by Piper Denna
“Shurre. Oh my God. Tell me you are not…”
“Yeah, I am,” she giggled. “You should try it. God, it feels good, Ali.” She kicked off the comforter, and I could hear wet sounds. And I could smell her. She curled up so she could reach inside herself, then sprawled her legs apart.
“God, quit!” The water lapped under me, her fingers lapped in her. “You’re sick. Don’t do that in front of me! Go in the bathroom or something.” She groaned and tossed her head back. I stared, mesmerized at her fingers disappearing, reappearing.
“It’s like a porno in 3-D, Babes. You like it, don’t ya?”
“No.” I turned my back, appalled. But not just at her. For some sick reason, the sounds she made were turning me on. I felt like I did after a make-out session with Johnny. Only I felt dirty listening to her masturbate. Filthy. She reached her finger and smeared it over my upper lip.
“Oh, you bitch. You’re sick!” I hissed. I could smell her in full force now, as I furiously wiped my sleeve across my mouth.
“Come on, touch yourself, Ali. You’ll like it. It’s natural and free. Come on.”
“No. It’s sick.” The pulse between my legs told me my body didn’t agree.
She moaned then, and I heard her hand start moving faster. “Yeah, it’s sick. But it’s so good. So fucking gooooood.” She came then, in what sounded like sobs or chokes, and finally she was silent.
One tear ran from my eye down to my ear.
She snickered, “God, I’m just too good at that.”
It didn’t sound like she was very good. It sounded like she was in pain when she had an orgasm. It felt good being turned on, though.
When at last she slept, I couldn’t help reaching my own hand in my sweat pants and furtively touching myself. My sex was slicker than usual. My fingers felt fine sliding between the labia. I knew the slick was lubrication, meant to make it easier for a man to slip inside. This knowledge came from the books on love and marriage we’d studied at church meetings. I’d also learned masturbating was wrong. A man and his wife should only get and give pleasure together. But there was Shurre, lying next to me pleased and content, and I was left with this throbbing need between my legs. It struck me that maybe people could avoid having sex outside marriage by releasing that tension themselves.
*
I woke to the sound of Shurre sighing as she came in that same room down the hall. Some things never change. She went to the bathroom and then back to bed.
I lay there, remembering. The evening of New Year’s Day, on the phone, I asked Shurre how she “did that.” She’d laughed and then given me detailed instructions.
It had taken a lot of practice, and I’d lived in fear of getting caught or struck down by lightning, but I’d gotten it down to an art within a week. I always did it on my bedroom floor, so Mom wouldn’t hear the waterbed rocking.
I tried hard not to think how Shurre smelled and looked and sounded while she did it. But it would inevitably come into my thoughts, and the sheer wrongness of having witnessed what I had would send me over the edge. It had worked to keep me out of Johnny’s pants and vice versa for a few months, until Shurre’s incessant peer pressure combined with my own exploding hormones made abstinence seem ridiculous.
*
“Well, aren’t you just the laziest thing,” Shurre trilled in my ear. “Come on, let’s go for a walk before I have to go to work!”
“God, aren’t you hungover?”
“Nope. It was wine last night.”
I should have remembered, Shurre never got hungover from wine.
“Besides, I think I got it all out of my system before I passed out. I have to work nine to six today, then I’ll be home.”
“This is not home. I have work to do, you know. How long are you gonna hide out here with me? You have kids and a husband somewhere.”
“Well, fuck you very much for your hospitality. Never mind!”
I lay there irritated while she made much more noise than necessary dumping her stuff from the bathroom counter back into her overnight bag.
“You should go get some ass. You’re becoming an uptight bitch again!” she yelled, between slamming my front door open and then shut again.
It was easy to see why everyone else felt alienated by her.
*
I went to see her later at work. She was a stocker in the same grocery store where Mom worked. I gave her a peace offering of a box of chocolates and she told me to go fuck myself.
“Thanks, maybe I will,” I smiled sweetly, taking back the chocolates. I popped one in my mouth on the way to my van, chewing viciously and thinking angry thoughts.
“Geez, wouldn’t wanta be the guy who gave you those,” said a male voice nearby.
“Oh, hey, Tad. Long time no see,” I managed, after swallowing the candy.
Tad gave me a warm hug. He was a friend of an old friend of the family. Actually, he was a gay lover of an old friend of the family, but the family chose to pretend otherwise. Tad was several years older than me, blonde and chiseled, chin cleft, the works. He’d been a model, a former orphan, when Henry, the old guy we knew, took up with him. Henry spent his winters as a commercial fisherman in Florida, and his summers as a man of luxury on a small estate in Colorado.
“I bought these for a friend, actually,” I told him, indicating the candy. “Want one?”
“Is this going to be like when Forrest Gump gave Jenny the chocolates?” he asked dryly.
“Always a wise-ass, huh?” He took a candy, the only other caramel, making me wish I hadn’t offered to share.
I had hated Tad as a teenager. I was certain he lived to mock me and make fun of my lack of worldly knowledge. Add to the fact that he was good-looking and a total smart-ass the older adults hated, and he became a volatile force in my dreams. The gay thing, I chose to ignore. My first sexual dreams had involved him, but when I woke, all I remembered was that he’d been in my dream and I was inappropriately hot and bothered.
“So. How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Lovely. I’ve got a nympho/alcoholic friend with MPD camped out in my house, while I’m supposed to be writing the next best seller. To top it off, she treats me like Jekyll in the morning and Hyde in the evening. Or is it the other way? Whatever.”
“So you’re planning to calm her inner beast with chocolate?” he asked doubtfully.
“It was a peace offering, which she snubbed.”
He grinned at me with nicely-waxed, raised brows as if to say, no wonder it didn’t work.
“Chocolate? Hello? You really don’t know anything about women, Tad. Cheesecake and chocolate are as effective as diamonds. We just don’t tell men.”
He laughed then. “I’ve got some family pictures you might want. I found them in Henry’s stuff the other day. Wanta come over for dinner?” Henry had passed away several years before, but apparently poor Tad was just getting around to sorting through his things.
“Geez, let me think. Civil company, good food, wine—there will be wine?—yeah, I’m there. What time?”
He hugged me again and left.
I drove home looking forward to an evening with a decent human being.
All Fore Revenge
Chapter 13
Red wine swirled in the crystal goblet in my hand. Leave it to Tad. Casual dinner equals crystal and finest china. Oh well, who could complain about such lavish hospitality? I sipped and watched Tad preparing swordfish steaks for the grill.
“That’s a good year,” he told me. “I’ve got a case of it down in the cellar. I’ll send a bottle home with you. A guy I met owns the winery in the Napa Valley. Mmm, good.”
“The wine or the guy?” I laughed.
“Well… both.” He disappeared out the door, where his grill smoked on the deck.
I followed him out. “You had a, um, partner for a couple years. Am I too nosy if I ask what happened?”
He shrugged, then told me, “He decided the whole monogamy thing didn’t work for him
anymore.”
“Oh.”
Finished placing the baskets of fish over the coals, he closed the lid.
“And you’re not sporting that wedding ring I designed anymore.” Tad was an accomplished jeweler. In commissioning him to design our rings, Bill had used a family friend as well as “only the best.” “What happened?”
“The monogamy thing didn’t work for Bill any more either.”
His full lips pursed together in a pout on my behalf. “I’m sorry. Are you divorcing?”
“Eventually. We’re separated for now.”
Tad lifted his own glass to mine and said, “To living through break-ups.”
I drank long and deep to that.
*
We dined on salad, fresh bread, and fish, talked about Henry and the extended family. We opened a second bottle of wine. He refused to let me help him with the dishes, so I perched on the counter nearby, in my little black dress, and kept him company while he tidied his small, neat kitchen.
“Tell me what you’re writing this time,” he urged, draining his wine glass before refilling both his and mine.
“A mystery with a dead philandering husband,” I laughed.
“Hmm. Did the wife do it?”
“I’m not sure. I’m waiting to find out how he treated the kids after their divorce…”
Tad’s eyes were sympathetic when he put down his dish towel and faced me.
“God, that must suck.”
I looked away from his concerned gaze when my shoe slipped off my foot and fell to the floor.
Tad picked it up and slipped it back on for me. His fingers slipped over my toes, and then up to my ankle.
“Girl feet are so pretty,” he sighed.
I laughed. “Yeah, guys’ toes are kinda ugly with all that hair.”
Then his hand slid up my calf and I quit laughing.
“I waxed a couple of times, but my legs were never this soft.” His observation was punctuated by the backs of his fingers sliding back down, then slipping my shoes off and setting them on his pristine kitchen counter.
“Women are supposed to be soft. We only attract other women if we’re rough or hairy. Rough and hairy women.” I was talking too much. A sip of wine was the next best thing to babbling, so I took it.
Making eye contact, he asked, “Ali. Did you ever think about you and I?”
I cleared my suddenly closed throat, then murmured, “Yes.”
“The gay thing? It doesn’t freak you out?”
“Gay is a fucking rip off. Why should gay guys get exclusives on all the hot men? All over you see movies with girls on girls, and guys want to be with them. But then there’s a gay guy, and we’re supposed to be disgusted by them, and they’re never supposed to touch a girl?” A thought occurred to me then. “Have you ever? Touched a girl? Been with a woman?”
“Not by choice.” He laughed without humor at my shock. “You don’t want to know—the group home growing up. Anyway, I’ll say no.”
We both took another long drink. His hand slid further up, past my knee. The room spun a little, but I wasn’t sure it was from the wine.
“So. Are you up for it? Or are you just torturing me here because you’re jealous of my smooth legs?” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I could hardly breathe once the words were out.
“I’d say I’m very up for it.” He smiled, and I slipped one of my bare feet between his legs. He was up for it.
Tad was definitely into the romantic aspect. He lit candles in his room and played a CD of sax music. He undressed me slowly and admired every soft inch of my body. Breasts were a whole new frontier and he took his time exploring. I felt like I’d die if he didn’t let me start touching him and doing something, but still he kept touching and tasting, smelling and kissing. His kisses were soft and gentle, like he expected to bruise me if he wasn’t careful. He talked a lot. There was plenty to say about each and every body part, and he seemed to like them all.
Tugging away my panties with his thumbs, he was silent for the first time. I wondered if he’d find my smell repulsive. After all, guys don’t have that big wet area we women do. And the hair. He liked the hairless, smooth thing so well. But I had plenty growing down there right then.
“Tad, if it’s too much down there…”
He looked up, confused. “No. I was just wondering where to start.” He laughed at his own lack of knowledge. “It’s like being a virgin, I guess.”
I sat up and kissed him, then pulled him down on top of me. When his tongue finally made it in my mouth, I pulled one of his hands from my breast (they always seemed to end up back there) and put it between us. I watched his eyes close as his manicured fingers touched me, feeling around a bit. Then he smiled and moved down so he could see. My fingers showed his how and where to rub. He looked amazed when I came against his hand. Then I showed him inside me. He gasped at the feel of me around his fingers, seemingly taken back by the new textures. I pushed down against him when he rubbed his fingers over my g-spot like I showed him. His other thumb rubbed my clit.
“Okay, stop,” I told him.
“Was I doing it wrong?”
“No, I want you to feel it inside me when I come.”
“You’re gonna come again?”
“For real this time. It might get, um, messy.”
“Oh, I’ve read about that.” He seemed more excited as he dug a condom out of his bedside table. “It’s supposed to be really hot. Is it?”
“Well, most guys like it. I know I get off on it,” I punned.
At last his pants came off. He seemed shy about being nude in front of me in a way that straight guys usually weren’t. I thought of Cam, naked and diving in my pool. Cam, and the lumberjack. Damn. I shook the thoughts from my head, and found Tad ready and wearing his armor.
His entry made us both moan, and he cried, “God, it’s tight!” in a surprised tone.
I positioned myself so he’d rub past my spot, and looked up at his rapturous face. My fingers went to my clit and took me right back to where I’d been before I stopped him. His hands squeezed my breasts and when I came, shaking and twisting with the spasms, spraying us both with hot clear fluid, I could feel him deep inside me, my muscles clutching him and sending him over the edge, too.
*
It was three a.m. when I turned up the driveway to the farmhouse. I’d waited out my wine buzz by making a few more trips with Tad, ‘til he finally fell into a deep and unwakeable sleep. On his nightstand I left a note that read simply,
Tad,
Thanks for an amazing night.
A.
My euphoria dissolved when I saw Shurre’s new SUV parked in front of my house.
“Shit.” I marched up my sidewalk, wondering if it would be Jekyll or Hyde inside.
Shurre was sleeping on my couch. Her face, lit by the flickering images on the TV, was peaceful in sleep. All but the red and purple ring around her left eye. I dropped my purse on a nearby table with a clatter. Shurre awoke and gave me a wry smile.
“Who did that? Was it Robert?” I demanded. “I’m calling the cops. You know better than this. You went to all that therapy after Mr. Fist. Remember? Did Robert see those bruises? Is that why? Goddammit, I thought he was a good guy. No wonder you’ve been staying away from there. I’m so sorry, honey. Goddammit.” I cried, feeling horribly guilty for trying to get her out of my house. “I’m calling the cops.”
When I started digging in my purse for my cell, she got hysterical. “Ali! Stop! Shit. It wasn’t Robert. You can’t call the cops.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t.” Her eyes were wide and wild as she clutched at my arm to stop me from dialing my phone.
“Wrong answer! I’m going to, and you can’t stop me.”
“I’ll tell everyone what we did!” she threatened desperately.
Great, blackmail me with that lurid, long-ago night.
“Whatever, Shurre. You’re bent on bringing that to light. Whatev
er. Shame me if you want to. But I’m not letting your husband—or whoever—beat the shit out of you anymore. I’ve been through this with you before. Why do you let him do this? You don’t deserve this, Honey.” I sat and held her hands in my own, and she cried.
“I do deserve this. You don’t understand. I’m in trouble, okay? I can’t believe you’d let me out you before you’d let him keep hurting me.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you. Someday, maybe. Please, just help me right now.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to shut up and stay with me. Tell me all men aren’t assholes.”
I pulled her against my side. “They aren’t.”
“Which one have you been with?”
“A gay one.”
She snickered gently, so as not to flex her facial muscles.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No. First an altar boy and now a fag. Who’s next?”
“Hopefully the cable guy.”
“Why aren’t you with him anyway?”
“He thinks I need to work out issues first. He thinks I’m sexually pissed.”
“You should be,” she sighed.
I tensed against her.
“Ali. I’m sorry. Someday maybe it’ll all make sense. I hope before I die, it makes sense.”
“Don’t talk about dying.” Was she talking about suicide, or was she in serious danger?
“Why don’t you hate me?”
“What good would it do?” I countered.
“Pacifist. I love you more than my own sister, you know that?”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“If I’m real quiet, can I call in sick to work tomorrow and hide out here?”
“Yes. Should I be on the lookout for some dangerous guy?”
She laughed derisively. “No. God, you’re beat. You should go to sleep. I’m just gonna hang here and watch infomercials for a few hours.”
