The first time I saw Adam with his shirt off, I was too awestruck to feel guilty. Something in the back of my mind said don't get caught, but that was it. By then, I wanted to carry on touching him and didn't feel guilt or shame. Not with the way he looked at me, like I was his favourite toy.
"Do you have any idea how long I've waited to meet someone like you?" Adam murmured against my neck, and I stiffened. Not in a good way. "Sorry." He pulled away. "I keep forgetting people who know what I am get nervous when I do that. I just want to bite you all over."
My eyes must have widened in shock because he laughed, though not cruelly, I believed.
"Not like that. Well, maybe. I just mean because you're so delicious. Good enough to eat in that sense. Honestly. I don't want to hurt you."
Oh, but you're going to, I almost said out loud. Instead, I just pulled him down toward me again, breath catching in my throat when I realised his arm was between us, his hand working at my belt. Somehow, it had become almost undone, and Adam's unnatural dexterity making quick work of the buckle.
"Oh." Christ. At last. I felt like I'd been waiting for that forever, his bare hand on my erection. I gulped. "Fuck. What...?"
"What am I doing? What you want me to."
Adam smiled against my mouth, half-laughing, half-kissing. He pressed his lips to mine, and I struggled just a little. "What is it? Am I hurting you?"
"Can't breathe," I managed to say and laughed too.
Everything was done quietly. Whispers, gasps, winks, silent communication through brief looks, the expressions on each other's faces. It made it all somehow dirtier, but I knew beyond all uncertainty that this was right. I pushed against him from the hips, but with his weight on top of me and the fact I was weakened by lust, there wasn't much give there. I had to wait for Adam to roll over to one side so we were facing each other. Soon, we fell into a rhythm of me pushing myself through the tight grip of his hand, and Adam whispering at me.
No sweet nothings; it wasn't that romantic. I could never remember his exact wording; the way his hand felt on my prick distracted me.
Adam's grip tightened, and I had to bite my lip to avoid crying out. "Shit, Adam," I whispered.
"You'll make me...I can't..." Breathless, I couldn't continue. I couldn't even ask or tell him to kiss me, and he didn't, merely touching his cool forehead to my perspiration-soaked one and smiling when I came all over his hand and forearm, twisting and fighting to bury my head in the curve of his neck, or a pillow, anything to muffle the sound.
I gulped back as much air as I could when I felt able to breathe again; Adam's hand was still on me, as if he didn't just not mind the sticky mess I'd made, but actually liked it. "God." I screwed my eyes shut for a few seconds in an extended blink. "What the hell have I just done?"
"Nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong at all."
"I need to get cleaned up." I kept a water basin and jug in the room; the water would be cold by now, but it was better than nothing. With my return to normality, whatever that was these days, came the lurking dread and the more active, heart-pounding panic. How to explain any suspect stains away when laundry time came around again? I could sponge my trousers down, but my shirt? The top bedcover? "I should have been completely naked, then I wouldn't have...my clothes..."
"I won't argue with that."
Adam was still smirking when I pulled away from him. My legs shook, and it was just as well I was still lying down.
"God, what a mess."
"You can wash yourself. Wipe yourself down with a washcloth."
"No, not that. I mean, yes that, but this. Us." I wasn't sure quite what "us" meant, if this would carry on, or if it even should. I wanted this, at least before I'd come, before the guilt washed over me, but was wanting enough? With the war and my work and Adam's mad insistence on certain things being true, things that were impossible.
"I need to go soon."
"Yes." I didn't look around at him while I cleaned myself up. The washcloth took care of the worst of it; it wasn't that bad after all. I tried to tell myself I worried over nothing.
"It won't be daylight for a few hours yet, but I wouldn't want to draw suspicion on you with your landlady. Got a spare washcloth?" Adam looked me up and down while I corrected my clothing, trying to adopt a respectable appearance once again.
"Yes, here." I handed him one and went back over to the bed, inspecting it for evidence of what had happened minutes before. I straightened the sheets and pillows while Adam cleaned himself up. "I'm sorry the water's not hot, but..."
"Doesn't matter to me." He shrugged.
"Temperature doesn't affect me, remember?" He'd said several times that he didn't feel the cold.
"Just the heat?" I threw at him, meaning sunlight or fire. I'd finished straightening the sheets and flicked away imaginary dust motes from my shirt, smoothing down my trousers.
"You're catching on." Adam stood with his hands on his hips, facing me, looking as if he meant business. "Listen, I---"
But I never found out what it was he was going to say. That was when the siren went off.
The all clear came, and Adam was one of the first out of the bomb shelter. I felt like I'd been holding my breath all that time. My landlady in the same damned bunker as the man who'd masturbated me to a messy climax a short time before, and I felt like fire ants were crawling all over me.
He
