Page 74 of On Your Knees

My heart skips. I can’t answer that question without saying a whole lot of things that I don’t feel ready to say.

Instead I ask, “Do you like the sex we’ve had?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ve been rough with you.”

“But I like that.”

“You’ve never experienced anything else. You might prefer something less intense.”

“But the intensity is what I like. Why are you saying these things?”

I shrug. “I just feel like I have a perspective suddenly on how I’ve been with you and how I’ve treated you, and I don’t like it. But I also don’t know any other way to be. Sex is ugly for me, and I don’t like that I’m making it ugly for you.”

“Why do you say it’s ugly?”

“It just feels that way.”

“It doesn’t feel ugly to me.”

“It doesn’t?” I ask, surprised.

“No. It’s actually… can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

Levi’s chest rises and falls against my arm. I stroke his collarbone and hold myself still, waiting.

“Do you remember I told you my mother couldn’t take care of me?”

I freeze for a moment, startled by the topic, then I make myself stroke his collarbone again. “I do.”

“Well… I used to get made fun of a lot. In school. For being dirty. Then one day—I don’t remember all the details—but I guess it was really bad. I was maybe… ten? The school called my mother, and she came into the principal’s office. I was sitting in there because I’d been taken out of class. So she came in. She was furious. She was probably high too, but she just kept saying, ‘He’s gross, what do you expect me to do? He’s a gross kid.’”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter and force my fingers to unclench from his shoulder.

“So I kind of have a thing about it.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“My point is—”

“Levi. That wasn’t your fault. That was her fault. And every single adult there knew it. And if you saw that today, a kid not being taken care of, you would know it too.”

He sighs. “I’m trying to get to something.”

I clamp down on my impulse to keep pressing this point. I don’t want to let it go, but I have to. Right now, his point is more important than mine. I force my voice to soften.

“Go on.”

Levi is silent for a while, like he’s frustrated with me and trying to find his place in his story again. Then he says, “So that first night in your kitchen. When you made me come?”

“You got upset about the mess.”

“At first, it took me back to all that stuff and I panicked. But you made it okay. You made me feel like it was good and natural. And you’ve made me feel that every time since. And I know that the way we have sex isn’t very… standard, but it’s not ugly. It makes me feel free.”

I kiss the back of his neck as I remember him in so many erotic moments. I’ve been fixating on myself and my part in it, the ugliness in me. But Levi was never ugly. He was free and wild and beautiful. And I want him to be that way again. But it’s hard for me to accept being ugly with him now that I understand why everything is different with him.