Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “Can you tell me? How do you like this?” I ask, adjusting my grip. I need two hands. Yes, it’ll be better with two hands. Still an awkward position, but also intimate, how close we are. Nice. I smell him deep in my nostrils and he’s good. So good.

            “I like it too much, Elsie.”

            “No, I—” I shake my head against his chest. “Tell me how you do this. When you’re alone.”

            “This is—fuck, it’s good. Just . . . slow for now. Steady. And if you—the head—yes. Yes, there.”

            “What else?”

            I hear him swallow. “Your voice.”

            “I . . . What?”

            “Just speak.”

            “I’m not . . .” Laughter bubbles out of me. “I don’t think I can do dirty talk.”

            “You can go with nematics. You can count to ten. I don’t care, just—”

            “I . . . I could talk about George’s offer. How I’ve been seriously considering. If I accepted, we’d be working together. I’d be at MIT with you next year. I’d earn a livable amount of money, so maybe we could go to lunch together sometimes. I’d buy—”

            He makes a deep, guttural sound. His hand moves down between our bodies, and I think he’s about to shoo me away, but his head dips forward and his fingers tighten around his balls, then fist around mine. “I want to fuck you,” he says into my hair. “Please, let me fuck you.”

            I simply nod.

            It’s beautiful, having him on top of me. He’s so wide and heavy, I’d have expected feeling constrained, unpleasantly held down, but there’s none of that. I wrap my arms around his neck, tip my chin up to kiss him, let him press me into the mattress and deliciously contain me.

            And then, when his stomach slides across mine, I get a stab of panic.

            “Wait.”

            He stops instantly. Looks down at me, watchful.

            “If it’s not good, we’re going to work on it. Right?”

            He laughs against my lips. “It’s already the best sex I’ve ever had.”

            “But if—”

            “Yeah.” He eases my legs open, or maybe they spread all on their own. His cock pushes against my abdomen first and then slides down the wet mess of my folds, slots against my entrance. “We will.”

            It suddenly seems improbable that this is going to work. He’s much bigger than J.J., and even though I was aware of this before, at some abstract, theoretical level, the practical implications are now glaringly obvious. This is a physical impossibility. That, or it’s going to hurt like hell. And this is the part of sex I’ve always liked the least—someone pushing inside me, and me struggling to adjust, to keep up, to accept. I imagine it will be the same, and for a split second I wonder if I could bear it, not liking this. With Jack.

            It’s new, worrying about my own enjoyment. I’m contemplating it, vaguely dumbfounded, when something changes.

            Jack presses into me.

            The head of his cock slides inside, just one or two inches.

            My body contracts around him in a small spasm.

            I let out a choked cry, and he slurs something that sounds like “Fuck” against my cheek. I arch into him as air rushes out of my lungs, trying to get closer, trying to chase that feeling.

            This is—nice. Really, really nice. Unprecedentedly nice. Maybe I’m just wet enough, maybe I’m more relaxed than ever, but he’s not even halfway inside and I’m fluttering around him, the tingling of an orgasm already deep inside my belly.

            “Holy fuck,” Jack rasps, and helps me go after whatever this is. His hand slips between us, thumb pressing against my clit, and I tighten even more around him, a reedy whimper coming out of my throat, mixing with his loud groan.

            My head whites out. I’m confused. Dizzy. I don’t think I came, but this is good in a way I cannot even begin to parse. This feels right, and my body knows, because it welcomes Jack inside like I’m where he belongs.