“When I make you come, I want you to say my name.”

I almost said out loud that I tried not to use anyone’s name, because I didn’t want to cry out the wrong name. I’d done it a few times, and so far everyone had been a good sport, but it wasn’t flattering to have your lover call out someone else’s name in the middle of sex. It just wasn’t, but as I stared down the line of my body into those flame-and-sunset eyes, what else could I say but yes?

He brought me with his tongue, his lips, his mouth, licking and sucking over that one sweet point, and because he’d done so much foreplay the orgasm was bigger, more all-consuming, so the orgasm washed over me in wave after wave that left me quivering and screaming, my hands trying to find something, anything to dig my nails into, to hold on to as one orgasm spilled into the next, or maybe it was the same one over and over like waves against the shore; it’s all the same ocean, but not the same wave.

I screamed his name with my head thrown back, eyes closed, his name like a frantic prayer spilling over and over from my lips, “Domino, Domino, Domino!”

His face was suddenly above me. “Your arm seems better.”

I blinked up at him. I’d slid down the pillows and buried myself deeper into them as I thrashed around. The sling was loose around my neck, because my arm wasn’t in it anymore. I managed to gasp, “Yes.”

“Good, because I want to fuck you now.”

“Yes, God, yes.”

He smiled, and my mind could almost process that he was on all fours above me, his arms on either side of my upper body, his knees between my legs. He was already wearing a condom like a pale shadow over the hardness of him.

He leaned his lower body on top of me but kept his upper body propped above me. He tried to slide himself inside me but couldn’t quite get the angle. If I could have moved I’d have helped him, but I was still lying there boneless and floating on the afterglow of the sex we’d already had. He used his hand to guide himself inside me. I was so wet, but tight, the way I got after oral sex. He was wide enough that he had to push to work himself inside me, one delicious inch at a time. I was making small, eager noises by the time he got himself as deep inside me as he could, our bodies wedded together as intimately as it was possible to be.

“Look at me, Anita,” he said.

I’d been watching his body sliding inside mine, but his words made me look up. He was staring down at me. “I want you to look at me while we make love. I want you to look into my eyes the whole time.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I want to watch your eyes while we make love. I want you to watch my eyes and not my body.”

The thought of looking him in the eyes the whole time made me uncomfortable, and strangely self-conscious. I might have protested, but I’d been with Jade enough to know why he might be asking this now. She saw too much eye contact during sex as aggression, and that had been with me, another woman; I couldn’t imagine how much worse the issue would be between her and a man. Even in the middle of sex Jade seemed to hide; I could understand Domino wanting someone who didn’t hide. Someone who saw him, and enjoyed being with him, no flinching, no punishing him for being a man. You could have sympathy for Jade’s issues, but her unwillingness to work through them in therapy had limited my sympathy after a while. I didn’t ask if Domino was coming to the same conclusions. I just gave him what he wanted. I looked at him as his body began to work in and out of mine. He stopped moving long enough to throw enough pillows off the bed to give himself a firmer surface for his arms to push against. I stared up into eyes that reminded me of fire as he found his rhythm, a little faster now, but not as deep as he could go, seeking for that first spot close to the opening. I knew my breathing changed, but something must have shown on my face, because he smiled and kept sliding himself over and over in that hip-moving rhythm that had quickened my breathing and made me grab onto his arms where they kept his upper body propped above me. I watched the orange of his iris spread until the red was only a thin line around his pupil as his own breathing began to speed up. I could feel the weight between my legs growing, and knew I was close. I told him so, as I stared into his face and let him see every shade of pleasure, every small frown and smile and gasp, and I watched the same from him. It was almost too intimate, as if we were stripping each other bare in a way we’d never done before.

Between one second and the next, one thrust of his body and the next, he brought me screaming wordlessly, too overwhelmed for any words to hold. I spasmed with the orgasm, throwing my head back, closing my eyes.

“Look at me, Anita. Look at me!” His voice was a deep growl, so bass it didn’t sound like him at all anymore.

I opened my eyes and looked up to find his lips half-parted, his eyes almost frantic. He fought his body to keep its rhythm so I would scream my pleasure just one more time. I felt my nails dig into his arms where I was still holding on. He stared into my eyes and I stared back, and what I saw just a second before looked almost like fear, as if he were afraid to let himself release. His body shuddered above me, stumbled in that rhythm, and he cried out above me, his eyes wide and frantic as he thrust himself as deep inside me as he could get, which made me scream for him again. I felt him shudder inside me, felt him go inside me, his body pulsing with it, which made me cry out again and rake my nails down his arms.

He finally closed his eyes and bowed his head over me, while his chest rose and fell as if he’d been running. There was a fine sheen of sweat down the middle of his chest. I wanted to touch his curls so close above me, but I couldn’t make my arms work. I couldn’t make anything work. I was just floating in the afterglow of all of it.