Page 76 of Love Scenes
He slides the condom on, then comes back to me.
We share one last long look.
And then we are together, learning this new rhythm as we’ve learned every other. Finding the way we work. Pressure. Patience. Touch. Honest questions and honest answers.
I show him where to hold me. How to touch me to make this work best for the both of us. He tells me the sound of my voice is his favorite sound, so I whisper words only he gets to hear, hushedand right in his ear. As pleading and insistent as the beat we create together.
After a while, moving and working and building, building, there are no more words to whisper. I am gasping. His body and his hands and his insistence to get this right. Everything comes together, crashing over me in a seismic wave. All I can think, until I can’t think much at all, is he is mine.
He is mine.
Mine.
Falling to pieces, I whispermineinto his ear until both of us collapse, his body draped over me like a blanket, warm and safe and holding me to this perfect moment.
Okay, Sloane, Ineed you to climb on top of Joe.” Tyler stands off to the side, her headphones resting along her neck, hands in her pocket trying to force a casual energy.
Our intimacy coordinator comes forward. “How are you feeling right now? The intention is for your robe to be off. To be sure your breasts are only in profile in the shot.”
“I’m great. That’s perfectly fine,” I assure her. I tried joking with her once, and she let me know her sole role on this set is to make sure everything we do is comfortable and consented to, and humor only makes it harder for her to know my boundaries.
“Joe? How are you doing?”
He bites back a smile. “I’m wonderful. Thanks.”
Tammy the AD projects as loudly as possible to the sparse few here on set with us. “Only the necessary eyes right now, people!” Even she averts her gaze as soon as I remove the robe.
Our intimacy coordinator takes it. “Still all right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As instructed, I, mostly naked Sloane Ford, climb on top of mostly naked Joseph Donovan. He looks not at me but at the ceiling beyond my head.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler says. “I know this is really weird. Sloane, can you lean forward a little and place your hands on his chest?”
I do, and she moves back to the monitor to look at the coverage and talk it over with our DP.
“I’m so sorry again. Would you mind doing some light thrusting so we can see how everything moves?” she calls out to me.
The intimacy coordinator makes sure I am okay with this too.
I answer them both by rocking back and forth atop Joe, hands on his chest.
Tyler takes a breath. “I’m really sorry. Joe. Can you hold her?”
“No need to apologize,” he says. “Of course.”
This is what makes us break. His hands on my hips. He starts laughing, honestly kind of a giggle, and so do I. Lucky for us, it seems like it’s because we’re about to burst over how awkward all of this is.
And it is. So, so awkward. My weird flesh-colored underwear piece thrusting against his. My sister watching me on a monitor.
“It’s normal to laugh,” the intimacy coordinator tells us in a gentle tone. “The further we go, the more important it is that you two continue trusting each other. When the cameras roll, every motion should feel familiar and expected.”
Joe raises up a hand to salute her. “Yes to familiar and expected.”
I can’t help but blush.
Our coordinator is doing a phenomenal job of making sure we feel cared for and safe, but I have to say, discussing the technical aspects of sex is never really easy, especially when humor hasbeen nixed. I want to laugh again, but I know it’s really because there is truly nothing weirder than pretending to have intercourse for the first time with someone. Add on the fact that you actually just had sex for the first time less than twelve hours ago, and now you have a small audience of people pretending not to watch or pretending not to think it’s strange, and wow, the whole thing turns into a textbook example of the most awkward situation in the world.
