Fifteen

EVERETT

When I was fifteen, I lost my virginity at Dalton’s birthday party. It was in his parents’ pool house with this girl from our school, and she was wearing this really little yellow bikini with ruffles all over it. For a few months after, anything even remotely resembling a yellow, ruffly bikini got under my skin. The swirl of frosting on a cupcake. The begonias in my grandmother’s backyard. A misshapen lemon at the farmers’ market. One glance and I’d get hard, desperately trying to tuck that shit to the side or hide it with my jacket. It was so bad, Lander—being the perceptive fucker he is—figured it out and started folding Post-It notes accordion style and flicking them at me in our AP history class.

Well, this is some next-level shit because Cora Flores has ruined sinks for me.

I’m standing in my kitchen, filling a glass of water from the filter, and I only realized it was overflowing when water spilled over the rim and onto my hand.

Wasting water? I’m down so damn bad. But the moment I turned on the tap, all I could think about was Cora perched on the edge of the sink at Tryst, my fingers buried inside her wet pussy, and her muscles milking my hand when she came.

Me

Are you ready to let me fuck you?

It’s the fourth time I’ve texted this exact message to Cora since I returned to my house two days ago. This time, she replies immediately—a recent development.

Princess

Wrong number. This is Cora, not the mafia boss you undoubtedly offered your body to in exchange for the signatures you needed to get on the ballot.

I’m grinning at my phone when I slide the glass of water over to Dalton and take a seat at my table.

“If you’re not going to prep for the debate, at least tell me you’re reading the packet Essie put together on Forrester,” Lander urges, finally throwing his ballpoint pen onto the table. It skitters over the index cards spread in front of him and slides off the other side. Dalton catches it without looking up from his laptop and passes it back to Lander, who says, “Thanks, love,” and winks before he tucks the pen behind his ear.

“I’m rereading texts from Cora,” I reply, rotating my wrist to show my phone to my friends. For once, Dalton actually stops typing.

Subtlety is an art form neither of my friends has ever mastered: Lander looks at Valeria like he could get her pregnant if he stared hard enough, and Dalton can’t be in a room with Essie without inhaling through his nostrils and wiggling his beefy hands like he’s a beat away from picking her up and dropping her on his dick.

I, on the other hand, make a concerted effort to ensure it looks like I’m planning to frame Cora for murder.

Lander’s blue eyes tick over to Dalton, who watches me over the shell of his laptop with his brow furrowed. His lips separate, and he glances at Lander. Neither speaks, and if I had to guess, I’d assume they were having a telepathic conversation about whether either of them knew Cora and I were a… thing .

Both of them fix their attention back on me with alarming synchronicity.

“I do that too,” Lander finally mentions, not hiding how precisely he’s selecting his words. “If I’m not with Valeria, I read her texts or look at pictures of her constantly.”

“So…” Dalton glances at Lander again, mouthing what is distinctly, “ What now? ” and shrugging his big shoulders.

Lander faces me yet again. “So…”

“So?” I ask before placing my phone on the varnished tabletop. “Are you two good, or should we keep pretending I can’t see you trying to figure out what’s going on between Cora and me?”

“Yeah, fuck it,” Dalton decides, finally lowering his laptop screen. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” I reply, dipping my chin.

“Good? Good meaning…what—you’re comfortable with her camming?” Lander ventures. “After all the drama you instigated when you met Cora, you’re just, like, fine with her camming?”

I scoff. “First of all, get fucked. I’m not an instigator.”

“You are,” Lander rebuts.

“By definition,” Dalton piles on. “Indisputably.”

“Less skilled instigators than you have led monarchical coups,” Lander continues. “So, you’ve been watching her streams?”

I nod. “She’s so good at it.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?” Dalton asks.

I shake my head. “I know it’s still complicated, but it’s sort of a mindfuck. A good one. Being with a woman so indescribably hot that other men would pay to have her is like…” I look at Lander. “I mean, I get it now.”

A smile spreads over Lander’s face. It’s a new development, but the guy smiles constantly—ever since Valeria entered his life. “You’re done for, Ev.”

“Are you guys together?” Dalton asks before he takes a sip from his bottle of beer, ignoring the water I got him. He exhales like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted—like he hasn’t already had three tonight.

“Not together,” I clarify. “We’re…”

“Figuring shit out?” Dalton ventures.

“Not quite. We’re…” I trail off, trying to find a word that fully encapsulates what’s going on. “…I asked her to fuck me, but she said she wouldn’t unless I abided by three specific stipulations, one of which is never telling a lie in her presence, which is impossible when you’re an aspiring politician.”

Immediately, Dalton frowns. “Why would you ask her to fuck you when you obviously want to be with her?”

It’s Lander who scoffs and says, “Because he’s running for office.”

“Yes, thank you for your astute observations, Lan.” Rolling his eyes, Dalton throws up his middle finger before he faces me again. “So, you’re going to screw up your chance with Cora because of your campaign?”

“No, I still plan on getting her.”

Immediately, Dalton claps his big hands together and lets out a bellowing, “FUCK YEAH,” before hitting his fist against his chest. Lander, on the flip side, grabs his pen from behind his ear and chucks it clear across the room before he slaps his palm against my kitchen table, blurting out, “You’ve got to be kidding me .”

“What the fucking hell is going on?” I demand, shifting my attention back and forth between the two of them.

“We made a bet,” Dalton replies, grinning massively and now tapping the sides of his fists against the table and making it shake. “We knew something was going on between you and Cora, and I bet Lander ten thousand dollars that you would drop out of the race to be with her.”

My brow tightens. “I’m not dropping out of the race.”

Dalton and Lander immediately freeze. They exchange another set of glances before looking back at me.

“Ev, there’s no other way to be with Cora,” Lander states.

“Why not?”

Dalton lets out a whistle. “I mean, to start, there’s the election. But never telling a lie? No chance. You’ll have to convince her to lower her standards for you, and you have a better shot at befriending the Loch Ness monster than convincing Cora to lower her standards.” He opens his laptop once more like he thinks we’re done. “By the way, the reason you can’t befriend the Loch Ness monster isn’t a matter of locating her. It’s because Nessie would find you insufferable.”

When I don’t respond, Lander reaches over and presses Dalton’s screen, closing the laptop in an unspoken message: This conversation isn’t over. He looks at me. “You’re still going to try, aren’t you? You’re going to try to run for office and be with Cora.”

At once, Dalton’s brow tightens. “Ev,” he warns. “ Don’t .”

I furrow my brow. “Why not? We were all supportive of Lander when he wanted to date a camgirl while he was on the partner track at a huge law firm.”

Lander’s brow tightens. “Because I had no intention of ever hiding my relationship. What you’re trying to do is practically subterfuge.”

“You two don’t get it. This is America. Nobody is going to vote for me if they know I’m in a relationship with a sex worker. It’s bullshit, but it’s true.”

“So, Cora is game to sneak around?” Dalton questions. “That surprises me.”

“Actually, she still thinks I’m only in it to fuck her,” I admit. When my friends stare at me, I sigh. “It’s complicated. She hates lying, and I’ve been lying about my feelings for months.”

“…So, your solution is to lie more ? Everett, come on.” Lander groans and throws his head back. “Valeria is going to kill you.”

“Can we pause,” I request. “Were you two actually going to let me drop out of the election?”

Lander and Dalton both shrug. “Yeah,” Dalton admits.

“Pretty much,” Lander agrees.

“Lander, you’re my campaign manager.”

“I’m your best friend,” he counters. “So if you tell me you want to be in Congress, I’ll get you elected. If you tell me you want to be with Cora, then I’ll help you figure out how to get Cora. That’s it. I have no agenda other than to be there for you, Ev.”

“Alright, well what if I want to be in Congress and I want to be with Cora?”

“Pick,” Lander answers immediately.

The thought makes my stomach tighten on reflex. I exhale and look between Lander and Dalton. “I’ve been preparing for this since I was eleven years old. I’m not running because I can win; I actually want to prioritize the right things.”

“Okay, great.” Lander bobs his head. “Let’s focus on getting you elected.”

“But I also want Cora so badly that I barely sleep. I miss her and we’ve only been apart for, like, two days.” I exhale again. “And if I listed all the things I’ve done over the past seven months to feel close to her, you two wouldn’t recognize me.”

Lander settles back in his chair. “You know me: I scheme. That’s my thing. If you want to have your cake…and eat pussy too, great. I can help. But Cora needs to know the truth first.”

“Agreed,” Dalton chimes in. “Tell her yesterday . Let her decide if she even wants to be a part of this shit. You can’t have a relationship built on secrets.”

I look to the side. I know they’re right. But owning up to everything feels contrary to what I’ve always been taught.

Cora deserves to know though. “I’ll tell her,” I decide. “I’ll confess everything after the debate.”

Lander’s brow knots. “The debate isn’t until Wednesday.”

“The timing is better. She’ll see me onstage and realize how good I am at this, and it’ll help her…come around.”

My friends exchange another glance. This time, I don’t ask, but they don’t say anything either. Lander takes a drink of his beer and clears his throat. “Speaking of secrets,” he mentions, “remember the time we went camping and Dalton got poison ivy on his hands, and you two didn’t tell me you had to hold his dick when he peed?”

“Yeah, remember, Ev? You had to hold my dick because it’s so big.” Wearing his usual shit eating grin, Dalton waves at me like we’re not sitting at the same table. “I would have peed on my leg otherwise—because it’s so big .”

I tilt my head back and force an exhale before droning, “ Jesus, Dalton . Everyone knows you have a big dick.”

“And I don’t know why you waited to tell me what happened,” Lander presses, looking between Dalton and me with an unexpectedly tight expression. “Kind of rude, frankly. I’m a great friend. An amazing friend. I would have helped, no hesitation.”

“Yes, Lan,” I murmur, picking up my phone again. I’m decidedly over this conversation.

“I mean it,” Lander insists, jabbing his finger onto the tabletop. “I’d hold your junk anytime, anyplace. So, I don’t know why you guys felt the need to exclude me.”

“Motherfucker, stop pouting. We literally told you fourteen hours after it happened,” I remind him.

Lander pauses, considering it before he raises a shoulder and admits, “Yeah, fair. But it felt good, right?”

“Nah, it didn’t really do much for me,” Dalton muses, shrugging.

Lander’s sigh is only slightly more exasperated than mine is. “I was talking about telling the truth, not Everett holding your dick, you dick.”

“Oh,” Dalton chuckles. “Yeah, telling the truth felt good. Right, Ev?”

I nod. “Sure, yeah.”

***

But here’s the thing: Telling the truth has never felt good to me.

When I was twelve, I told my father about a birdwatching event at the local library. Clutching this flyer I got at school, I mentioned the nature walk and the professional birder they’d booked. His expression had been stoic. Unimpressed. I figured it was a dead issue, but a few days later, he told me to put on my hiking boots and get in the car.

I was so excited, staring out the window at the passing scenery and holding my backpack filled with binoculars, granola bars, and extra sunscreen. But he drove me to Mason Neck State Park, not the library. There, one of his donors was waiting. He handed me a gun to hunt waterfowl.

I bawled until I passed out from dehydration.

Later, when I came to in the passenger seat on the drive back to McLean, my father said, “I told Mr. Richardson how sorry you were for ruining the afternoon.” He reached over and pushed my hair off my forehead. “I assured him you’re not always such a pussy , Everett. It was the heat.”

I thanked him for it.

Later, lying in my bed, I wished I’d never mentioned the damn birds in the first place.

Four days. The debate is in four days.

I’ll tell her then. I will.

That night, when I log on to Cora’s Sunday stream, seeing her for the first time since Friday awakens every part of me.

She’s on her bed wearing a see-through bra and panties, looking entirely fuckable as usual. Black straps with gold buckles extend from the bra and cross over her body, indenting her skin. Her nipple piercings glint through the thin, transparent fabric, and they’re gold tonight to match all those buckles and…

…well, we’re in sync.

There’s my princess , I type into the public chat. A smirk rises on Cora’s crimson lips, and she runs her hand through her long hair, sweeping it in front of her shoulder and covering one of her breasts.

She picks up the vibrator next to her. The toy comes to life, buzzing quietly below the music playing in the background. Motions fluid and deliberate, Cora slides a strap over her shoulder, and the chat explodes as usual. That’s my cue.

FuckingMyOwnFace: Show them your gorgeous body. The body I pay for. Show them what they don’t get to touch.

Cora’s face blooms with a smile, and outright satisfaction strikes me. I did that shit. I made her happy. I’m the one who gives her what she needs.

Like a good girl, she flicks the other strap off her shoulder, and now the only things keeping her bra up are a clasp and divine intervention. Then she slides her thumb underneath the thin band of her thong and tugs it halfway down her hip. “You’re not going to say anything else?”

I freeze.

Cora taps her fingertip on a spot by her hipbone, and the connection is immediate: It’s the exact spot where she put my three-hundred-dollar tip. It’s the spot I kissed after I finger-fucked her pussy.

There are hundreds of people watching, and she’s performing for me alone.

Her pussy is puffy and wet, visibly so, even through the fabric of her panties. It’s the pussy I filled with my fingers two days ago. It’s the pussy that milked my hand like it couldn’t get enough. I’ve longed for this pussy. Yearned for it. Done unspeakable things to get it.

I’m desperate to reassure this sweet pussy that I’ll be taking care of it soon enough.

Before I have a chance to type, Cora drags the vibrator over her clit and moans faintly. “You spent all that time working me up and you don’t even know what to do with me.” Another moan. A whisper of a scoff. “That’s pathetic.”

FuckingMyOwnFace: I don’t have to say anything. We both know you’ll let me right into every tight hole on you.

“Have you earned it yet?” She’s circling her clit with the tip of the toy. “Guess I have to take care of myself.”

Cora spreads her legs before she turns up the vibrator. Her motions are lackadaisical at first—graceful but deliberate. Groaning, she separates her lips and touches the tip of her pierced tongue to the back of her top teeth.

It is ungodly how hot she is.

She angles the vibrator to rest sideways against her clit, letting it span the length of her pussy. When her back arches and she picks up her familiar hip roll, I realize she’s actually going for it.

Fuck that. I want her orgasm tonight. I don’t know how—don’t care. I need it. I absolutely fucking need it, and I’m so done waiting.

For the first time, I send her a private message: Don’t come .

She’s too busy repositioning herself on the bed to respond. This time, she lays in profile, head on one side of the bed and her feet on the other. When she lays back, her breasts finally spill over the top of her bra, and she leaves them out—pierced tits bared to the room—as she prefers.

Never met a girl more excited to take her tits out than Cora.

I send her another private message: Don’t come .

She sees it and fully ignores me like the most unattainable little man eater in history. The way she places the vibrator back against her pussy is smug as shit, akin to her flipping me off, and it’s precisely this moment when I accept: I’m hanging by a thread.

I’m crawling out of my skin with want and frustration. I’m so far from her. A few days ago, we were literally inches away, and now—this shit. I hate it here. I hate this house and this campaign and—

“That’s the best you can do? I guess I’ll—”

I call her.

Cora finally hesitates. She glances offscreen before she looks right at her laptop’s camera and raises her middle finger, actually flipping me off this time. She’s killing me.

I get her voicemail, so I try again. My laptop’s screen goes unexpectedly gray right as the call connects.

“I’m a little busy, Everett,” she snaps in lieu of a greeting.

Holy shit. She paused the entire stream for me.

I didn’t expect her to answer, so the best I can pull from my knotted tangle of shock, frustration, and horniness is, “Are you taunting me?”

“Me? Never.”

“Don’t come. Be a good girl and wait.”

“No, I think I’m going to be a whore,” Cora replies before letting out a contented sigh. “How do you treat a whore, Everett?”

I falter, wondering if I’m reading this right—if she’s really asking me to be meaner. Crueler. More degrading.

Only one way to find out.

“You really are the biggest slut I’ve ever met,” I grit, going for it. “Can you even enjoy a fuck if you don’t have hundreds of men watching you? You’re depraved.”

The silence is unnerving, but then again, everything about Cora unnerves me. I don’t question this. I wait.

Eventually, her voice cuts through the quiet: “More.”

More.

“Showing off your dripping wet pussy, begging for someone to fill it and finish in you. You pretend you want mine, but you’d welcome any dick you can get, wouldn’t you? You’re obsessed with taking a fat cock raw. You’re not happy unless you’re fucked down and leaking with cum.”

“Everett,” she murmurs. “ God, Everett . I knew you’d be good at this.”

Me. Damn right, me . She knew because nobody has ever been worse to her—or invited her to be just as bad. The two of us are cataclysmic and incredible. How did we wait so long to do this?

“Then be a good little whore and save your orgasm for me. Nobody wants your pussy as badly as I do. Nobody can pay more than I will. Be my perfect princess whore and let me tell you what to do with that needy, empty cunt while they watch.”

Cora inhales softly, barely audible over the line.

“You think I don’t like how all these assholes get to see the pussy I touch? The pussy I’m going to eat? The pussy I’m going to fuck? Show them. I don’t care. I live to know how jealous they are.”

She’s still quiet.

“Put the camera back on,” I instruct.

“You want that?”

“Who cares what I want? Haven’t I been clear: I want to spoil you . I want you to be the best kept whore in the District. You’re going to have everything you want, and we both know what you want is to show off your wet cunt like the easy slut you are.”

The stream resumes, but now, Cora is wearing a white earbud. She props herself against the headboard and spreads her legs, sporting a ravenous expression.

“You really do think with your cunt, don’t you,” I say into the phone.

A grin spreads over Cora’s face. “Of course I do. Mine is gorgeous. Can you prove how badly you want it?”

It really is gorgeous. “I’ll come over. I’ll give you a thousand dollars to hold off for fifteen minutes.”

“No way,” she answers immediately. “I’m horny right now. Need it now. You played with my pussy and then left me here alone. You didn’t call. You didn’t visit. All I got were those texts, and baby boy, they weren’t enough for me . What did you expect me to do to satisfy myself?”

“Two thousand,” I barter.

She ignores me and instead turns the vibrator up. She presses it into her pussy, outright fucking herself now—and her expression is devilish.

Damn it. I force myself away from my laptop and grab a pair of socks from my dresser. “Three thousand.”

“Ten minutes,” she counters, looking at the camera, speaking directly to me. “You have ten minutes.”