by C D Cain
“Hey, sleepy head. I think we’re dried out now.”
Sleepy head? Wait. What?
“Did I fall asleep?”
“Oh yeah. You were out like a light.”
I was mortified. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I fell asleep on you.”
“Why?”
“That’s so rude.”
“Please. You fell asleep. It’s no biggie.” She shrugged. “Now, the drool on my shoulder is something entirely different.”
“What?”
“I’m joking.” She touched her fingertip to the bridge of my nose. “Although I think you got a bit too much sun and that I’m not joking about.” She stood and extended her hand. “I guess it’s time to head back.”
The walk back to her bike was quiet but not in an uncomfortable silence sort of way. I was relaxed with her. I didn’t worry about having to watch my expressions or my words. I had no worries of hurting her feelings or saying the wrong thing. I simply followed her footsteps along the path, took her hand when she offered it, and a few times when she didn’t. It was us. Two women enjoying a hike in the woods. The closest I felt to being completely free since floating on the bayou with Meems. No excuses. No explanations. I felt entirely comfortable to do anything I wanted without reservation.
The ride back was smoother without the tension in my body. I sat against her and let my legs cradle and hold her. Little to no distance was left between us. She had given me one end of an earplug with the other kept for herself. The music of her iPod filled our ears simultaneously. Trees flew past us in streams of green mixed with gold and red as the motorcycle cruised along the expressway. The road noise was only heard when there was a break in the music between songs. Strong piano keys followed by a deep seductive voice quickly drowned out the world around me. Her voice drew me in with the strength of the emotion in her lyrics. She sang of a time lost between soulful looks in the mirror. In that time, the lines of her face had become clearer, aging her into a new woman. Her voice was pained with the desire of re-introducing herself to a world that would judge and turn their heads to her. She knew they would chew her up and spit her out with the hint of who she really was. Mo’s back fell deeper into me, and I felt the full weight of her against my chest. I studied the small hairs of her neck as they glistened from the sweat beading on her skin. That voice. The voice of the singer filled my ears. Her lyrics pulled at my heart. Pulled at the wall encasing it. She sang of the desire to let her finger rove along a map of her lover’s skin. I stared at the colored skin in front of me. I too bore the same desire to trace the lines of the quarter moon and stars tattooed at the base of her neck. There was nothing else. No road. No paths. Just me. Just her. Piano keys and a voice calling out every feeling I was having with her body within mine. Just the words of knowing the taste of her skin. The saltiness I found there as my lips first touched her neck. The taste of the colored quarter moon at the base of her neck. I felt the deep intake of air as her back fell and rose sharply against me. She released one handlebar to cup my hand within hers and pull it tighter around her waist. The story of her bones and her was one I wanted to know. Her music had taken me there. I was a part of her thing.
“So, I know this great little Indian place. It’s a hole in the wall but really good.” Mo stripped her boots off and laid them beside the door as we entered Jazlyn and Violet’s loft. “We can walk from here if you want?”
“Only if you order. I’m not up on Indian food.” I set my shoes next to hers and thought there was no way I was ever getting the soil out of them after our dip in the muddy stream. “But first I’ve got to shower some of this mud off of me.” My once soft T-shirt made a crinkling sound as I pulled the material away from my chest. “A pleasant dinner date I’ll not make if I don’t.”
She laughed. “Okay, but I’m next.” She walked into the kitchen. “I’ll grab us a beer. Or would you rather a glass of wine?”
“Are you kidding me?” I stepped onto the first stair leading to the upstairs bedroom. “I spent the day riding bitch on the back of a Harley. It’s a beer for me.”
She laughed. “Well, alright then.”
Ruffled bed sheets reminded me of Mo’s morning interruption as she rushed me out of the apartment before I had time to straighten the covers. Did the bed not bring thought to the way I had felt with Mo throughout the day? The design created an optical illusion of floating a foot off of the floor. There was a small headboard but no foot board or sides. Several times, I had started to look under the floating mattress but stopped myself before discovering its secret. It was better to live in the fantasy of the weekend and not know the reality of its design.
The walls surrounding the bed were plain white sheetrock, except for the one on the right. It was a tinted glass. I had studied the glass the night before. The chrome of the dual shower heads had reflected in the track lighting which shined from the exposed wooden beam. It was a gorgeous room in the simplicity of its arrangement. The only color was a single purple flower in a clear glass vase. It sat atop a bedside nightstand. I wondered the sentimental meaning of it shared by the two women who slept next to its petals. I wondered if my happiness of lying next to the person I loved was merely an illusion as that which was held in the bed’s frame.
Droplets of warm water rained from the shower head sprayed onto the tense muscles of my shoulders. I smiled with the sensation of soap suds lifting away the remnants of the creek’s muddy bottom. Mo’s laughter had lifted me above the worries that were tucked hidden in the baggage I carried on my vacation away from my world. So much of her seemed to lift me up. She reminded me of another carefree spirit who had briefly shown me a different way of life.
I lifted my head to the water and closed my eyes. As Mo had said, this was our weekend. Our time to let everything go. We could be two people who had only this moment. We didn’t have past hurts or those who had been a part of them. I let the spray wash away the twinge of pain I felt with the fleeting vision of Sam. I wanted to stop hurting. I was so tired of hurting or feeling guilt for each and every action I had taken for myself. I wanted to feel something other than pain and numbness. I want to be more like Mo. The light in the shower dimmed as a shadow passed in front of the bedroom fixtures.
Mo.
She stood at the foot of the bed watching me. The tint obscured her features but I felt the intensity in her stare nonetheless. She walked toward the shower and raised one palm flat against the glass. A single palm of invitation. Neither shame nor embarrassment crept into me. No, that wasn’t what I felt with her eyes upon the nudity of my body. It was more as if she stared upon the nudity of my soul. I didn’t try to cover myself. I stood still as she watched me. I waited for her to tell me what step was next. Waiting for her instruction of what she wanted us to be, if only for this weekend of living in a non-existent world. When she disappeared, I knew my answer.
I felt the skip in my heart when her silhouette appeared around the shower door. The tinted glass gave an obscured light to show her body to me. The water splattered against her exposed skin as she moved into its stream. I turned toward the shower glass to look at the illusion of the bed. This time was my own illusion of another world that didn’t hold questions needing answers or futures needing plans. I saw only the illusion of this moment so close to Mo.
Running from a woman’s touch had once before left me scarred and yearning for that which I had not allowed myself to feel. I wouldn’t run again. It wasn’t Sam. It wasn’t the woman I loved who I felt step closer behind me. It wasn’t Sam’s finger that softly traced a trail down my spine. No, this was a woman who held a comfort in her I had grown to crave. A woman who looked at me without judgment, questioning or inquisitions of answers I wasn’t ready to give. She took me as I was and who I felt I was at that very moment. Even if that person was an enormous ball of the unresolved.
“I’ll go if you want,” she said.
My kn
ees weakened when I felt her palm across the small of my back. I feared I wouldn’t be able to continue standing under her touch.
“You didn’t ask me to be here. This may not be what you want.” She removed her hand.
I felt the absence of it immediately and reached behind me to grab for its touch again. Even in the heat of the shower, the glass felt cool against my forehead, so much cooler than the warmth shared of our hands.
“It is.” Those two words were all I could voice. Though my body screamed more, only those two words came out. My body screamed to tell her to take me into her arms and show me the passion it so badly desired. I pulled her toward me and felt the frailty of the strength in my knees grow as I felt her breasts press against my back. I released her hand and tried to steady myself against the glass. My fingers tensed against the wall.
She traced her fingertips across my back, along the back of my arm toward my hand, and interlaced her fingers within mine. “It’s a need, Rayne. I’ve wanted you but now after today,” she said softly against my ear, “it’s a need. I need to feel you against me. But I’ll stop if you want.”
I let my head fall back onto her shoulder. “I need this too.” I sighed deeply. “I need this so much.”
She gently tugged at my hand to turn me away from the glass. I watched her eyes as they held me. They caressed every curve of me in a way that I didn’t feel naked or raw in front of her. I felt like a woman being held, not nude, not shy, not anything other than held in her eyes. She placed her hands against the sides of my neck before letting them roam down along my collarbones. She held my eyes as one of her fingers read my skin like braille. The slow trace of her fingertip was awakening the tortuous need I had carried for so long. She leaned into me and softly kissed where her hands had been. She let her lips trail along my neck and across my collarbone.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said as she looked at me again. She brought my hand up to flatten it on her chest. She held it there just below her neck as she stepped back under the water spray. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back to let the water wash over her. I started to lift my hand from her chest as she weaved her fingers into her hair. She didn’t open her eyes but removed one of her hands and put my hand back where it had been. The water and shampoo streamed over her and onto my hand and arm. It was my private time to watch her. My chance to see her without the scrutiny of her stare. My opportunity to study a woman’s body not under blinding hospital lights or eyes of a doctor’s study but rather under the eyes of a woman exploring another woman’s body to feed a craving she had not yet allowed herself to feed.
I watched the soap run off of her long hair and over her shoulder. It covered the inked musical notes and birds on her left collarbone. Softly, I traced the lettering with my finger. “When the pain penetrates the music resonates.” I felt the music that was Mo as she allowed me to take her in. The soap coursed down her body, across her breasts, and over her stomach where another musical design was found to the inside of her right hip. The sudsy water slid across her lower belly, down her legs, and settled at the top of her feet.
She stepped closer to me and brought the palm of my hand against her lips. I watched her as she placed a kiss in its center. I bit the inside of my cheek when I felt the softness of her tongue trace a circle. With her hand holding the back of mine, she led me to read the braille of her story. My heart beat wildly against my chest as she brought my fingertips to trail down her neck and over the inked expression she carried with her. Her eyes held me intently as we ventured together over her breast. I studied its perfection. I marveled at the response it held against my skin as my hand flexed to hold it. I heard the moan escape her lips and found her to be lost behind closed eyelids when I traced my thumb over her nipple. I watched her lips twitch and quiver as I felt the softness of it. She inhaled sharply when I bent down to take it between my lips. I felt it harden against my tongue. Her grip tightened over my hand. I looked up to see her lightly shaking her head before opening her eyes again. In the emerald of them, I wasn’t afraid. Even with our bodies so open and exposed to one another, I didn’t feel vulnerable, afraid or nervous. Mo held no judgments for me. She wanted no explanation of meaning from me. She only wanted me to feel what I felt in that very moment. And in that moment, I felt nothing of the world beyond these steamed-covered walls.
She grabbed our towels, handed me one, and took my hand as she led us out of the bathroom. The shaking in my knees returned when the bed’s illusion lay in front of us. I steadied myself by leaning against one of the wooden beams that stretched from floor to ceiling. Mo stopped and turned to me. She held our joined hands in front of her. She studied them as she released her grip to let our fingers trace up and down each other. Lips upon my neck brought a scurry of twinkling lights behind my eyelids. I gave myself to her and let my neck roll into her kisses. My breath quickened against her thumb as she traced my bottom lip. Slowly, the beam disappeared against my back. I could no longer feel the wooden pressure of it supporting me. I felt only her. I felt only her lips against my neck until they took my kiss from her thumb’s touch. Her kiss was a thief to my equilibrium. Tenderly, her tongue found mine and swept me away in the music of their dance. I was dizzy in her arms and pulled her closer as I fell completely into her. The towel tickled my ankles as it loosened in our embrace.
Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.
My body screamed words it had only dared to say once before. I was hers completely as she lowered me to the bed and stretched out beside me. She brought my lips back to hers with a single finger under my chin. She hadn’t been a woman of words. She hadn’t been a woman who overly expressed her thoughts in words. But in her kiss, I felt all she wanted to say. Her words were slow and soft as they mixed with those of my own. I felt the softness of her tongue everywhere. I felt it tracing along my lips and against the side of my own. The feel of it coursed through my body to the small of my back and then much lower below my abdomen as the intensity of it deepened. I was lightheaded in her kiss and became nearly faint as her hands traveled across my chest and breasts. I knew what I had caused her to feel in the shower as my breath matched hers with the squeeze of her hand and the touch of her tracing my breast. I knew the sensations that had earlier elicited the sharp inhale of her breath when she bent her head to place her lips upon my breast. I ran my hand through her hair and reflexively squeezed when I felt her tongue outline my nipple. She arose back up to watch me as I had watched her. She focused on my lips and held me there as I felt her fingers travel over the ridges of my ribs. I felt my muscles tighten as her hand trailed further down my side.
“I want to feel all of you, Rayne,” she whispered through heavy breath. “Can I touch you?”
I felt the skip in her pattern and a tingle soar through me as her hand found the inside of my thigh. I bit the corner of my lip but gave her a resounding yes with the motion of my head on the pillow. She brought her lips again to mine. The intensity of her kiss had grown exponentially to take me away into every part of her as her hand found me. In that moment, she was my bayou. She was a slow ripple against a dock. A ripple that grew stronger with the motions of her hand as it brought my body to move to her will. My hips reached for her. My hands gripped what they could—one in her hair at the base of her neck as the other held only a crumble of cotton sheet. Her fingers took my breath as they filled me full of her touch.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” My entire body screamed the words my mouth whispered as it writhed within her touch.
My back arched as the back of my head searched the pillow to understand the feelings she was causing in me. The way I felt nothing yet everything with her inside of me. The bayou had become an ocean. She was a race of building waves as they beat against my shore. I felt them crashing over me to take every single doubt of who I was out into the endless sea. I opened my eyes to reach for her and let the desire I found there hold me to completion. I let myself go in
her touch. Let myself wash away onto her shore as I screamed against her neck. A moan that rose from inside and released for the first time under a woman’s control. Not only had she given me my release sexually but she had also given me a release to be who I was. In her arms, within her touch, I had found a peace I had never felt.
The night kept the room darkened with all but a sliver of moonlight reflecting off of the glass shower. A twinge of guilt threatened my deepest thoughts. A guilt of infidelity as another woman had given me a pleasure my body had never known. I had found a release in her arms that I didn’t know existed for me. It wasn’t a guilt of cheating on Grant. No, it was Sam that filled my thoughts. I’d cheated on Sam and my love for her. It should have been under the touch of her hands to give me this night. But she had moved on. She had been the one to walk away from me. That is what I reminded myself. She had moved on and most surely had already found pleasure in the arms of another. After all, sex was sex to her. Right? I swallowed the guilt of my betrayal and yet again told my heart to tell her goodbye.
I reached down and pulled Mo’s hand up to my chest. I cradled it in my arms for all it had given me. Her slumbering breath filled my ears as she slept soundly pressed against my back. I kissed her fingertips as I held onto the memory of the night in her arms. I felt her squirm as she molded her body closer to me and tucked her legs behind mine.
She let out a soft moan in my ear. “It’s not time to get up yet.” She kissed the lobe of my ear. “Sleep.” She tightened her arms briefly as if hugging me into her. “I’ve got you.”
She’s got me. The cotton pillowcase indented against my smile as I drifted off to sleep.
