The Revelation (33 page)

Josh

I splash cold water on my face and look at myself in
the mirror. What the fuck just happened between Kat and me? I
wouldn’t even call what we just did
sex
. It felt more like a
nuclear reaction.
Sexual fusion.
Is that a thing? Well, if
not, it is now.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

Water is dripping off my brow and down my nose.

Holy motherfucking shit.

How many times has Kat or I said, “Sex doesn’t have
to be deep and meaningful”? And now, all of a sudden, I feel like
going back in a time machine to each and every one of those
conversations and shouting, “Yeah, but sometimes it
is,
Kat—
sometimes it
is
!”

Jesus Christ. That was epic. The way her body felt
around mine. Her eyes. Her lips. That electricity coursing between
us. I could
feel
it.
And the music.
Oh my God. What
the fuck was James Bay trying to do to me? Turn me into a
blubbering pussy? I thought that James Bay album was cool when
Jonas played it for me in New York, that’s all—I just really liked
the guy’s voice. “Hey, that’s cool,” I said when Jonas played one
of the songs for me. “Who is that?” I had no idea those songs would
later provide the soundtrack of my complete and total undoing.

Holy fucking damn, that was some seriously
mind-blowing sex.

Which, by the way, makes no sense at all. Ever since
breaking up with Emma, all I’ve done is fantasize about all the
kinky-ass shit I wanna do, all the ways I wanna let my inner
sick-fuck run amok—and
that’s
what got me off so hard?—the
most straight-forward, basic kind of sex a guy can have? But, oh my
fucking God, it was incredible. Kat felt so fucking good, and the
music was so perfect, and that electricity came out of nowhere and
rocked my world... Holy fuck. I literally had to run away from her
when that last song started playing or else I was gonna turn into
fucking Jonas and start calling her the ‘goddess and the muse’ or
some shit like that.

For Chrissakes, the way I was feeling in that
moment, I was on the cusp of pouring my heart out to her, on the
verge of telling her a thousand things I’d never normally say. For
Chrissakes, I was about to babble about my upcoming move to
Seattle! “When I move to Seattle,” I was about to say, “I wanna do
this every night with you, babe.” Those are the exact words I was
on the verge of saying to her! They were on the tip of my fucking
tongue—even though I’m not moving for three motherfucking months!
How could I even
think
of making an implied promise like
that? Sure, I’m addicted to Kat right now—
painfully
addicted—Jesus God—I feel like a fucking labradoodle fetching a
stick every time I’m in her presence—but who knows how long this
white-hot passion’s gonna last? This thing with Kat and me is brand
new, after all. At this stage in a relationship, three months from
now might as well be thirty years. Things might work out—and, shit,
I sure hope they do—God, I hope they do—but they might not. Like I
always say: under-promise and over-deliver. That’s the path to
happiness and peace of mind in all things.

But, goddammit, I wanted so badly to tell her about
my upcoming move to Seattle, plus a bunch of other stuff, too. I
wanted to tell her how excited I am to sit down to dinner with her
noisy, chaotic family, to meet her mom and dad and brothers and
just sit there, watching everyone interact. I wanted to explain
that it’s a big fucking deal for someone like me to sit down for a
birthday dinner with a real family—a
big
family—even though
it’s a ho-hum kind of thing for everyone else. In fact, I wanted to
tell her, the whole reason I lived in my fraternity house for my
first two years in college (even though the place should have been
condemned) was because I craved being around noise and chaos and
laughter and
people
so badly after growing up my whole
goddamned life in a fucking morgue with Joseph Stalin breathing
down my neck.

Oh my God, I wanted to take Kat’s gorgeous face in
my hands and stare into those icy-blue eyes that see right through
me and tell her she blows me the fuck away, and not just in bed,
but in every conceivable way—that I can’t find a goddamned fucking
fault with her—that even her stubbornness and jealousy and evil
make me want her that much more, more than I’ve ever wanted any
other woman, in fact. That I can’t stand it when we’re apart. That
she’s hilarious. And sweet. And honest. A force of nature. That she
makes my heart physically
hurt
when she does nothing more
than smile at me.

I lean forward and stare at myself in the mirror.
I’m trembling. Panting. Freaking out. I need to get a grip.

I wanted to tell her I’m falling so fast and hard
for her, I feel like I need a Dramamine. And a parachute. And a
fucking last will and testament.

Fuck
.

I stare at my blue eyes reflected back at me in the
mirror.

“Pull yourself together, man,” I say through gritted
teeth. “Stop acting like a total puss.” I nod in reply to myself,
take a deep breath, and slap my cheek
hard
—and then, once I
feel like I’ve regained control of myself, I turn around and head
back into my room.

Josh

When I emerge from my bathroom, there’s yet another
James Bay song playing—this one, thankfully, in no danger of
sending me into a tailspin. Kat’s sprawled naked on her stomach
across my bed, looking like a wet dream, her long, toned limbs
stretched across my mattress, her blonde hair unfurled across my
pillow, her tight ass just begging to get spanked or bitten or
fucked. Or all of the above. Jesus. I wouldn’t mind being greeted
with this vision every time I come out of my bathroom.

I crawl onto the bed and drape my body over hers,
pressing my naked body into hers. “Hey, babe,” I say softly.

She turns her head and rests her cheek on the
pillow.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Everything okay?”

“Mmm hmm. Everything’s great.” I push her hair to
one side and stroke the Scorpio tattoo on the back of her neck.
“How are you?”

“Good.”

She squirms underneath me and I lift up, letting her
turn onto her back so that we’re lying nose to nose, our bodies
pressed together.

“You look like you have one eye,” she says, pressing
her nose into mine. “One very blue and beautiful eye.”

“I’m Mike Wazowski,” I say.

She laughs. “Why do you know that?”

“Are you kidding me? I love
Monsters,
Inc
.
”

She laughs. “You never cease to surprise me.”

“Mike Wazowski!” I say in the voice of Boo.
“Kitty!”

“Admit it—you were stoned out of your mind when you
watched that movie, weren’t you?”

“
No
, as a matter of fact. I was, like,
sixteen or something—still a very nice boy.”

She laughs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you.”

I pause. “I was a very nice boy at one point, Kat—I
went to see cartoon-movies in the theatre and everything.”

“I’m sure you were.”

I pause. “Although, in the interest of the
honesty-game, I watched
Monsters, Inc.
stoned out of my mind
later on DVD.”

She bursts out laughing and I join her. God, I’m
fucking addicted to her. I can’t resist reaching out and touching
her golden hair. It’s the color of straw. Spun gold. Sunshine. I
stroke her hair for a moment and she purrs like a cat.

“You blow me away, Kat—not just in bed. All the
time. With everything you do and say.”

She inhales sharply. “You blow me away, too.” Her
face turns bright red.

I suddenly feel like I’m on the verge of babbling
every thought in my head again—all the stuff I was about to say a
minute ago, before I escaped into the bathroom. Fuck me, I wanna
tell her about Seattle.

“All right, babe,” I say, rolling off her. “Enough
talking about cartoons—we’ve got kinky-fuckery to talk about.”

She laughs. “Nice transition.”

I sit up in bed. “So here’s the deal, Heidi Kumquat.
When I wrote my application to The Club I was in a totally
different state of mind than I am now.”

She nods. This is not news to her.

I exhale. “Would you be terribly disappointed if we
moved right into doing everything on your fantasy list and skipped
the stuff I wrote about in my application to The Club?”

“Why?”

I shrug. “Doing that shit now just feels like trying
to relive my junior prom. Now all I wanna do is go to my
senior
prom—with you.”

She grins. “Aw. You’re asking me to prom?”

“So you’re not disappointed?” I ask. “You seemed
pretty excited to be on the receiving end of all that shit in my
application.”

She shrugs. “Hey, if you’re not feeling it, then we
don’t do it. And, anyway, I got to be a high-end call girl. That’s
what I was really jonezing for.” She makes a checkmark motion in
the air. “Plus, I unexpectedly got a bonus mini-porno out of it,
too—watching you get all riled up at the thought of anyone but you
touching me was utterly delicious.” She shoots me a wicked
smile.

“
I knew it
.”

She laughs a full-throated laugh.

“Diabolical,” I say, smiling. “Okay, cool. It’s
settled. We’re doing your fantasies, baby.”

She squeals with pleasure.

“So this is how it’s gonna work. You’ll just go
about your life, okay?—and sometimes shit will just start happening
to you. And when it does, you’ll just play along. Don’t worry,
you’ll totally know what to do because—” I slap my hands together
hard, making her flinch. “Sorry. I just had a brilliant idea. I’ll
be right back.” I leap out of bed and race to my hallway closet, my
pulse pounding in my ears. Holy fuck, this is gonna be epic. I
quickly find what I’m looking for and sprint back to my bed. “Open
your hand, babe.” She does, and I place a poker chip in her palm.
“Every time a fantasy is starting, you’ll get a poker chip just
like this one. That way you’ll never be confused about whether a
role-play is starting. You know, you won’t go, ‘Are you
really
a fireman? Is my house
really
burning down—or
are you here to eat my pussy?”

She laughs. “I don’t have a fireman fantasy—Colby’s
a fireman. Too weird.”

I roll my eyes. “It was just an example, babe. I
know all your fantasies, remember? I took copious notes. I’m just
saying the poker chip will be our secret signal so I’ll never need
to say, ‘Hey, Kat, I’m doing a fantasy now.’ That way you can just
relax and enjoy the ride and play along.”

“But what if there really
is
a fire—using
your example—and it happens
after
you’ve already given me
the poker chip? You’d be like, ‘Fire, Kat! Fire!’ And I’d be like,
‘Oh, yeah, baby. I’m on
fi-yah
.’” She giggles.

“Good point,” I say, laughing with her. “We should
have a safe word in case we need to stop the role-play for any
reason.”

“Okay. How about ‘overcome’? Wasn’t that what you
used with the women in The Club?”

I wave my hands in dismissal. I don’t even want to
think about those women right now. “That was
then
, babe—this
is now. Our fantasy-sex-club is all about
fun
—not exorcising
my fucking demons.”

“Awesome,” she says, her eyes blazing. “How about
‘sick fuck,’ then?”

“
Babe
. Did you not hear a word I just said?
I’m over it. Plus, I kinda dig it when you call me a sick fuck. I
wanna keep that phrase as fair game. You never know what you might
scream when I’m fucking the shit out of you in a dental chair.”

“Ooh.” She raises an eyebrow. “We’re gonna do the
dentist thing?”

“Oh my God, you’re a terrible listener. What’d I
just say?
Yes.
We’re gonna do
everything
.”

She squeals. “Oh my God. This is gonna be
redonk.
”

“So what’s the safe word? It can be anything.
Onomatopoeia.”

She giggles. “Who’s the idiot who came up with that
word? Who needs so many syllables to say ‘
Bam!
’?”

I laugh.

“Brouhaha?” she asks.

“What the fuck?
No
. Weirdo.”

She shrugs.

We sit and think.

“Peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” she offers.

I jut my lip, considering it. “Since that’s the only
thing I know how to make, in theory, it
could
come up.”

“I truly cannot fathom how either of us would say
‘peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ while fucking, but okay, if you
say so. How about ‘rainbows and unicorns’? That’ll never come out
of my mouth, I guarantee you.”

“Might come out of mine—you’re a total unicorn,
babe. I could totally imagine myself blurting that in a moment of
weakness. Even if I don’t say ‘rainbows’ along with it, it could
still get confusing.”

She laughs. “This shouldn’t be that hard.”

I sit and think for a moment. “Flesh-eating
bacteria,” I say.

“Hell no. You’re demented to even suggest it. Come
on. Dinosaur. Doorknob. Dandelion. Dungarees. Deedle-deedle-dee.
Pick one.”

I laugh. “No, hang on. I’m kinda digging
‘flesh-eating bacteria.’ I can’t imagine any sexual scenario in
which those words would ever come up.”

“As opposed to ‘dungarees’ or ‘dandelion’?” She
rolls her eyes. “Come on, Josh. Spaghetti. Skateboard. Ballerina.
Scooby Doo. Multi-vitamin.
From Justin to Kelly
. ‘My Little
Pony.’ Hot tamale.”

“Oh my God.” I hoot with glee. “
From Justin to
Kelly
. Winner-winner-chicken-dinner.”

Kat rolls her eyes. “What?
No
. I was totally
kidding. Harry Potter. Chili-cheese fries. ‘Go big or go home.’
Hunky dory.”

“Nope. We’ve got our winner.
From Justin to
Kelly
it is.”