It took a while for me to realize I was alone. Even now, I didn’t believe it entirely. At first, I couldn’t believe he was gone at all. It just wasn’t possible. We were soul mates. We were meant to be together. We had been together since 10th grade. I’ve never been much of a romantic; I was too much of a realist to believe that kind of thing. He made me think that perhaps it was true. In spite of the fact that his closet was now empty, save the one or two hangers he left behind, I couldn’t seem to get my brain completely around the idea that he had left me and was never ever coming back. In spite of the uniquely masculine things belonging to him that had adorned our home that were now gone —his straight razor, his shaving cream, his colognes, I just knew it wasn’t so. In spite of everything that was him that was not present anymore, a part of me acted as if he was just away on an extended business trip. I would not, could not, believe it completely, not until that first really chilly autumn night.
*
It was a night in November. I was thinking that I wanted to go back home to North Carolina for the holidays to visit all of my extended family—my aunts and great aunts, uncles and great uncles, cousins and grandparents. I had been feeling disconnected from life for months and thought that visiting family might somehow help me find my place in the world again. I noticed that goose bumps had started to appear on my arms. The house was a bit chilly. I walked over to the thermostat, checking the woodpile near the fireplace on the way, thinking perhaps I would make a fire in the next few days if the temperature dipped much lower. I was turning on the heat when a yawn suddenly consumed me. Noticing that it was after ten, I figured I might as well go to bed.
I climbed into bed, as I had for the past months since he left. He’d left in early spring, so I had all the rest of spring, all of summer, the beginning of autumn to get used to his absence. Strangely enough I found the sleeping alone part the easiest to get used to. I wasn’t ever sad about that part—just kind of melancholy. I quickly resigned myself to it. He had always been such a wild sleeper, I actually got used to being in the bedroom alone. I got used to having the entire bed to myself…got used to not bumping into his legs or his knees or anything else of his. Sometimes I even pretended to enjoy the room I had now, greedily occupying as much of the space as I could. I splayed out my arms and legs, not wanting to let a single inch go unused, gorging myself on the space. Most nights, I would do this for several minutes, fighting the little laser beams of pain that would try to enter my brain, and then I would fall asleep. Tonight, the space in the bed felt more vast than usual. The sheets felt colder as well, and I shivered for a full minute, as I waited for my body’s warmth to penetrate the bed. Stretching my legs forward, I pointed my toes, and suddenly I remembered how we would pass the time between going to bed and sleeping on cold nights.
We would play footsie.
The “I love yous” did not often fall from his lips. That always bothered me. I thought I could adjust to once we were married. I never did. When we were together and he was touching me, it was always quite clear how deeply he felt for me. In all my life, I had never had a man express his love for me in such a physical way by placing every centimeter of his skin against mine. He had always been best at showing me affection physically. He didn’t kiss me very often…when he did, it was usually in bed. However, those kisses were things of beauty—moments when his open lips against mine were tender and made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. He touched me all the time—when I walked by, when I was sitting, as I did housework or cooked, as I combed my hair in the mirror, as I lay in bed, sleeping. The way he would lay his hands on me was more intimate than a kiss could ever be. He would rub me, stroke me, scratch me, pinch me, and press parts of his body against parts of my body so our flesh could meet. He enjoyed touching me on so many levels, especially playing footsie.
He just loved feeling his feet against mine, and to intertwine his toes with mine. He would
rub his feet around my ankles and legs, slowly moving them up and down against me. It was always done very purposefully. He wanted to listen to the soft swishing sounds as our skin made contact. Sometimes he would encircle my legs with his and rub my feet against his. Sometimes he would take one of my feet and rub it between both of his; his eyes closed the entire time, a smile on his beautiful lips.
I had never thought of the feet as an erogenous zone before I met him, as a sensual or sexual place. He introduced me to all the pleasures that the feet held. I considered myself a sensuous person but I hadn’t fully experienced the pleasure a man with a foot fetish could give a woman. He often said that I had beautiful feet, even without polish. I kept all kinds of scented lotions and flavored gels in the nightstand specifically for my feet. I kept a fresh pedicure constantly, not that it mattered. He loved them best naked he said…naked and exposed without all the primping. He was the first man to ever ask me to wear my strappy stiletto sandals in bed. Sometimes when we’d make love, he’d stretch my legs up against his chest, point my feet at his face, and seductively strip my shoes from my feet, taking each toe into his mouth. One by one, then two by two, kissing, licking them randomly and nibbling my heels. I would call out his name and reach out for him, but could never quite stretch far enough to do so. He’d carefully run his tongue up and down the sole of my foot, kissing the very center of it. His tongue between my toes would completely undo my composure. My insides would boil over. He’d kiss and lick my feet as he moved in and out of me, thrusting at will with hard strokes that I could feel days after he was done—each movement into me released more of his power and made me feel weaker and more wonderful. I would always come when he did this, my nipples pointing straight up, my arms outstretched, reaching out for his chest. Even when the lovemaking was over, he’d touch me and play footsie with me, rubbing his feet against mine, and then wrapping his feet around me, his ankles across mine in an almost protective way. He’d rub my back, toying with my skin as if it existed for that purpose. My nerve endings beneath the surface of my skin became his playground, and he luxuriously did all he could to stimulate them and make them just as happy as he was to be there with me.
Well, at least I thought he was happy.
On this night, which would have definitely been a footsie night, the memories came back to me. Suddenly I could smell the scent of him, and feel his touch as if he were there. All that spring and summer I hadn’t thought of the nights we played footsie. The Indian summer warmth of early fall had kept those thoughts from my mind also. On the first cold night of autumn, the memories returned to me. I reached my legs out as far as I could, but he wasn’t there. I curled my toes inward, flexing them in and out, to no avail. Squeezing my eyes tightly until tears formed at the corners, I reached out as far as my legs would allow to his side of the bed, hoping to feel at least a toe. I imagined him there with his feet reaching out the way mine were reaching now, and I could almost feel him.
For the first time since he’d left, I truly missed him. Really truly missed him. I missed his feet against mine, playing footsie. I had come to understand why he’d left me…why he had decided the challenges of the relationship were more than he could handle. I understood he had met someone else who would not demand that he be the best person he could be. I wondered if he had forgotten about how much he enjoyed playing footsie with me. I lay there with my eyes closed. I reached out both legs to his side of the bed. I imagined finding his body there. My left hand began moving against my will to my pussy, and I began moving my index finger in and out of myself as I thought about him rubbing his feet against mine, then extending my legs upward against his torso and chest and over his shoulders, nibbling at my ankles and heels. I raised my legs in the air and opened them, fantasizing about his lips on the soles of my feet. The wetness increased and began to ease out of me and down onto the sheets as I thought about the kisses he’d plant on my toenails.
And I came.
The Spatula
To Fred
It was our Thursday night summertime rit
ual. Temperatures would often climb well over 100 degrees for days at a time between May and September, and even with the air conditioner running full blast all day, you were still aware of the smoldering heat outside. It would almost be too hot to make love…almost, even with the A/C running. As long as I was reasonably cool my husband and I always did it…we just found interesting ways to stay cool in the process.
He’d walk through the door from work, exactly at 6:18 p.m. It amazed me how he never got caught in traffic, or needed to stop to get gas or pick up something from Wal-Mart. I knew it was exactly 6:18 because I had already assumed the position. I was bent over the sink, naked, hands gripping each side of the sick. My eyes were level with the clock/timer on the stove nearby. My head was bent down, with the ends of my long braids swinging around my shoulders.
At 6:18 I would hear his key in the lock. He would open and close our front door. He would first go upstairs, actually entering the kitchen at 6:23, dripping wet from the briefest of showers he had taken. During the 5 minutes it took him to reach me in the kitchen, I would become so aroused my legs would become weak. And finally, when he came into the kitchen, drops of water hitting the floor as he approached me, I would involuntarily arch my back and my ass would jut out to meet him.
Walking over to me, he stood there for a long moment, just looking. It was a highly charged but awkward moment for me. I just knew he was numerating my imperfections…the cellulite starting to cling to my legs, my hips that were starting to unattractively grow wider, the faint roll of flesh unmistakably starting to mar my smooth back and midsection. But he said he never saw any of these things because he was looking at me, and not my body, and even though it didn’t sound sensible, I somehow understood what he meant.
He’d walk away, dripping a trail of water from the shower over to the refrigerator across the room. He would open the freezer, and my pussy tried to leap from between my legs. Even though my back was to him I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye. The smoke would unfurl out of the freezer as he opened the door, obscuring his face as he peered inside. He would reach in, and remove a big, long handled icy metal spatula with a wooden handle from the freezer. Reaching in again, he’d remove a huge bowl of ice.
It was one of the spatulas I used to make the Sunday breakfasts for him that he loved. I served them to him in bed. I scrambled the eggs and flipped the pancakes or the French toast, golden brown just like he liked with this spatula. It was something that I used to cater to him those mornings. But every Thursday evening, he used it to cater to me.
I heard him shut the freezer door. Looking down at the floor, I watched his feet walk back over towards me. He placed the bowl of ice in the sink, and then he stood right behind me, his dick growing hard and gently grazing my ass. As he reached up to stroke my braids with his left hand, out of the corner of my eye I saw him draw back with his right, the icy cold spatula in his hand. As soon as the cold cold metal struck my fleshy upper thigh near my right hip, I had my first orgasm, crying out as I did. Some of my juices began to trickle down my legs, and I felt his eyes watching the evidence of my arousal. His dick got a little bit harder.
Plunging the spatula into the big bowl of ice in the sink, he’d step back to admire the redness in the spot where he’d struck me. My skin was very pale, soft and delicate and the marks the spatula left were easily visible, but they always faded away quickly and never left bruises or cuts. He knew what he was doing. I stared down into the ice, looking at the kitchen utensil. I next felt his right hand touching the spot where the spatula had struck me, warming the spot. I sighed. He stepped closer to me, his dick nestling itself between my vagina’s lips. His left hand reached towards my face to stroke my hair again. As his hand passed my face I reached out for it with my mouth, taking an index finger between my lips. I closed my eyes and began to suck it, and I felt him stiffen and grow harder still. He reached for the spatula again, and, taking a step back, raised his right arm and brought the spatula down on my right butt cheek – once, twice, three…four times in rapid succession, each sensation a little more exquisitely painful than the previous one as he raised his hand a little higher each time. It stung deliciously, icy cold and damp. He hurriedly placed the spatula back into the ice, and admired the redness of my ass. I heard him moan something unintelligible, and his left hand left my mouth and he reached for his massive dick. He grabbed the spatula again, and while rubbing himself, struck my left ass cheek four times. My second orgasm was well on its way with the second stroke, and as he placed the third and fourth ones on my butt, he moved closer to me, dick in his hand, placing only the very tip of it at my pussy’s lips. I was quietly frantic now, wanting him inside me so much, enjoying the cold droplets sliding down my backside and the hot ones sliding down my inner thighs. He felt my extreme wetness there and his dick lunged forward for a moment. I wanted him to and I pushed back against him as my lips down below tried to take hold of his dick. My clit ached miserably and longed for his touch. Then he regained control and placed his hand back around his dick, pulling away from me. Stepping back further, he went back to the freezer and removed a second spatula.
Retrieving the first one from the bowl of ice, with one spatula in each hand, he proceeded to paddle my ass cheeks in unison. I bit my lower lip and fought the urge to thrust my fingers into myself to ease some of my longing. He always wanted me to save it for him. Rivulets of water continued making paths down my ass. He put the spatulas back into the ice and took them out, spanking my ass all over, my upper thighs, my calves, and I pushed my round rear and my legs out to catch every sensation. I would moan and he would moan, and when I pushed my butt out, his dick would get a little harder and lunge toward me, arching upward, trying to get in me.
He stepped closer to me again, this time planting kisses up and down my spine as he fingered my clit. He thrust the spatulas back into the bowl of ice and placed the bowl on the floor next to me. He knelt down at my ass. He spread my legs far apart, and pulled my hips toward him. He picked up a spatula, then crawled underneath me, spatula in hand, and placed his back against the cabinet. He reached up towards my pussy with the spatula and began to rub the cold metal against my clit. I moaned as the iciness pierced the very center of me, slicing through my hot longing with its chilled fingers. I opened my legs wider still. Then, with a very slight back and forth motion, he ever so gently paddled my clit with the utensil. The cold metal bounced against it and moved away, bounced against it and moved away…then he sped up the movements and I began to bite my bottom lip, and as my body’s heat began to warm the spatula, he reached over for the other one waiting in the ice and continued to chill me out by spanking my clit with the spatulas. He put tiny pieces of ice on the end of each, so that they ended up inside me, and a piece even stuck to my clit, causing me to scream. When the chilliness had made my clit quiver in ecstasy, and I could still faintly feel the sting of the spanking on my butt and my legs, he put the spatulas down and began to lick my center in his gentle and passionate way. He increased the pressure of his mouth and tongue against my pussy, grinding his face into me, and I went from icy cold to red hot in seconds. My third or forth orgasm finally found its way through me and ended up on his face.
By now my legs were weak, and somehow he eased me down onto the kitchen floor without making me fall. Without a word he opened my legs, and just like that, spread-eagled on the linoleum, he raised my legs up over his strong broad shoulders, propped me up slightly, ran his hands down the backs of my legs to my ass, spreading my legs and ass apart wide, briefly fingering me as he went, and finally, taking two of the toes of my right foot into his mouth, he filled me with every intensely rock-hard bit of himself. That brought forth orgasm number five…I think…I had lost track by this time and I was so happy he was finally inside me I immediately began to fuck him back as hard as I could, with every inch of my energy and being…not just giving it to him with my pussy, but with my face, my hands, my lips, my stomach muscles, with my legs wrapped tightly around him,
with the very pores of my flesh as the sweat began to bead up on me. The moisture of my vagina was quickly becoming a roaring river, and his dick was strongly stroking through my current.
We lay there on the floor, with him powerfully and masterfully fucking the hell out of me as I panted and moaned, not caring who heard us. He pulled my legs up higher so that they lay flat against his chest and fucked me. Then he spread my legs as far apart as they could, and my high-school cheerleading days briefly came back to me as I performed the split in midair with his penis moving in and out of me like a piston, totally covered with my honey. He watched himself sliding back and forth and grew excited, then looked at my face. And as I clamped myself down on his dick, controlling his movements from the inside out, he finally released himself. Taking one last stroke for good measure deep in the heart of me, he pulled out, and the cum shot out from him. He managed to compose himself long enough to grab his penis and shoot most of it on my breasts. He called out my name as he did this, and then said “you feel sooo fucking gooooddd…..” And, still trying to catch his breath, he finally wilted on top of me, knocking the melted bowl of icy water onto the floor as he did.
The spatulas remained on the floor until morning.
The September 11th Story
To David
The sunlight streaming through his bedroom window woke me up. It had been a heavy, alcohol induced sleep, and it took me a while to remember where I was, and why. Like a deep-sea diver heading for the surface, I struggled to find my way to consciousness. When I did, I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and looked at his clock.
Lipstick and Other Stories Page 6
