Wild Nights

by Therese Szymanski

  Her mouth clicks shut and her eyes get really, really big. I watch her jaw work for a few moments, wondering whether she’s going to chew me out or keep arguing. “What am I supposed to do?” she asks finally, her voice shriller than normal in frustration. “I can’t just tell him he’s doing it wrong!”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “Why not?” When she just sits there in a sort of shocked silence, I shrug. “Look, if I were the one f—, uh, making love to you, I’d want you to tell me if it didn’t feel right.” I shake my head a little. “It doesn’t have to be that hard— just show him how you touch yourself, y’know?”

  The rest, as Shakespeare said, is silence. Now Sarah isn’t looking at me anymore, but down at the carpet, and her fingers are picking at nonexistent lint on my futon. Huh. Is this for real? She doesn’t know how to touch herself? I mean, yeah, sure, it takes some folks longer than others, but . . .

  “Hey,” I say softly, brushing one hunched shoulder with a few fingertips. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad or anything.” I lean back to stretch a little as she looks over at me, and I flash her a charming grin. I know it’s charming, ’cuz an ex told me that, once. Many exes, actually. And it does exactly the same thing to Sarah as it did to them; her eyes widen and her breaths come a little faster and she sort of melts into the embrace of the futon. Excellent. It’s go time.

  “I could always . . . help you out.” I’m proud of my voice—deep and melodious, soothing yet exciting. Or, well, I hope that’s how it sounds to her.

  She blinks at me, but even as I watch, her pupils get huge. Oh, yeah—at least part of her wants this. Wants me. Wants to feel good. I scoot a little closer and put one hand on her knee.

  “What are you doing?” she whispers. Half-scared, half-curious—the anger is suddenly gone. Progress.

  “Seeing if you’ll let me touch you,” I reply evenly, massaging the muscles just above her joint. “I’d really like to show you what you’re missing,” I continue, unable to resist a smirk. “I bet you’ll like it, too.”

  “I”—she licks her lips and swallows audibly—“Um, I—” Still not pulling away. Good.

  “What do you think?” I ask as I run my hand up her thigh to lightly squeeze her waist.

  She shivers under my touch, but doesn’t pull away. “I’m not going to kiss you,” I continue, tracing the contours of her rib cage with three fingertips. “And I won’t go inside unless you want me to.” I stare into her deep, dark eyes as my fingers get closer and closer to her breasts. Her heart is going a mile a minute, and she’s breathing hard, too. And still not pulling away.

  “I’m just going to touch you. Here”—I run one finger over an already hard nipple and feel it stiffen further beneath my touch— “and here.” Slowly, I move back down the center of her body, down over the slight curve of her belly, down between the vee of her legs. Her hips lift, and a little sigh escapes from between her lips. The material of her sweats is thin, and it’s easy to find the slight ridge of her clit, to pluck at it with gentle fingertips. She gasps.

  “Yes, oh—”

  “Take off your shirt,” I order. When she doesn’t hesitate, I know she wants this just as much as I thought she did. I straddle her legs smoothly, my abs straining as I hold myself apart from her skin. Her pale breasts glow whitely in the candlelight. I cup them with my hands, massaging tenderly. Another little sigh.

  “That feel good?”

  “Mmm.” Eyes closed, Sarah hums. Frankly, I bet Brian’s never touched her like this. Men can’t understand it—how good it feels to have someone else bear your weight in their palms, just for a little while. How relaxing. And Sarah is much more relaxed, now— her breaths are steady and her head is lolling against the back of the futon—so I bring both thumbs up to slide simultaneously across her nipples.

  Her head jerks up and her eyes fly open. “Oh, god—”

  I do it again. She shivers. I let my palms fall away so I can take her between my fingers—rolling, pinching, twisting. Her hips shift under me and her hands grab at the futon cover and her perfect teeth worry the red ribbon of her lower lip.

  “How ’bout this?” I ask, daring to squeeze just the slightest bit harder. “Good?”

  “Ye-es,” Sarah whispers harshly. “So good . . .”

  I lift my hands away. She groans. “Shhh, don’t worry,” I say, leaning against one railing of the futon and urging her to sit between my legs. “It’s about to get a lot better.” I pull her close, my chin on her shoulder, my hands resting lightly on her hipbones. Experimentally, I trail two fingers down between her legs, testing out my reach. A low whimper. Perfect.

  “Take your pants off for me. And your underwear.” I caress her breasts as she complies, and settles back against me—completely naked, now. “Sit like this,” I whisper hotly into her ear, drawing my knees up. Her bare legs slide against the soft fabric of my jeans, and for a moment, I wish I could feel her against my skin. But then I slide both hands down to rest on the soft skin of her abdomen, just above her dark, curly hair, and her cheek slides against mine as she half-whispers, half-groans my name.

  “Pay attention, now.” I slide one finger down—slowly, so slowly—down along her clitoris before tracing the soft skin of her swollen lips. Down into the waiting moisture—and she is so beautifully wet—down to circle her opening before looping back up and around. I pause and lean to one side enough to see her face. Eyes squeezed shut, mouth slightly open to admit her panting breaths—she’s exquisite and she’s loving this. I grin triumphantly.

  “Give me your hand.”

  “What?”

  I don’t ask again. Instead, I take her right hand and hold it under my own, aligning our fingers. “Like this,” I murmur, retracing my path, teaching her the feel of her sex before slowly guiding her inside her own body.

  “Oh,” she says breathlessly as I curl our fingers up, stroking against the grooves of her. “BJ—”

  “Other hand,” I urge as I draw her left arm down, my fingers teaching her to tease herself. The slow, curling slide, the fast and furious circles against her clit, hips surging erratically and those cries, those breathy groans hitching in the back of her throat only to blossom on the air . . . and our hands, our hands, molding her passion, forming it, shaping it, her cunt like wet clay on my wheel—so perfect, too perfect, collapsing under its own beauty, collapsing into ecstasy . . .

  I lean forward to shield her body with my own, feeling her tremble in my embrace—and the power comes back on as she comes—the flick of the lights and the whirr of my stereo and the low buzz of my refrigerator, all celebrating her passion.

  She presses back against me, gasping. I withdraw my fingers and wrap my arms around her waist in a light hug. She turns to look at me, eyes wide and hazy, and I grin. “Now that,” I tell her, “was a neat trick.”

  Sarah laughs breathlessly and buries her face into my biceps, and I snuggle her close for a few more seconds. She smells good, and I’m proud of myself.

  “I’d better go,” she says finally, as I knew she would. So I release her, and she gets up and pulls on her shirt and pants without looking at me. I blow out the candles.

  She runs her fingers through her hair as I stand up. “Um,” she says shyly. Her cheeks are pink. “Uh . . . thanks . . . for the beer.”

  “Glad I could be of service,” I reply, grinning. I reach out to touch her arm, and I’m glad when she doesn’t pull away. I wink. “Give Brian my message, ’kay?”

  She laughs nervously, but at least she’s laughing. I show her to the door and watch her walk slowly, dreamily, back to her own apartment. Smiling to myself, I nod and return to my wheel—but when I sit down, I realize that I’ve lost the urge to throw. Maybe because I’ve already created art today. I can feel my smile get bigger as I look down at my hands. Her scent, her feel, clings to them.

  I wrestle the lump of clay off the wheel and return it to the cupboard, snagging another bottle from the fridge on my way back to the futon. Maybe
I’ll hunker down with the novel I’m reading—or maybe I’ll pop in a movie. Hell, maybe I’ll just surf the ’net for old reruns of SNL. The possibilities are endless—life is never boring.

  It’s late, of course, by the time I crawl into bed. As I tug the blankets up under my chin, Brian’s distinctive low groan of pleasure trickles through the wall. I grin into the dark. Right on cue.

  Only this time, I can hear Sarah talking to him. Her voice is too soft to make out the words, but . . . well, let’s just say that her little moans start out three seconds apart as usual, but they sure don’t stay that way for long. I think I even hear her say “fuck” once, which really makes me proud!

  Sighing contentedly, I roll over onto my side and tuck my legs in close to my body. Mission accomplished. Tonight? I’m gonna sleep like a baby.

  It Never Happened

  Anne Bonney

  I never touched her. I never wanted her. I never wrapped my legs around her hips and never, under any circumstances did I come twenty-three times in a single night.

  If I say I’m a habitual liar, you won’t know what to trust, will you? So, yeah, this is all a lie and you shouldn’t believe a word of it.

  It was a night that wasn’t supposed to happen. Life threw one of those curves and there we were, unchaperoned, just me and her. She sat down on the daybed in her studio, where I was never supposed to end up alone with her.

  There was a choice of seating for me: her desk chair or next to her on the bed. I thought about it for maybe thirty seconds. In those thirty seconds I relived every flirtatious conversation we’d had, every frank discussion about sex, the years we’d been sharing strengths and flaws, triumphs and hurts. Finally, I let myself feel again the furtive, stolen kisses that we’d agreed would never happen.

  No kisses, we had promised. But we had kissed the last time we’d had a moment of privacy. Long, hot, panting, deep, aware kisses. Tingling, wet, pulse-pounding kisses. I thought I knew how to kiss, but she taught me all over again.

  The kisses weren’t supposed to happen, and neither was my choked confession that I’d fallen in love with her. She was tender with my heart. I hope I was with hers. It wasn’t like either of us was going to do anything about our feelings, we agreed. Neither of us had room for this complication. We would kiss and go back to being friends.

  We had kissed like lovers, at least it felt like that. Her hands, on my back, my hips, my shoulders, cupping my face, were sensuous and warm. She even knew, when I started to shudder in her arms, that we had to stop. She pushed me away, gently, and reminded me that even though we were doing things we never said we’d do, we weren’t going to do that.

  Lots of things weren’t supposed to happen. A mutual friend wasn’t supposed to die, and I wasn’t supposed to be away from home for the funeral. Tomorrow I went back to my life. Tonight it seemed as if we’d fallen out of time.

  Her desk chair or the bed?

  On the unexpected flight across the country, I’d thought about the minor surgery gone awry that had claimed our friend, about plane crashes and errant buses, and accidents that ended lives early, accidents so commonplace they don’t even make the news. I thought about being in love, about wanting someone and having to turn my back on it because of a single promise made before I’d even known her, or even dreamed of feeling as I did about her. I thought about her eyes and that when I was with her I felt like the woman I’d always wanted to be. I thought about our friend, who had been alive one moment, and gone the next. What kept circling through my brain was that if the plane I was on crashed I’d curse heaven that I’d wasted love.

  I chose the bed.

  We were both sad from the funeral, and I think—for like a half of a heartbeat—I intended just to hug her. Then I was kissing away the tears. We held each other. The kisses deepened.

  Finally, I was able to say, “Life can end at any moment, and I don’t want to die not having loved you, been with you. It would be a stupid waste.”

  We both had moral lines that loomed large, but she asked me if I was sure. Denial had us both in pain, and I couldn’t stand to see her hurting. I wasn’t supposed to ask her to love me. She wasn’t supposed to let me into her bed.

  “I’m sure. Yes, I’m sure.”

  I should have felt shy, but I didn’t. We slipped out of our clothes and into a close, naked embrace that felt safe and real. She asked me again if I was sure.

  “I’m sure. Yes, I’m sure.”

  My mind is filled with snapshots, images that never happened and couldn’t happen again. Like the shivering awe on her face when her fingertips brushed my soaked labia for the first time.

  I think she meant to tease me a little, but after years of unconscious and conscious foreplay, she didn’t. Her sure fingers opened me. She slipped inside. We kissed and cried while she loved me, soft like that. My first climax was so quiet and quick that it surprised us both.

  Her fingers began to play and, without words, I knew she was thinking of my many confessions about what made me crazy in bed. I felt like liquid fire inside, dripping heat around her fingers.

  “Heaven above,” she whispered, “you’re so responsive.”

  A brush of a fingertip brought a deep shudder, and I stiffened into another climax, stronger this time, shivering a little cry out of me. The awe in her eyes gave way to a smile of delighted pleasure.

  “You can do that again, can’t you?” She licked my mouth as she twisted her fingers inside me.

  My body said yes, I could do that again, and I did.

  I was in love with her, and we might never have another night like this. I wasn’t going to be less than I could be. For the rest of my life I would look back and treasure these memories. Treasure all the time I was ever given with her because we weren’t supposed to have any.

  Her deliberate, slow touches began to hasten. We panted against each other’s mouths. At some point we were beyond what I would have called making love, and she was fucking me, fiercely and possessively, claiming my body for herself, for now. For these hours we were lovers, bound by passion and honesty.

  I was more responsive, more passionate, more needy and more vocal than I had ever been in my life. She enjoyed me that way, adored the sounds I made, the way I came for her, and came for her, and couldn’t stop.

  She left the bed for a moment and returned with a bottle of lube in one hand.

  I had no air to speak. No breath to even moan. I knew . . . I knew what that meant and my heart was pounding louder than the driving need I felt for her touch.

  She carefully slicked the back of her hand, her palm, her fingers, then, with a look at me that seared my skin, she smeared her wrist and forearm.

  She asked me if I was sure.

  “I’m sure. Yes, I’m sure.”

  She straddled my leg and drew my hand down to grind herself on my fingertips and thigh. She was as soaked as I was and her moan matched mine as she moved away from my fingers and watched me as I rubbed her silk onto my nipples. Her slippery hand, cool from the lube, cupped my swollen lips. Two fingers, then four. I trusted her absolutely. I said so. Then I begged her to please, please take me.

  The awe was back in her eyes as she pushed and I rose and with almost no pressure at all she was inside me, all the way.

  Her gaze met mine and she exhaled with a groan as her hand curled and she made a fist. She pushed in gently, and rolled her hand from side to side, a sensation I’d never felt before.

  I was moaning, it might have been her name, I’m not sure, but I felt filled, not just my cunt but all of me, my heart, my mind, my soul. I was filled completely with her love and passion and this moment would never be lost.

  She said, a rasp in her voice, “My wrist is inside you.”

  Believing and not believing at the same time, I reached down to feel her forearm. She was very deep in me, and I pulled her deeper. She groaned again and then it felt like she reached up, from inside me, to love my heart with her hand. Caressing and stroking, learning me as I b
ucked wildly on the bed, sobbing. She stayed with me, pleasuring me through one climax after another, and another and another.

  She only stopped because I needed water and air. She soothed me, made me drink, held me, dried my tears.

  Then she kissed me, pushed me back down on the bed and fucked me again. And again.

  We slept, finally, woke, loved, dozed, woke again, held each other. With breathless whispers of desire and love, she touched me. And every time I came for her. I had given myself, for this wild, endless night, and there was nothing I didn’t want her to have. What was the point of holding anything back?

  When I tasted her, for the first time, I came again and laughed. Her puzzled look became a grin of pleasure when I told her, and then I went back to drinking all the excitement that my abandonment had wrought. Her hands touched my face while I licked and enjoyed her and when she asked me to go inside, I did. It felt as much my fingers fucking her cunt as it did her cunt fucking my fingers. Rich and easy, when she came I felt like a goddess. The gift of her love was a kind of treasure I’d not understood before.

  I wished then, and I still wish now, that every woman could have that moment, when making another woman feel pure ecstasy is an all-consuming celebration of trust and love. I was born with all the pieces of me, from my G-spot to my brain, and I used them all that night, and experienced myself as a complete woman for the first time in my life.

  None of it was supposed to happen, and I’m making it all up anyway. The fine line between true and wish-it-were-true seems pointless when it comes to love. I wanted her to kiss me. I wanted her to love me. I was born to love and be loved by women, and celebrating it is supposed to happen. But whether I do it for real, or in my head, or on this page is my secret and maybe your fantasy.

  The truth among the lies, however, is that if I’d chosen the desk chair, then this story would have not been worth reading.