Otto and Naomi escape to the dance floor, and I’m having too much fun.
The app on Otto’s phone is, on its face, pretty simple. It’s designed like a graph with a small dot in the center. You can drag the dot up and down the graph, increasing or decreasing the intensity of the toy.
But I click around. I find loops. Programs designed for different sensations—short bursts, slow builds, and patterns of varying intensity.
I play with them all, knowing that Naomi is experiencing it in real time.
I’ve never done anything like this before. It should be strange, making my best friend’s girlfriend tremble from across the room.
But, somehow? This feels easy. Natural.
I look across the room. I can’t see Naomi’s face—she’s buried it in Otto’s chest. He’s holding her, whispering in her ear.
As if he can feel my stare, his eyes lift and catch mine.
There’s a heat in his gaze that makes me burn.
I turn the program up. All the way up.
Naomi’s knees buckle, and she fists his shirt.
His eyes don’t leave mine, though. He holds her, murmurs in her ear, and smirks. Then he winks at me.
As if to say, Good job.
I swallow. Hard.
I’ve gotten carried away. I’m stiff and pinned awkwardly against my thigh, and I have to reach under the table and have to adjust myself through my pants.
Just then, the waiter comes by with a second round of drinks.
He startles me, and I quickly retract my hand from my lap. Too quickly.
My elbow bumps into my glass, and my beer upends, spilling out across the table, foamy and thick.
“Oh shit!” I say.
“Sorry,” the waiter says, doing his best to mop it up. “I’ll get you another.”
But it’s not the beer I’m worried about.
I grab a napkin and quickly dab Otto’s phone clean. That little dot is still at the top of the screen, all the way up, holding Naomi at its highest intensity.
I stab at the screen with my finger, but…nothing. I try the buttons on the side.
The app doesn’t respond. The phone won’t turn off.
It doesn’t stop going.
The waiter leaves, and Otto and Naomi return to the table.
Naomi is, understandably, a mess.
“Please,” she mewls against Otto, still clinging to him little a kitten. “Please, please, please!”
Otto flashes a grin at me. “Hey, man. Cut it.”
“I can’t.” I hold up his phone guiltily to show the damage. “It’s stuck.”
Otto’s eyebrows rocket up his forehead. Then he lets out a laugh. “Okay, baby girl. You’re in trouble.”
“Please!” she begs, and she sounds legitimately strained. “I can’t, fuck, I can’t take any more—”
“Lay down.” Naomi settles into the booth, getting on her back. Otto glances around and tells me, “Cover us.”
I don’t know what that means. Literally. I don’t know how to cover two people when one is squirming like all hell and the other has his hand between her thighs. I could drape a jacket over them, but I’m pretty sure that would draw attention toward us, not away from us. But I glance around the bar and try to make sure no one’s coming after us.
I’m also trying to keep my gaze averted from what’s happening right next to me.
There’s the hiss of Naomi’s zipper. I hear Naomi gasp, and I know Otto’s fingers are inside of her.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. “You’re doing so good.”
Then I hear the buzzing. He pulls the toy out and dangles it. It’s U-shaped and glistening.
Naomi has her hand over her face. She might be crying.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, shame running through me like cold water. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
But then she starts to laugh.
It’s loud and long. A huge, cackling laugh with pitches and squeaks and gasps for breath.
“Oh. My. God,” she says when she can finally speak. “I think I came like twenty times.”
Otto, too, is grinning at me.
“You broke my phone,” he says. “And my girlfriend.”
“Sorry,” I say for what feels like the thirtieth time.
Naomi is still sprawled out on the seat, Otto positioned on top of her. He moves his thumb to the bottom of the pink toy, I assume to a button there, and it stops vibrating.
“How’re you feeling?” he asks Naomi.
“Fucking fantastic.”
Then Otto covers her toy in his hand. His eyes locked on hers, he swirls his tongue around the bulb of it.
Unbidden, the thought pops into my mind: I wonder what that tongue would feel like if—
No. Let’s not go there.
Naomi laughs. “Animal.”
He grins. “Slut.”
She grips his shirt and yanks him against her. They kiss, deeply, and I have to look away.
I wish there was a way to discreetly move my beer to my lap so the cold glass could help relieve the parts of me that have suddenly become unbearably swollen.
I wish the sight of the two of them didn’t take the breath out of my lungs.
I wish the three of us—
Stop. Let’s not wish too close to the sun.
Eventually, the two of them break apart. Even with my gaze at the band, I can feel Otto’s eyes on me.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s dance. All of us.”
