckle, the slide of his zipper. A shiver of anticipation, laced with a thrilling spike of fear, raced down her spine. This was different from the couch. This was deliberate. Predatory.
His body pressed against her back, his skin hot. His cock, hard and slick, nudged against the cleft of her ass before sliding lower, seeking her entrance. One hand gripped her hip, the other guided himself to her. He pushed the head inside, just an inch, making her gasp at the sudden, full stretch.
“You wanted me to use you,” he growled into her ear, his breath hot. “To take you. This is what that looks like.”
He sank into her in one deep, relentless thrust, burying himself to the hilt. The force drove a choked scream from her lungs. He was deeper than ever before, the angle unforgiving, filling her completely. He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He withdrew almost all the way and slammed back in.
“Oh, God!”
His hand on her hip tightened, holding her in place for his assault. The other hand fisted in her hair, not pulling, just holding, a point of control. The sounds were lewd, animalistic—the wet slap of skin, his guttural grunts, the choked noises she made with every pounding drive.
“You feel that?” he panted, his rhythm brutal and steady. “That’s me. In every part of you. Claiming you.”
She could only nod, her forehead now pressed to the wall, her world reduced to the sensation of him splitting her open, the burning stretch, the dizzying friction on that sweet, deep spot. The pleasure was a storm, terrifying in its intensity, blurring the lines between pain and rapture.
“We’re going to break you open,” he promised, his voice raw, and she knew he wasn’t just talking about sex. He was talking about her walls, her independence, every defense she’d ever built. He was talking about them.
The coil inside her snapped. Her orgasm crashed over her without warning, a violent, convulsive wave that ripped a ragged scream from her throat. Her inner muscles clamped around him, milking him, and it triggered his own release. With a final, driving thrust, he roared her name, his body shuddering against hers as he emptied himself deep inside her.
They slumped against the wall, a single slick, trembling entity. His weight was heavy, anchoring. His face was buried in her neck, his breaths hot and ragged against her skin. The only sounds were their slowing heartbeats and the distant hum of the city.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He turned her gently, gathering her limp body against his, his arms wrapping around her in a vise-like hold. They stood there in the dark, clinging to each other as the real world, with its ICU rooms and uncertain futures, seeped back in.
“My dad’s sick,” he whispered into her hair, the words stark and simple.
“I know,” she whispered back, holding him tighter.
“And I’m in love with you.” It wasn’t a question. It was a quiet, terrifying statement of fact, laid bare in the aftermath.
She pulled back just enough to look at his face. In his eyes, she saw the echo of the boy from the tent, and the man who had just wrecked her against a wall, and the son waiting for his father to wake up. She saw everything.
“I know,” she said again, and kissed him, softly this time. A seal. A promise.
Later, tangled in his sheets, the streetlight painting silver lines across their exhausted bodies, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text. He reached for it, his face grim in the blue glow.
She watched him read it, saw the slight sag of relief in his shoulders. “He’s awake. Confused, but awake.”
Mia nodded, a lump in her throat. The reprieve, temporary as it was, felt enormous.
“Your gallery showing,” he said suddenly, looking at her. “It’s next week.”
She’d almost forgotten. The culmination of a year’s work, her first solo exhibition. “It is.”
“You should go. You have to go.”
“Ethan, I’m not leaving you—”
“You’re not leaving me.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb. “You’re living your dream. And I’ll be here, dealing with mine. We’ll… we’ll figure out the in-between.”
The in-between. It was all they had. A fragile, terrifying, beautiful in-between, born in the space between a heartbeat and a breakdown, between a whispered fantasy and a hospital vigil. She curled into him, fitting her body against his, and for the first time, wondered not if they would break, but what new shape they would take when the pieces settled.
She curled into him, fitting her body against his, and for the first time, wondered not if they would break, but what new shape they would take when the pieces settled. The silence of the room was a thick, living thing, filled with the ghost of his father’s prognosis and the scent of their own sweat. She listened to his breathing even out, the frantic edge of the evening slowly softening into exhaustion.
Sleep, however, was a lie. Her mind replayed the feeling of his hand fisted in her hair, the brutal depth of his thrusts against the wall, the utter loss of control she had both feared and craved. A specific, hungry curiosity uncoiled in the dark, a memory of something she’d read, seen, half-imagined. It was later that night and she thought about it for a while, but she never actually squirted.
The digital clock on his nightstand glowed 2:17 AM. She turned her head on the pillow, her nose brushing his shoulder. “Baby?” she whispered, her voice scratchy with sleep and spent emotion. “You awake?”
A soft grunt. His arm tightened around her. “Mmm. Now I am.”
She traced a circle on his chest, over the steady beat of his heart. The words felt clumsy, absurdly clinical after the raw filth they’d traded hours before. “I want to learn how to squirt.”
He was silent for a long moment. She could feel him becoming fully alert, the lazy rhythm of his fingers on her arm pausing. “Yeah?” he finally said, his voice a low rumble in the dark.
“Teach me how.” She pressed a kiss to his skin, her lips forming the plea against him. “Please, baby.”
He shifted onto his side, facing her. In the faint light, his eyes were soft pools of shadow, studying her. “It’s not a trick,” he said quietly. “It’s not a performance.”
“I know.”
“It might not happen tonight. Or ever, for some people.”
“I just want you to try.” She reached between them, her hand finding him already hardening against her thigh. “With me.”
He let out a slow breath, a surrender to her hunger and his own. “Okay.” He kissed her forehead, a strangely chaste gesture. “Turn over.”
She obeyed, rolling onto her stomach. The sheets were cool against her front. He moved behind her, his weight dipping the mattress. His hands settled on the backs of her thighs, spreading them gently. His touch was different now; not the claiming violence of before, but focused, patient.
“Just feel,” he murmured, his thumbs smoothing over the curve of her ass. “Don’t chase it. Tell me what’s good.”
His mouth found the small of her back, kissing a hot trail downward. He nudged her legs wider, and she lifted her hips instinctively, offering herself. The first touch of his tongue was a flat, languid stroke from her entrance to the top of her slit. She gasped into the pillow.
“Easy,” he whispered, his breath warm on her wet skin. “Just easy.”
He licked her like he was learning her shape, slow and thorough. When his tongue circled her clit, it was a gentle, insistent pressure that built a low heat in her belly. His hands slid under her hips, his fingers spreading her open for his mouth. He sucked lightly, and her back arched.
“There?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “God, yes.”
He returned to that slow, maddening lapping, interspersed with the soft suction that made her toes curl. One hand remained under her, holding her up, while the other drifted lower. A single finger, slick with her own wetness, pressed against her entrance. He didn’t push in. He just rubbed there, applying a firm, rhythmic pressure.
“It’s about the buildup,” he said, his voice muffled against her. “And letting go. Really letting go.”
He added a second finger, curling them inside her just an inch, finding a rough patch of texture. He pressed upward, a steady, come-here motion. The combined sensations—his tongue on her clit, his fingers rubbing that deep, secret spot—began to coil a tension in her unlike any ordinary climax. It felt deeper, fuller, an internal pressure building towards an unknown edge.
“Ethan,” she moaned, pushing back against his hand. “Something’s… it feels weird.”
“Good weird?”
“I don’t know.” It was a tightening, a swelling need to pee but not, a borderland sensation that thrilled and scared her. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. His fingers worked in a relentless, steady rhythm inside her, his mouth never leaving her clit. The pressure mounted, a balloon expanding in her lower abdomen. She started to tense, to fight the strangeness of it, her muscles locking.
“You’re clenching,” he growled, pausing his tongue to speak directly against her. “You have to let it happen. You have to fucking surrender to it. Push out for me.”
“I can’t—”
“You can. Push against my fingers. Let it go.”
The command unknotted something primal in her. With a ragged cry, she bore down, yielding to the intense, overwhelming urge. The world narrowed to the point where his fingers met her core.
A hot, gushing release surged out of her, a flood she felt more than heard, soaking his hand, the sheets beneath her. It was a convulsive, emptying wave of pure sensation, wrenching a shattered scream from her throat. Her vision whited out, her body shaking uncontrollably as the torrent continued, wave after shocking wave.
When it finally subsided, she collapsed onto the soaked sheets, utterly spent. He gently withdrew his fingers, his hand coming to rest on her trembling back. He leaned down, kissing the nape of her neck.
“There you go,” he whispered, thick with awe. “Fucking perfect.”
She was liquid, boneless. He gathered her, turning her over, ignoring the wetness. He pulled her against his chest, his own arousal a hard line against her hip. His kiss was deep, tasting of her, and she could feel the accelerated beat of his heart against hers.
“My turn,” he rasped, and she understood. This was his release now, the frantic energy of the day and the awe of watching her break apart needing its own outlet.
He rolled on top of her, his cock sliding through the slick mess between her legs before notching at her entrance. He pushed inside in one smooth, deep stroke, a groan tearing from his chest. He was claiming her again, but differently—not to wreck, but to weld. His thrusts were deep, purposeful, each one hitting that same sensitive place his fingers had just exploited.
“Watch me,” he demanded, his gaze locked on hers. “Watch me take what’s mine.”
She did. She saw the raw possession in his eyes, the love and the fear and the desperate hunger all fused into a single, driving need. It only took a dozen strokes before his body stiffened, a harsh groan ripping from his throat as he came, his hips jerking sharply as he spilled into her.
He collapsed, his forehead damp against her shoulder. The room smelled of sex and salt and release. After a long while, he stirred, shifting off her but pulling her back into the cradle of his arms.
The damp sheets were uncomfortable, a cold clamminess against her skin. Neither of them moved to change them. The reality of the morning, of the hospital, of everything, waited just beyond the window. But here, now, they were fused. The pieces had settled into something new, something irreversibly deeper, and the shape of it was both terrifying and the only solid thing left in the world.