Pucker Up

by Virna DePaul

  There’s the knock again.

  It’s probably someone from the building. Maybe there was a problem with my last check. Or they’re here for the inspection. But I’m not even sure I remember how to walk after reading what Jenna wrote. It’s something like one foot in front of the other if I remember correctly.

  Jenna loves me?

  There’s another series of knocks. Louder this time.

  And she said it over the internet? Said it where everyone can see it, where everyone can know? I— I— I don’t understand.

  A thud hits the door that doesn’t quite sound like a fist.

  What do I do with this information? I can’t walk or open a door and what the actual fuck, Jenna? Do I run to her? Should I run to her?

  Do I want to?

  What kind of question is that, Lee, you God damn idiot? Yes, yes, yes. I want to run to her and sweep her up in my arms and tell her how proud I am of her and how I feel the same, how I feel the fucking same. So, I leave my suitcase on the floor and run towards the door, scooping up the jacket with my wallet, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to run to Jenna.

  My hand pauses on the doorknob when I realize I have no clue where Jenna even is right now. Work? Probably work. What if she’s out of the office? I don’t care. I’ll search the whole God damn city if I have--

  “Jenna?”

  In the hallway, I spot a woman walking toward the elevators. Jenna. At the sound of her name, she turns around, startled. Spooked, we both stare at each other. She’s in pajamas. Her hair is falling out of a lopsided bun. It spills down in soft curls, framing her face. Blush sweeps across her cheeks, and she bites her lip. Neither of us moves, as neither of us says a word. I scratch the back of my head and fiddle with my keys and she slips her hands in her pajama pants pockets and then back out, in and then back out.

  “I, um.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, “I knocked.”

  She points to my door and I glance over my shoulder at the dark wood as if I forgot it was there. My eyes move back to her, and she stops biting her nail, dropping her hand.

  “I was …” My brain fights for words as I still try to process the fact that Jenna is standing here in front of me. “I was, well, I was just kind of thinking.”

  “Oh, ok.” She nods, though I can easily tell she doesn’t understand. It’s not like I said I was cooking and couldn’t stop or I was listening to loud music and didn’t hear her or even that I was in the bathroom.

  No, I said I was thinking.

  “What I mean to say is…” I look back at the door as if that will give my poor brain the words it’s looking for. “I was marveling.”

  “Marveling?”

  “You know, like processing something really good,” I try to explain.

  She frowns, still unsure of exactly what I mean.

  “I was deciding. No, not deciding.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I mean, it wasn’t a decision because I already knew. No, it was never a decision.”

  “What wasn’t a decision?” Jenna asks quietly, nervously. But with an undeniable hint of hope.

  “That I was coming to find you,” I say, walking towards her. “That I was never going to stop until I found you.”

  I stop right in front of her. I see her chest heaving, and she grins at me with that clever, mischievous look that drives me crazy.

  Suddenly and without warning, she darts out a fist and loudly knocks on my neighbor’s door. She presses a silencing finger against my lips when I try to ask her what she is doing. Our eyes stay locked on each other as I hear a TV turn off and feet walk toward the door.

  Mr. Lang pokes his head out the door and grumbles, “What do you want?”

  Jenna pokes her finger into my chest and says, “I love him.”

  “Okay?”

  “I do.” Jenna smiles up at me. “I love him.”

  “Great. So, are you like selling something?”

  She ignores him and walks away from me in her slippers. She stops at the next door and knocks. Mr. Lang mutters something under his breath and closes his own door as I meet up with Jenna, raising an eyebrow. An elderly lady opens the door and smiles sweetly.

  Jenna simply says, “I love him.”

  And then she walks away. Before I can stop her, she’s knocking on the next door.

  “I love him.”

  Jenna grins at me and runs down the hallway, knocking on doors and not even waiting for them to open.

  “I love Lee Bowers!” she shouts, cupping her hands over her mouth.

  I watch all of my neighbors step out of their apartments, faces confused or irritated or amused as Jenna shouts again and again.

  “I love Lee Bowers!”

  I laugh and shake my head and can’t remember a time I felt so happy. I chase after Jenna as she keeps running down the hall, knocking on doors, giggling. She peeks over her shoulder and sees me coming and ducks around a corner. I turn the corner myself to find Jenna facing me, backed against a wall at the end of the hall.

  “Nowhere to run, Jenna Harrison,” I say.

  She stays still as I make my way towards her and press my hands on either side of her face. She moves her head towards mine, stands up on her tiptoes, and I feel her lips ghost across my ear.

  “Who says I want to run?”

  This Jenna, the Jenna I always knew she could be, leans her head back against the wall and looks at me with such courage and honesty and not a shadow of self doubt. I’ve known her my whole life, and if someone asked me if I knew what she looked like the answer would be an eye roll and a: “Duh.”

  Sure how she looks has changed over the years. She isn’t a child anymore. Her hair’s been short and long and every length in between. But Jenna has always looked like Jenna.

  This woman before me, this strong, brave, bold woman, looks different. I see it in the way her chin tilts up a little higher. She’s challenging me and encouraging me all at the same time.

  I see it in the way her eyes aren’t afraid to hold mine. Before, she would keep my gaze, but it would always seem like she was counting in her head. As if she could look straight at me for only five seconds and that was it before pretending to yawn or sneeze or check her phone or whatever else to break eye contact with me.

  Not now. Even the way her shoulders sit is different. She’s wearing these pajamas with the wine stain on the leg from where she spills when she’s reading and forgets to hold her glass straight, like they’re a couture Prada gown right off the runway.

  In this moment, Jenna is the most gorgeous I have ever seen her.

  “I, um, did some reading earlier today,” I whisper.

  The corner of Jenna’s lip quirks up. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you enjoy what you read earlier today?” she asks.

  I rub my thumb along her cheekbone as she watches me. “I enjoyed it very much.”

  I feel one of her hands move from the wall and slip around my waist, moving slowly and gently. The other one follows, and she links her fingers behind my back.

  “What did you think of the writing?” She squeezes me a hair closer to her.

  I trace my finger down her neck and relish the little shudder her body gives. I meet her eyes again.

  “Beautiful.”

  She steps away from the wall and shuffles her feet between mine so we’re standing against each other, leaning on one another. Her fingers unwind and splay flat on my lower back. She looks up at me, pressed so very close.

  “And what did you think about the author?” she whispers. “The author who wrote what you read earlier today.”

  I slip one hand behind her head, tangling my fingers in her hair, and I wrap the other one around her, pulling her even closer, closer than I thought possible.

  “I love her.”

  Jenna sinks into me as my lips mold into hers. They’re soft and full and exactly where mine should be. Her hands grip my back, fierce and strong. I push
against her and she pushes against me. I can feel her heart, beating faster. I’m sure she can feel mine, too, about to burst out of my fucking chest.

  The hallway doesn’t exist. The apartment doesn’t exist. The city, with all its people and skyscrapers and tunnels, with all its shouting and honking and screeching, with all its newspapers and flashing screens, doesn’t exist. Everything around us, it’s all gone. Right now, it’s just Jenna leaning against me and me against her. We are everything.

  “Hey, there.”

  I barely hear the words that echo down from the hallway. They sound muffled, as if I’m underwater, drowning and loving every fucking second of it. I hear the words and I don’t care who said them and I don’t care why. The only sound I want to hear is the little sigh of contentment Jenna makes when I tug gently on her bottom lip.

  “Hey!”

  The voice is louder now. But still far enough away that I don’t have to care. It’s like the voice of someone shouting at me from across the river, but they don’t have a boat so there’s no way they can reach me. Here in Jenna’s arms, we’re on our own island. No one can ever reach us where we are, together.

  “Hello? Can you hear me? Hey!”

  It’s only when a hand that is not Jenna’s soft and tender one rests on my shoulder that I pull away from Jenna. It feels like pulling away from everything warm and kind and perfect. The golden haze shifts from the hall as if it’s parting fog.

  I turn around and see a security guard from my building staring at me, searching my eyes for a hint of whatever drug I’m tripping on. I want to tell him my dealer sells exclusively to me. He can’t handle this wild, mind-blowing stuff. The distribution of Jenna has ceased. I’m buying up the whole damn supply.

  “Sir?”

  Behind the security guard, half my floor crowds into the hall. Some have angry faces with crossed arms. Some give me a thumbs up and a high whistle. The old woman a few apartments down from me shakes her head and clutches at the little gold cross around her neck. They all stand there, though, and wait for me to speak.

  “Um.” I can’t find my voice. “Can I, um, I mean can we, um, help you?”

  The security guard peeks around me to look at Jenna, who blushes and shyly wipes her lips. I can tell she’s holding back a laugh that’s trying to sneak loose.

  “I was called up here about a disturbance,” the guard tells me, looking back and forth from her to me.

  “Oh, there was a disturbance all right,” I say, grinning down at Jenna.

  “Okay, well –”

  “In terms of earthquakes, we’re talking a 10.0 on the Richter scale.”

  “8.9,” Jenna whispers, burying her head into my shoulder.

  “What?”

  “8.9 is the highest value on the Richter scale.”

  I feel her breath against my sleeve, feel her lips part in a grin.

  “Well, the disturbance we made goes off the Richter scale,” I say to the guard. “What’s happened here today is so huge it can’t even be measured.”

  The guard looks at me with even more confusion. My neighbors down the hall shift about, looking at each other for answers.

  “I was just told there was someone knocking on doors and –”

  “Oh, doors weren’t just knocked on today.” I pull Jenna up beside me and smile at her as I speak more confidently now, loud so everyone can hear. “Doors were knocked down. They were smashed, demolished, obliterated –”

  “Cut into pieces,” Jenna speaks up, stepping forward. “Run through a chipper, spread out for all other doors as a warning: we’re coming for you, doors. No door will stand in our way.”

  I bite my knuckle to avoid laughing at the absolute lack of understanding on the guard’s face. His mouth hangs open, his eyebrows are knitted together, and there’s frown lines burrowing into his forehead.

  “I, um …” He fiddles with his flashlight. “I was told someone was shouting.”

  “Yes,” Jenna agrees.

  “You were, um, well, you can’t –”

  “Oh, I’m going to. I’m going to shout that is.”

  “The rules –”

  “I’m tired of the rules.” Jenna steps forward. Now my jaw drops, as the security guard backs up a step. “I’m tired of being quiet and always whispering and tip-toeing and never shouting.”

  “But you can’t –”

  “There is nothing I can’t do,” Jenna says, chin held high. “Nothing.”

  And with that, she leaves the security guard fumbling for words and trying to decide if he should go after her or not. I simply watch her in complete and utter amazement. There is a woman I want to shout with, one I want to knock down doors with, one I want to cause earthquakes with.

  “Lee!” Jenna stops right in the middle of the neighbors, who are parted like the sea. “Don’t we have a plane to catch?”

  I smile.

  “We?”

  Epilogue

  Jenna

  * * *

  “Our bus to Cordoba leaves in about an hour,” I whisper as I slide my fingers along Lee’s chest.

  “I can think of a few things we can accomplish in an hour,” he says, groggily opening his eyes and rolling over to face me in the huge four poster bed in our private cabana in Chile.

  “Like packing?” I murmur as he runs his thumb over my cheek.

  Lee grins and shift his hips closer to me. “Can’t you tell I’m already packing?”

  I laugh. “Well now that you mention it, I can definitely feel your package.”

  I slip my hand between us and grip his already hard cock, stroking it slowly. Lee groans and closes his eyes. The ocean breeze sweeps in past the swaying curtains. It runs against my back, chilling the sweat I worked up an hour ago, after I’d slipped off my bikini top and we’d made love on our own private beach.

  It’d been an exhausting day of sex and swimming and sex and walking along the beach and sex and drinking sangria and, oh yeah, sex.

  And obviously we’re still hungry for one another.

  I run my thumb over Lee’s swollen head, and his fist clenches the white linen bed sheets. I watch a flush creep up over his cheeks, mixing with the light of the sunset flooding into our cabana. Every little thing I do that makes him whimper or jolt or moan my name, I remember. I lean over and nip at his earlobe.

  “Faster, baby.”

  I know now, after a month of traveling all along the Chilean coast with Lee, that he loves my fast and frantic strokes. But I also know that he loves it even more when I bring him to the edge and then slow down to a painstakingly lazy pace. His hips thrust toward me, trying to fuck my hand.

  “Jenna, please.”

  His moaning turns me on, to the point where I have to bite my lip and squeeze a fistful of bed sheets to stop from touching myself. He opens his eyes to look at me, and his pupils are blown wide. I can practically see the orange and pink of the sunset reflected in them.

  “Lee?”

  “Yeah,” he breathes, reaching his hand down to wrap around my own, trying to quicken my pace.

  I grip his wrist. He lets me roll him onto his back and pin his arm above his head as I straddle his leg. I resist the urge to grind down on his muscular thigh, and grab his other wrist until I have both pinned to the mattress.

  “How long did we know each other before we fucked?” I ask, my own voice husky and breathless.

  “Far too fucking long.” He gasps when I move my hand to play with his balls.

  “And was it worth it?” I lean forward and skim my tits against his chest. “Was it worth waiting for me?”

  He shudders as he says, “Yes.”

  “Good things come to those who wait, right, Lee?”

  His legs quiver and his hips squirm beneath me.

  “Please,” he moans.

  If he wanted to, he could easily move his arms from my grip. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to wait until I’m the one who will give him his release. He wants me to be in control.

  I let
go of his wrists and scoot down the bed until I’m lying in between his legs. His dick leaks, and I flick my tongue to catch the drop. Lee clutches the headboard and stares down at me.

  “Did you imagine me, here in between your legs?”

  He groans and throws back his head.

  “Did you imagine my ass up in the air for you, like this?”

  I push up onto my knees, arms on his thighs.

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Did you imagine my lips around your cock?”

  I lick a line along the vein on the underside of his dick.

  “Did you imagine the way my tongue felt on your balls?”

  I bite his inner thigh. He hisses.

  “Did you imagine me swallowing your cum? Did you imagine me licking every drop off my finger while you watched? Did you imagine my tits hard and aching at the chance to make you scream my name?”

  His eyes lock on mine, and I see in them the passion and desire and flame I always wanted reflected back at me. We are not just a match. We are a fucking forest fire. An earthquake. A ten point fucking zero earthquake.

  I take Lee into my mouth and twist my hand at his base exactly the way I know drives him up the fucking wall. The muscles along his torso ripple, and I take a moment to jack him off as I tongue his balls.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  I run my tongue under his head and then I’m done teasing. Now it’s time for business. I suck him off and moan as I hear him gasp.

  “Jenna, fuck yeah, I’m so close. Oh, fuck, I’m— yeah, right there. Oh fuck, yes, yes, I’m, I’m, oh yes, I’m gonna—”

  The sound he makes as he shoots down my throat is intoxicating. I swallow as I run my fingers down his quivering thighs. I crawl up to cuddle in the crook of his arm as he stares up at the ceiling, chest heaving.

  “Well?”

  He moves a strand of hair away from my face. “Well, what?”

  “Well, was it everything you imagined?”

  I grin mischievously up at him as I play my fingers against his chest. He leans over and kisses my forehead.

  “There’s no way my brain is big enough to imagine this,” he whispers and I see a seriousness in his face. “My greatest fantasies were nothing compared to this.”