by C D Cain
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 judgement, questioning or inquisitions of answers I wasn’t ready to give. She took me as I was and 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 knees 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 carred 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 vunerable, afraid or nervous. Mo held no judgements 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 the force of my smile.
Chapter
“Get up, sleepy head.” Mo shook my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go up to the rooftop and drink coffee.”
I peeked through one open eyelid. “It’s still dark out.”
“Yeah, but not because it’s late. There’s a little rain shower coming in and it’s super cloudy.”
“But the bed is so nice and cozy.” I tried to pull her on top of me but she firmly stood next to the bed. “I want to lie next to you some more.”
“Then get up and let’s go.”
I twirled my finger around the material of her boxer shorts. “Yes, but in here you won’t need these.”
“I won’t need them up there either.”
I sat up to let my legs hang off the side of the bed and pulled her body into me. I lifted up her shirt. “But in here, I can do this,” I mumbled against the skin of her lower belly.
She ran her fingers through my hair, encouraging the contact. “You can do that up there too.” She knelt down in front of me and took my breath with her kiss. “Trust me.” Her words tickled the lips burning for her return. “I want to show you this.”
She stood up, held her hands out for me to take them, and pulled me up off of the bed. The morning air was cold against my bare legs as we stepped out onto the fire escape.
“Oh yeah, this is very private.” I pulled at the bottom of my shirt tail, trying to cover the skimpy pajama shorts I was wearing.
“Oh ye of little faith.” She stepped onto the staircase, reached behind her back for my hand and led me up toward the rooftop.
“I never knew this was up here,” I said, climbing the small steps that led over the brick wall surrounding the rooftop.
“Jaz had it renovated a few years ago. We sneak up here at least once when I come over.”
The décor of the home extension carried the same flow as that downstairs—clear glass, walnut-colored wood, and dark metal.
Mo walked to the kitchen area and poured two cups of coffee. “Black right?”
“Uh, yeah. Black.” I gave the enlarged swing a push. “This thing is pretty awesome.”
“See. I told you.” She ran her hand along the thick pillows that were propped against the wooden backboard. “I’ve slept many nights up here.”
“I can see why. It’s more like a bed than a swing.” The oversized swing reminded me of the porch swings I loved to sit on back home except the bench on this one was wider and longer than the ones I was used to.
“Totally. Jaz had hell when she was first thinking of making it. She was scared it wouldn’t be stable enough but it’s not too bad.” She walked around the swing to open the three sliding glass doors. A breeze poured through them and brought with it the smell of an impending rain.
“Climb in and I’ll hand you your coffee.” She steadied the thick metal chain with her hand as I climbed onto the swing. There were four total…one connecting each corner of the bed to the ceiling.
“The breeze feels so nice.” I leaned against the tall backboard and stretched my legs out in front of me. The bench was long enough that my feet didn’t come near touching the end of the cushion.
“See I told you.” She shook her head. “When are you ever going to start trusting me?”
“Oh, I trust you alright.”
“Is that so?” She climbed in next to me.
“That is so.” I kissed her lips as she brought them closer to me.
“Maybe we’ll test that theory one day.” She winked at me as she took a sip of her coffee.
We settled our backs against the softness of the pillows. She swept her leg over mine and we stared out into the sky as we quietly drank our coffee. The width of the swing did afford her room to not have to sit so close to me but I
was surely happy she had chosen not to use the extra space. I was enjoying the feeling of her body nestled up against mine.
Clouds swollen and grayed with the threatening rain, hovered right above the skyline. Slowly they moved closer to us, kicking up the breeze to blow Mo’s hair across her face. She tucked the freed strands back behind her ear. A distant thunder rumbled in the quiet.
A smile twitched at her lips. “I love weather like this.”
I felt a heat rush my neck as I pictured her head lying against the pillow with the same type of smile playing at her lips. Last night I had pushed the thought of her sharing her body with the many women I knew had seen her beauty before me. I pretended my touch was the first she had felt. Otherwise, I doubt I would have been able to overcome the hesitation in my timid, inexperienced hands as they explored her. She had lain in front of me, welcoming anything I wanted to give her.
She brought her cup back to her lips. I studied the tattoo on her wrist. The night before the pulse underneath the ink had quickened when I traced it with my tongue. A kiss had not proven to be enough. Her lips parted to take in the sip. A slow vision of my lips on her wrist, kissing the musical note found there drifted over me. I had seen them part then as well even though her eyes had begged me not to look away. Raindrops tapped on the roof as I remembered the pulse of her neck against my lips. The beat built under the sweep of my tongue. Rolling thunder broke through the patter of rain as her moans had broken through the depths of her breaths. The wind grew and brushed the scent of her hair across my nose. The scent I had inhaled as her body moved against me under the light sheet. She brushed the fallen strands again behind her ear but my mind took me to the night before when her hand was swiftly brought into the side of her hair as she lifted her body into me. A flash of lightning buried deep in the clouds gave light to the sky and my daydream of the desire in her eyes as she tightened the grip of her hand in her hair. I had been entranced with her every response to me as I made love to her. I watched her teeth as they bit into her bottom lip. My body molded into hers as her back arched into me.
