"But?" She saw through me as easily as I did her, that was for damn sure.
"But nothing."
Why was I lying to her? There was a but to this; I sighed. "That's not exactly true."
She lathered soap onto her hands and scrubbed her face and then rinsed off. I shut off the water and we got out, then handed her a towel and dried myself off with another. Claire wrapped the towel loosely around herself and went into the sitting room and sat down on the couch. I followed her, sitting next to her, and she let the towel sag open--Claire had a thing for "air drying", sitting naked and still dripping wet. She'd towel off her hair a little and make a few cursory swipes over her body, but she let the rest of the water evaporate as she strutted around naked, putting on makeup, doing her hair, picking out an outfit, sometimes even working from her phone. If she was at home for a while after a shower, she'd still be naked more often than not hours later. This was something I very much appreciated.
At the moment, though, it was distracting me from all the thoughts whirling through my head, which I was hoping to discuss.
"Talk to me, Brock."
"I'll talk to you if you'll talk to me," I responded.
She rolled her eyes at me, and sassed back in a droll, dry, sarcastic tone. "Well yes, Brock, that is how typical conversations work, dear. I talk, you talk, we talk."
I snorted, reaching over to pinch her nipple. "Smart-ass. You know what I mean."
She whacked at my hand, trying to stop the pinch. During sex, she loved having her nips played with, but at any other time she hated it, because they were insanely sensitive. "Don't! Brock, I swear, do not pinch my nipples!"
"How can I not?" I said, imprisoning her wrists in one hand and flicking her nipples with the other hand. "They're right there, all nice and hard and just begging for a little pinch."
She struggled, thrashing, and then tried to bite me. "Unless you're gonna go down on me, you better leave my goddamn nipples alone!"
"Fine by me," I murmured, and moved to slide off the couch.
"No, no, no." She grabbed me and pulled me back up, and actually wrapped the towel around her chest to shield herself. "As much as I want you to do that, no. We're talking. Talk now, cunnilingus later."
"Why did you do it, Claire?"
"I wanted to. I woke up horny, thinking about you. I heard you in the shower, and decided I wanted to jerk you off."
"Yeah, but why? Why that? Why not sex? Or a blowjob? Why...that?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. I just...I wanted to feel you. I wanted your come."
"Come on, Claire. Dig a little deeper."
She sighed in frustration. "Why? Does it really matter?"
"Yeah, it does, kind of," I said.
"You tell me why it matters, and I'll tell you why I wanted to do that."
I spent a second organizing my thoughts. "Okay, here it is. I have mixed feelings about what happened in the shower."
"Mixed how?"
"It was hot, and obviously it felt incredible. The way you just sort of walked into the shower with me and jacked me off? It was hot. And a part of me did find it hot how you wanted me to come on your face and all that. We've both been around the block, right? We've both had a lot of experiences, but that's the first time I've ever done that. On someone's face, I mean. Tits, yeah, sure. Not often, but hell, it's kinda hot, I think any guy will agree to that much." I paused to think, then continued. "With you, though...I'd always rather be inside you. Like, fuck yes, I love the way your hands feel, and I love the way your mouth feels. But nothing can compare to the way it feels being inside you."
"I understand that, and I feel the same way for the most part, but I'm not seeing the conflict."
"For the most part?"
She sighed and shrugged. "I'll explain later. Keep going."
"Okay, well...there's also this part of me that finds it...degrading to come onto your face. I dunno. I mean, I know you chose to do that on your own, for your own reasons. I want to think you'd never do anything you didn't want to do, just because you thought I might enjoy it. Would you?"
She shook her head from side to side. "There's nothing I wouldn't want to do with you, let's just put it that way for now."
"Vague, but okay, I'll go with it. Like, why would you want that? Why on your face? I don't get it."
"Haven't you ever fantasized about doing that to a girl? Me or someone else? Be honest."
I nodded. "Yeah, of course. But I never actually considered doing it, though."
"Who was it? When you fantasized about it?"
"You, as a matter of fact. A month or so ago, during the week. You were in Seattle and I was in Ketchikan."
She seemed pleased by this. "You fantasized about coming on my face? Did you jerk off to it?"
"Of course."
"I'm kinda mad you didn't text me and tell me."
"Really?"
"Not, like, mad mad, just...slightly miffed at worst because I wish you'd shared. I mean, guys jerk off, it's totally normal, and I'm glad you jerked off to me." She eyed me. "Honest now, have you ever jerked off to anyone else since we've been together?"
"No."
She scrutinized me. "No? For real?"
"For real. Why would I need to or want to? We haven't been apart for more than a week, and then not even a full week. And I've got plenty of material to think about when it comes to you and us, so if I'm at home alone and feeling like I need to blow off some steam, yeah, I'll think about you and jerk one off."
"Do you jerk off when we're together?"
I shook my head, laughing. "Hell, no. We have far too much sex for that to ever even enter the equation." I glanced at her. "What about you?"
She ducked her head. "I sort of masturbate all the time, when I'm in Seattle by myself. Like...a lot. And yeah, I always think about you, at least, since we've been together. And no, if we're together, I don't need to. I've got you. If I'm horny, I find you. Much more satisfying than getting out my Womanizer Pro."
"Your what?"
She waved a hand. "A sex toy. Or, well, a personal female clitoral stimulator, if you want to be specific. An amazing, incredible device that every woman should own. I can come in literally a minute or less with it."
I gaped at her. "Jesus. I want to see that."
She smirked at me. "A trade, then."
"A trade?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Next time you're in Ketchikan and I'm in Seattle, you record yourself jerking off, and I'll record myself masturbating, and we send them to each other."
"What do you think would happen if we just didn't masturbate at all?"
She stared at me in consternation. "Holy shit, I'd go insane. I'd be crawling the walls by the end of the week."
"Me too. That's the point though."
"I am kind of jealous of your come, now that I think about it. I want it all for myself. Like, I hate the thought of you coming all alone, shooting all that lovely stuff down the drain and wasting it."
"Exactly. When you come, I want your orgasms to be for me and only for me."
Claire poked me, suddenly. "How'd we get so far off topic? I still don't understand what your hang up is about coming on my face if I want you to."
"I don't know. I just feel weird about it."
"Tell me about your fantasy."
"Pretty much exactly what you just did. I was in the shower when I was thinking about it, so obviously I just pictured you in the shower with me, all wet, on your knees, sucking me off, and then instead of swallowing, you took it on your face and tits."
"Well maybe next time you take a shower, we'll do that again, only this time I'll use my mouth more."
I grinned. "That's up to you, babe."
She eyed me curiously. "Why? Why is that up to me? That's the part that I'm having trouble with. If you want something, make it happen. Like, if you want me to suck you off, tell me you want me to suck you off. Better yet, show me."
"Just, like, whip my dick out and slap you with it?"
She shrugged. "I
"I'd never do that."
"Again, why not? I love your cock, and even as big and hard as it is, you can't really slap me with it hard enough to actually hurt. If anything, I'd think it would hurt you."
"So if I legit smacked you across the face with my dick, you'd be like hell yeah, and start sucking?"
She nodded. "Absolutely." Claire's gaze was steady, open, and scrutinizing. "I'm not sure how well you really understand me, Brock."
"What do you mean?"
A sigh. "I'm a perpetually horny girl-- not sure if you've noticed. I like sex, a lot. I want it literally all the time. I used to joke with Mara that not only am I built like a boy, I think about sex as much as a boy."
I tugged at the towel, and she dropped it so I could thumb her nipple. "You are not built like a boy. You're all woman, Claire."
"You wouldn't prefer someone built more like...oh, say, Mara, for example?" She cupped her tits, hefting them as if they were several sizes larger. "Big bouncy titties and an ass that don't quit?"
"Mara is an attractive woman," I conceded. "But she's got one fatal flaw."
"What could that possibly be? Her face is just as beautiful as her body."
"No, that's not it. Yeah, she's a lovely girl in every way." I hesitated, for the sake of drama. "Except that she's not you."
Claire glanced at me askance. "Oh my god, Brock. That sounds like something out of a romance novel."
"But true all the same."
"What about your other girlfriends? Were any of them like me?"
"What you mean, like you?"
Claire gestured at herself, a sweep of her hand from head to toe. "Short and skinny and not very well-endowed."
"Claire, do you remember how we met?" I asked.
She frowned, and then nodded. "Well yeah, of course."
"Who initiated contact?"
She rolled her eyes. "You did."
"And who was the first one to suggest leaving the bar and going to your hotel?"
She bit out the word as if admitting it was painful. "You were."
"Have I ever, ever given you any indication that I feel absolutely anything but total and genuine attraction to you?"
"No, but--"
"But nothing. What the other girls I've been with look like doesn't matter. They're not you--you're you, and I'm attracted to you. No, you don't have the biggest tits in the world, but so what? I get off on touching them and seeing them and putting them in my mouth. And yeah, it was hot seeing my come splattered all over them."
She shifted in place, swallowing. "Don't bullshit me, Brock."
"I would never bullshit you, Claire." I gave it a moment, and then went with my question. "So, why did you do that, for real?"
She shrugged, a tiny lift of one shoulder. "I wanted to. That was one reason, and it was a real reason. I really do think about your cock all the time, and want it all the time. I think about you coming, and it turns me on. Seeing you naked turns me on. Seeing you wet turns me on. So you in the shower, naked and wet, having a big messy orgasm? Yeah, it turns me on."
"So then why didn't we have sex?"
"Because sometimes I want other things." She paused, glancing at me almost shyly--there wasn't usually a single shy molecule in Claire's body, so this was something new, something deep. "I've--I've never had sex with the same person for as long as I have with you, and...it's weird. Usually with other guys, I'd get bored. We'd fuck, and it would be over. But you...you hold my interest. I never stop wanting you. But I don't want to just fuck you every time I'm horny. I like the full range of experiences. And with you, it's always different, it always feels new and just as hot, just as erotic."
"That makes sense."
"But it's...I don't exactly know how to put any of this into words, but I'm trying. For you." She ruffled her hair with one hand, brushing errant strands away from her eyes and then wiped her damp palm on the towel. "Being with you as long as we've been together, I'm learning there's...what's the word? There's a--a rhythm, I guess you could say. To us.
"Like, for real, we fuck all--the--time. And I absolutely love that about us. I've never had so much sex in my life, and it's amazing. As much as I was a slut before--and still am, I guess, but now I'm a slut for you...there's a rush in the unexpected and the different. With you and me, though...I still want all that. I want to blow you, because I do genuinely like doing it to you. Do I derive sexual stimulation from it? Of course not. Sex isn't always about just receiving stimulation. I like giving the stimulation just as much, being the stimulation--I like knowing I can make you feel good, make you crazy, make you want me, make you come so hard you can't walk straight."
"I've never talked this openly about sex with anyone else." I eyed her, searching, thinking.
Claire stared back, and then frowned. "You look like you're about to psychology me."
I nodded, shrugging. "Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, I'm trying to put all this into the frame of some of the things I've learned about you lately."
Claire rubbed her face with one hand. "Goddammit. I don't want to talk about that shit. It's old news, Brock."
"No, it's not. It's relevant, whether you want to admit it or not."
"How so?"
"I mean, you said it yourself: you figured if your dad thought you were a slut, you might as well earn it."
"That was just a dig."
"A dig, yes, but not just a dig."
Claire stood up, paced away--I shamelessly stared at her tight, round little runner's ass as it wiggled with her steps. "Do we really have to go here?" It was a rhetorical question, though, because she started answering before I could speak. "Fine, yes, that was a true statement. Before that night, at that party, I'd only messed around a little. There'd been about a half dozen guys that I sort of dated--more just...hung out with at most. We'd go to parties and mess around in their cars and shit, mostly innocent teenager stuff. Lots of kissing and heavy petting, letting them cop a feel, letting them put their hand in my pants and see if they could make me feel good. Until that night at the party, I'd never even made a guy come, never let a guy make me come, and I'd never been totally naked alone with a guy. I'd been skinny dipping once, but that was with a lot of other people so it was different."
"Damn. So you really were a virgin in pretty much every way."
"Sure was. Never even sucked a dick before." She clutched the towel to her breasts, facing away from me, letting it hang loosely at her sides to frame the graceful sweep of her spine and the taut bubble of her ass. "Then that party happened, I got wasted, and I ended up getting kicked out of the house for making a stupid mistake."
I found it hard to breathe. "Goddammit," I snarled. "The thought of what happened to you makes me so angry I could break someone."
She gave me a soft, reassuring smile over her shoulder. "Don't, Brock. I'm glad you feel that strongly, though." She turned away again. "You know what's weird, and kind of a good thing? I don't really remember what happened. Just...vague impressions of a guy, things being...clumsy and awkward and not what I expected it to be."
A pause, then. Claire stared into space, thinking.
"So, yeah, I don't remember it. The real pain, the really deep, long-term fucked-up pain comes from how my parents treated me regarding the miscarriage and, really, throughout my life. They called me a slut and a whore, and kicked me out. I mean, yeah, I went to a lot of parties and got drunk a lot, smoked, did drugs with my friends, and it was a pretty safe assumption on their part to think I was having a lot of sex, too. I get that. I was a problem child, a rebellious, angry teenager. But that was their fault, the way they parented me. I just wanted attention, you know?
"Basic psychology, I guess. And I was angry, I wanted my space, my freedom. I wanted to be treated like an adult, like someone with value, but my parents didn't seem to think I had any. They automatically assumed the miscarriage was a result of me going out and fucking a lot, and was just punishment for my sins. It was the last straw, as they saw it. Well, after that, I was alone. Lived with my friends, but that welcome ran out after a while because I was all kinds of fucked up, for obvious reasons.
"Going through that miscarriage was absolute hell on its own. Agony and terror--those words don't do it justice, Brock. That was the worst moment of my life, before or since. Being disowned for it was a close second, though."
She sighed deeply, and then continued. "I told you about how I joined the Army, and how I was gonna kill myself. Somehow, that scary decision was a turning point. I decided to live, to own my past, to own myself, to own everything, including the pain, the hate, and the anger. I joined the Dark Side, you might say. I just gave into it. I fucked a guy from another unit during basic, and that kind of...opened me up to sex. It was harsh and rough and not sexy at all, and I got off on it. I mean, real talk, now? The guy totally used me to get off and then bailed the second he shot his load. But while it lasted, as short as it was, I liked it. So I tried again with a different guy from a different unit, but I made him wait until I'd gotten close, which he found hot, and we both came, and that was like...it was a light bulb moment.
"I made sex about me. Guys could use me--guys would use me, I knew that. But if I used them back, that was a game changer. See, I discovered most guys don't give a shit if you're only using them for sex, as long they get the O. So I used guys for sex. I got what I wanted, and I spent a lot of time and effort figuring out what I wanted."
She paused yet again, and when she spoke once more it was very quietly, almost inaudible. "And deep, deep down, so deep I don't think I've ever thought about it like this until now...yeah, it was about Dad. It was a fuck you to him. Call me a slut? Call me a whore? I'll show you what a slut is, old man. It was more than that, but whatever 'it' was, was buried deep in my subconscious. And, yeah, that was part of it, too."
"And now?"
She didn't answer for a very, very long time, and I remained quiet, giving her the space and time I knew she needed. "I honestly don't know, Brock. I think a lot of it will depend on what Mom tells me. I also think...I feel like things are changing for me, inside me, and it scares the hell out of me."
I stood up and crossed the space between us, slid my hands around her, wrapping my arms around her middle. She dropped her towel, and I dropped mine, so there was nothing between us.
"I'll be with you through it all, Claire," I whispered. "No matter what."
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