Ana had called me late on Thursday afternoon, to confirm that she was coming on Friday. She sounded a little sad. Wistful, and faintly accusing. It occurred to me that maybe she’d been serious when she said she was in love with me. In which case my response had been far too brusque. It would have hurt her. I’d have to say something to comfort her without giving her any encouragement.

Not that she needed much encouragement.

So on Thursday night I was home alone.

I still hadn’t seen Sa’afia in the last two nights. I’d called her twice a day, and she’d been distant, tolerating my call and then ending it.

I put on Dr John and took a beer to the couch in the living room, where Ana had slept. I noticed the line, “brain salad surgery”, in “Right Place, Wrong Time”. I’d first heard that phrase as the title of an Emerson, Lake and Palmer album. Apparently it meant “oral sex”. In the Dr John song it sounded sexy, though not obviously about cock-sucking But everything sung by Dr John sounds like it must be filthy. While nothing by ELP sounds sexy at all. I love ELP, by the way, and I enjoy how unfashionable they currently are, but they couldn’t do “sexy” to save their lives.

So I was thinking about Ana, and how pleasant it would be to let her have her way with me. I bet … And then I pressed my thumb and forefinger together and put them into my mouth. I said, “shhhhhhh”.

At least, I tried to.

I couldn’t even attempt the sound without my teeth closing onto my knuckles. It was a bite. To shhhhhh someone, you have to have your teeth close together, not clenched, but nearly. I hadn’t felt teeth closing on my cock when Sa’afia had said “shhhhh”. And when I had the obstacle of my thumb and finger in my mouth I found that I couldn’t make the sound at all. The best I could manage was something like, “hoooooowh.”

But I’d heard Sa’afia say, “shhhhhhh”. While my cock was getting sucked. And I hadn’t felt any teeth.

I sat there, mouth open. I suspect most of my readers had realised this days or weeks ago. But I sometimes missed things that concerned me, if I wasn’t expecting them. I said, “oh.”