Sunshine Kisses

‘Sounds a little like you’re obsessed with me.’

Delight flashed across Erik’s face. ‘Oh, you have no idea, baby.’ He ran a thumb down and across her warm cheek, pausing when it met her lower lip. ‘You’re also avoiding the question.’

Abby sighed. ‘Sex is…difficult for me. Erik, the way we were raised— We sat in RE classes week after week and heard that sex was the worst possible thing we could do. Before I’d even felt sexual desire, I’d been conditioned to avoid it as much as possible. When we hit puberty, and we should have been learning how to experiment safely, we got told simply to ignore everything we were feeling. And God forbid we try to take care of those feelings ourselves. From way too young, I was taught that my body was something to be hidden, even from myself. I hated underwear shopping because caring about what went under my clothes, even if I was still the only one who would see it, felt too close to thinking about nudity, and that felt shameful.’ She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Sarah had guessed at the source of some of her prudishness, but only her therapist had ever been subjected to this full stream of thought. ‘So yeah, it’s still a little tough to get my head on board with doing something I spent my whole life hearing was getting me sent to hell.’

‘Is that why you wear all that frilly little lingerie now?’

She nodded. ‘It’s one of the things I was working on in therapy. Systematically finding ways to make sex a more morally neutral act. Buying and wearing nice underwear was an actionable step I could take. I don’t know if it helped in the grander scheme of things. But I realised I liked feeling sexy for myself, and that was a small win.’

Erik’s eyes had tightened as she spoke, concern flickering across his face. ‘Abby, if you don’t want us to be having sex, that’s fine. I told you last night: that’s not what this is for me. I would have waited. I’ll still wait if you want. I just wish you would have told me before…’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled hard. ‘Tonight was really fucking intense. I’m sorry if I pushed you. I—it’s important that you feel safe with me, baby.’

‘I do,’ she said quickly, reaching for his fingers and knotting them with hers. Didn’t he know he’d been her safe space forever? Even with this behemoth she had struggled with her whole adult life. She’d spent the day searching her body for any of the lingering guilt that still occasionally reared its head after sex. Instead, she’d found only peace around what they’d done the previous night, and she was still basking in the afterglow of a few hours before. ‘Actual sex is less of an issue. I was told I was allowed to have sex once I got married, right? So it’s not an objectively wrong thing. Just wrong to do it now, and exclusively for pleasure. That made it a little easier to navigate. I still get random attacks of shame from time to time, so I might need you to talk me down from that at some point.’ She winced and squeezed his hand. He squeezed right back, their forever signal for I’m here. ‘But so far, I’m good with us, Erik. With everything we’ve done. Really good.’ They shared a smile before she went on. ‘Birth control was a whole emotional ordeal too. That’s why I got an IUD eventually. The pill was a daily reminder. Condoms meant guilt every time. The IUD I could mostly forget about. Masturbation was just downright sinful any way I looked at it. Still working on that one,’ she said wryly.

‘That’s a lot to carry, Sunshine.’ Something cleared in his expression. ‘Your thesis. That’s why it’s so important to you.’

‘I want to help other women who struggle the way I have,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not where I’d like to be, but a lot of the progress I’ve made was aided by romance novels.’

‘You’re amazing, you know that?’

‘Why?’ She laughed. ‘Because I want to be able to fuck guilt-free?’

His eyes sparked at her phrasing, but his voice was gentle when he spoke. ‘That’s not a bad thing, You’re allowed to want to feel good.’

‘How did you get away from all of it? You’re so open and comfortable talking about all this.’

‘I don’t know that I needed to get away from it.’ Erik frowned. ‘I guess I didn’t ever buy into it as much as you did. Or at least, they didn’t put all that on the boys.’

Abby scowled and a little huff escaped her. Of course they’d put all the pressure for staying pure and perfect on the girls.

Erik laughed and pulled her closer, weaving his legs through hers. ‘When they started splitting us up, they changed the narrative a bit. You had a ninety year old nun teaching you. We had a guy in his thirties who had just become celibate. So yeah, he told us masturbating was wrong. And immediately said it was also a great way to deal with any urges we might be feeling. Then he told us we definitely shouldn’t be having premarital sex. But since he knew we were going to do it anyway, that we should be responsible and keep ourselves and our partners safe. I think his exact words were: “If you’re going to commit the sin of premarital sex, you might as well commit the sin of using birth control too”. Pretty sure he single-handedly lowered our rate of teen pregnancy compared to about every other Catholic school in the UK, just by making sure we knew how to use a condom. Between him and living in a house with Alex, it was easy to think about sex pretty matter of factly, at least from the religious angle. And since I didn’t think I had a shot with the only girl I wanted…let’s just say I had a decent amount of practice looking after myself.’ Erik’s cheeks had gone very, very pink. She found it immensely endearing, and even more so when he continued, ‘I had this really gorgeous best friend, you know? Most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And as much as I tried to keep my thoughts about her pure and respectful…I was a teenage boy who felt everything turned up to the max.’

Abby took a sharp breath, an avalanche of emotion cascading through her. Again, she wondered how different the landscape of her feelings would be if they’d given into everything that was between them sooner.

‘You used to sleep in my bed, Abby. You’d stay over on a Saturday night and when I slid between the sheets on Sunday, the smell of your shampoo was lingering on my pillow. That smell drove me wild. It still does.’

It was still the same smell, too. She’d kept the same shampoo, conditioner, and perfume since she was fifteen, telling herself the light floral scents were her signature. But truthfully, the first time Erik had hugged her after she’d splurged on proper hair care and adult perfume, he’d told her she smelled nice. A cloud of happiness had kept her afloat for the rest of the day. The mix had become her signature for a reason.

She’d also wondered why Erik had always insisted she take his bed when she spent the night, even when Alex was at uni and his room was up for grabs. On the single occasion she’d offered to sleep in there, Erik had mumbled something about not wanting her to catch a disease before he disappeared through the door himself.

‘Should I be sorry about that? Is it weird for you?’

And somehow it wasn’t, a fact she’d mulled over repeatedly since he’d pulled her into his lap on Saturday night. How strange it perhaps should feel that the boy she’d bathed with twenty-something years ago, had learned to read alongside, had begun to ride her bike with, was now the same man sharing her bed and making no effort to hide the love in his eyes. That they were currently lying together, naked, casually discussing masturbating and kinks, in a way that felt bizarrely similar to trading whispers about their school friends, books and movies at their childhood sleepovers.

Somehow, despite everything changing between them, it all still felt completely comfortable. In fact, it had dawned on her that the only times their relationship had ever felt stilted or awkward had been when they denied the connection pulsing between them.

‘I already told you: I like hearing how much you want me. And considering this,’ she gestured between them, ‘all kicked off because you walked in on me getting off to thoughts of you, I don’t think I can judge.’

‘If it helps, it wasn’t just because of you. It actually helped with all my other shit too. The release is emotional as well as physical, right? So when I got really fucking overwhelmed by life, it was a helpful tool for letting it all out. Resetting to a comfortable baseline. It helped me sleep a little better too.

‘Although—fuck, I can’t believe I’m telling you this—I, uh, may have had a particular fantasy of going up to my room in the middle of the night and finding you touching yourself in my bed, wearing my clothes.’ The blush in his cheeks deepened.

‘Do you have a voyeurism kink we need to talk about?’

Her default was set to tease but…she’d been into it. More than she’d expected. Watching Erik watch her had been exhilarating. Similar scenes popped up in enough of her books, and while they were sexy in fiction, she’d always assumed the reality would be awkward and possibly isolating.

Not with him.

‘I have a you kink,’ Erik said seriously.