Telling Tales

by Charlotte Stein

  So it’s obviously something. And it’s like the something is just boiling away inside him, because although he’s straining at my grip it’s not as though he’s really trying to get away.

  I can almost hear him wanting to say it.

  “Cam, remember back when you could tell me just about anything? Let’s go back to that, for a second.”

  “I could never tell you anything about myself,” he murmurs, which smarts, I have to say.

  “Then at least try now. Because you know if Wade has done anything to hurt you, I’ll kill him. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, you won’t do anything,” he says, and tries to shake me off, just a little bit. I think he’s turned his face to one side, like he’s looking for an escape route—but of course I can’t be sure. “You’re totally in love with him—you’ve fucked him already, for fuck’s sake!”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard Cameron swear before. It sounds wrong in his mouth, as though he had to bite down on hard on something to get it out. He seems sensible of this fact too, because once he’s got the words out he breathes too hard and tilts away from me, a weird sort of judder making its way down through his body to the hands I’ve still got around his wrists.

  Is it odd if his suddenly blazing jealousy—as offensive as I should probably find it—just makes me want to slide my hands down and clasp his?

  “I’m sorry,” he says, after a moment. Flatly, bleakly. “I’m so sorry, Allie. That was completely unnecessary and uncalled for and I’ve really got no excuse. Just none.”

  “It’s OK—hey. It’s OK.”

  I make a mistake then. I run my hands up over his arms, right over his heavy biceps beneath the stupid Pringles-style jumper he’s got on, and I really shouldn’t have. Not because it makes him shiver—which it absolutely does—but because it makes me shiver. It makes me realize how illicit it feels somehow, to touch him in any sort of intimate way. Even when I’m just trying to get him to calm down or some stupid shit like that, there’s a sexual undercurrent now that I can’t easily deny.

  He feels good. He feels strong. He’s making me wet in the middle of a fucking argument.

  “It’s not OK. It’s not—you should be with him, you know? He can give you things that I’m…not even capable of.”

  “You mean, like, talking about your feelings? Because I gotta agree—you are terrible at that.”

  “No, Allie. No…Jesus, it’s not even easier in the dark.” I think I actually hear him swallow. “I mean…I can’t give you all the…sex stuff he gives away so freely. I can’t just…I don’t know how to—”

  “Who says I want that stuff?” I whisper, but he just laughs, bitterly.

  “Your stories say you want that stuff.”

  “So do yours,” I tell him, and this time I don’t whisper. It comes out fierce, fierce, and for the first time in my life I actually tug someone down to bring them closer to me. As though I’m going to kiss him any second and, oh God, I want to. I do.

  “It’s not the same,” he says, but I can think of many ways in which it is. Not least of which is the thing pressing between us, suddenly—the one that’s brushing against my belly even though we’ve hardly done anything at all. I haven’t kissed him; he hasn’t touched me.

  But he’s definitely hard, anyway.

  “Really? Then how come the story I just read out turned you on?” I can feel his breath on my face, all hot and too quick. It’s making me buzz higher than all this oddly frantic talk is. “You like the thought of a cock in your ass, Cam?”

  “Don’t say that,” he whispers, though really I think he means the opposite. He sounds so hoarse and tremulous suddenly, and I understand why.

  I feel hoarse and tremulous too, saying something as dirty as that to someone like him.

  “Or maybe you want me to do it to you instead, huh? You want me to fuck your ass?”

  He lets out a little short, awkward breath, then definitely presses himself against me. Just a little, just enough for me to know it’s his cock doing the pressing.

  “Tell me what you want,” I murmur, into someplace good and warm like the side of his throat. He’s leaning down into me now, so it makes it kind of easy—even if he won’t answer me. He won’t give me anything.

  “You want me to touch you?” I say, and finally he shifts against me. His mouth opens against the side of my face, hot and soundless.

  Then finally, finally he manages to get out words—even if they’re not the words I expect.

  “Don’t ask,” he says. “Don’t ask me.”

  And then a spike of arousal jolts through me, hard and unyielding. Somehow, somehow I know instinctively what he means. I know because he’s told me in a thousand ways—with the stories he likes and the looks he’s given me and all the meaning between the actual real words he’s used.

  And sure enough, when I don’t ask—when I just do, instead—he moans loudly. I don’t wait for his permission, the way I would usually. I don’t let him lead the way—I lead the way. I run the heel of my palm right down over the solid ridge of his cock, and when he tries to back off a little I squeeze the wrist I’ve still got clasped in my other hand.

  I squeeze it, and hold him in place.

  “No,” I tell him, as though I’ve suddenly become someone much more powerful and sexually sure, in my head. “No.”

  Then suddenly he’s breathing hard and bucking toward me, as though I said something encouraging instead of that one harsh little word. Funny, how it so often means something bad, a refusal, a barrier in the way of everything good and yet here it feels…it feels like that word he used to describe Wade.

  Free.

  I think of all the things I’ve wanted to do to him since reading his story and finding my picture, and I just get to pick the one I like best. I get to choose, and I do: “Keep still,” I tell him, then I push the words right out of myself. “I’m going to go down on you now.”

  He makes the dirtiest little sound, at that—caught somewhere between a forced-out breath and a moan—and for the first time I really wish I could see his face. I can feel his lips are parted, all hot and wet and almost kissing me in little fits and starts, but it’s his eyes I want. They must be pretty lust blown by now if his mouth is open and his cock is this hard, but I can’t know for sure.

  I want to know for sure.

  But more than that I want to suck and lick and stroke his big, gorgeous cock—because it is. When I finally manage to fumble open the buttons on his jeans—him squirming and bucking into my touch, all the while—he feels immense.

  Smooth as silk and so thick I can barely get my grip around it, and oh when I stroke down to the tip there’s far more of him than there should be.

  “Sorry,” he blurts out and I have no idea why. None at all. It’s lucky he fills me in, really, because I’m so mesmerized by the smooth, solid feel of him I can’t do anything but sigh with arousal. “I know I’m insanely big.”

  God, he’s even apologizing about that?

  “Stop saying sorry,” I tell him, and then I squeeze that glorious cock just once. Hard.

  He grunts as though it goes through him like a punch to the gut, but he still keeps on trying to explain.

  “Women say they like it but they don’t. Mostly they scream and run a mile.”

  “Really?” I say, but I don’t mean it as a question. I’m not actually making idle conversation. I’m just saying meaningless things while I stroke up and down the fat length of him, tingling all over with each new discovery.

  He’s not cut, for starters—that’s a surprise. I’m sure I heard somewhere that most American guys are, but when I work him just right I can feel the soft skin sliding over the slick head of his cock and, God, God he feels amazing. All I have to do is swipe my thumb over the slit at the tip and he leaks precome, copiously, everything getting slippery the more I st
roke until finally he’s just talking absently through a haze of moans and sighs of pleasure.

  “Really,” he says, and jerks into my touch as he does so.

  “My last girlfriend—I had to go down on her for hours before I could get inside her.”

  I think I moan then.

  “But it’s OK. It’s fine. I love…doing it.”

  I definitely moan after hearing him say that.

  “I love it more than getting anything for myself, you know? Because anything for myself just feels like…like I’m being…I don’t know.”

  Dirty, I think for him, though I’m not sure if that’s true. There definitely seems to be some shame-based nonsense to his behavior, but he speaks so little I can’t tell.

  All I know for sure is when I put a palm flat against his belly and push him back a little—just to make room, just so I get on my knees and finally have him in my mouth—his cock jumps in my grasp. More fluid leaks from the tip and runs in a thin stream down over my working fist.

  He likes being pushed; he really likes being pushed. He likes being pinned, and he likes it double when I sink suddenly to my knees, one hand suddenly on his upper thigh, holding him fast, the other on his cock as I sink my mouth down over the tip.

  In truth, I can barely take more than that. He’s so thick and fat, and when I suck hard it doesn’t take much to tighten my mouth around him. It takes so little, in fact, that he’s moaning and trying to thrust before I’ve done a single thing.

  Any second and he’s going to come, I think, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. He just stands there, shivering, with his big cock barely sliding in and out of my mouth, the salt-hot flavor of him immediately on my tongue.

  I work him quickly, sucking hard then licking over the little slit at the tip. Over the ridge on the underside—the one that makes him almost buck right into my mouth. But he doesn’t come. He doesn’t even do it when I make my hand nice and slick and rub over the shaft as I lap around the head, though he does make a sound when I make one.

  When I gasp with the sudden pleasure of it—God, this is Cameron I’m sucking off, oh Lord he’s so slick and hot and hard—he gasps too, like an echo of me. As though it turns him on to hear me, which I suppose it does. He did say that thing about preferring giving over receiving—probably because he’s a god sent from the heavens to stun us mortal women into submission—but I didn’t really register it until now.

  Until I break away from his swollen cock just long enough to tell him how wet he’s making me, how hot, how I don’t care what other girls think—I can’t wait to feel this big thing inside me. Arousal makes my tongue loose and I really go for it. I even slip a hand inside my knickers to chase it, to make my words dirtier, hotter.

  “Oh God, I just want to rub your cock over my clit—do you know how swollen it is? How hard? I can’t even touch it—it feels too good. I’m gonna come any second just thinking about you fucking into me, hard, hard—”

  “Jesus Christ,” he gasps, then even better: “Are you touching yourself, Allie?”

  He sounds incredulous, even though it seems pretty clear to me. I can hear the folds of my slick pussy, parting around my busy fingers.

  “Yes,” I tell him, but my voice is wavery now. I’m pretty close—too close to do anything decently—so I just stroke over him roughly, flicking my tongue over the tip until his thighs start trembling and his hands go suddenly to my hair.

  Of course I assume he’s going to force my mouth over his cock. But since it’s Cameron we’re talking about here, he does just the opposite. He tries to push me away, instead, and when I won’t go he gasps out a little frantic: “Ohhh no, baby, no—I’m really close.”

  It takes me a second to realize what he means, and when it comes I’m struck for the first time by the similarities between this, and my encounter with Wade. No real sex, just stroking and touching ourselves and then finally Wade covering my face with his come.

  But apparently, Cameron doesn’t want to. Or at least, he’s giving me a choice—again. I can do whatever I want, I think, and then after a long moment filled with shivering thrills I push his hands away from my hair.

  I order him to keep them at his side.

  “No,” he says. “No.”

  But I ignore him. I slide my mouth down around him and suck, strong and steady, while his fists remain somewhere around his hips. And then when he chokes out a sound, I rub him in time to the slippery wet rhythm I’ve worked up.

  It takes about ten seconds. Maybe longer, but I find it hard to be sure because I’m suddenly delirious with the grunting, guttural noises he makes and the sound of that cultured voice telling me he’s coming.

  It gets me there too. Just hearing him and feeling him swell in my mouth, then all the hot, thick spurts of come over my tongue. The whole thing goes on for a long, long time and I work myself through it, stroking my clit until it’s almost painful. Until I’m shuddering and boneless and just waiting for him to tell me how sorry he is.

  Only he doesn’t. Instead, I feel him sort of…relax against me. Just a little bit, just enough for me to realize how heavy he is and how much I need to prop him up against something other than me.

  And then, after a moment, he says: “God. Never thought I’d feel your mouth on me…there before I got to feel it pressed against my lips.”

  I like how he says there. It’s so him, it really is.

  “You want me to kiss you, Cam?” I say, and I guess I’m teasing a bit. I certainly expect him to say no, because…well. I don’t exactly taste like cake and puppies, right at this current moment in time.

  But he just fumbles through the darkness for me, and I feel his big hands go underneath my arms. And then he’s almost lifting me, I’m almost off my feet, right before his lips graze mine and, oh God, why is this more intimate than the thing I’ve just done, oh Lord, I’m going to kiss Cameron—And then he pulls back, just as I knew he would. I mean, Wade might have liked the idea of getting all in the mess he made of my face, but this is Cameron we’re talking about. He probably needs me to douche my mouth before he even considers it.

  Though really, it’s not such a big deal. We can kiss another time, after all! It’s not like we’re going to wait another five years, right?

  “Hold on,” he says, and then I have to squint and blink because I think he’s just struck a match. I’ve no idea where he’s got one from but I can definitely smell sulphur, and then after a moment of temporary blindness I can make out the little dancing flame.

  In fact, I can make out Cameron too.

  I can see the lines and curves of his face, made ghostly by the almost completely enclosing darkness. I can make out the exact tenor of his gaze, so much softer and more liquid than it was but no less passionate. And when he says, “If we’re going to kiss, I want to be able to see it’s you,” I confess, I turn to water and wash away.

  I’m still there on this ocean of him when he leans down through the flickering gloom to touch his lips to mine—softly, so softly. I can make out that lush upper lip distinctly, and even though I’m sure he’s not going to press in deeper for fear of what he might taste, he does.

  He moves his lips over mine and then for one brief, thrilling second I feel his tongue stroke into my mouth. Just a hint of it, but oh so lovely all the same. It sparks some satiated nerve endings back into life and I squirm against him without shame, sure that things are going to progress to more.

  But then the light sputters out and I feel him go still against me, as though the match was the only thing keeping him in this one delicious moment. His breath ghosts over my face through the darkness, and I can almost hear stopping sorts of words welling up inside him: We should…We need to…We can do this again later…

  You know the kinds of things.

  Only he takes that one moment in utter darkness and utter stillness to say to me, quite distinctly: “I can’t
wait to taste you the way you’ve just tasted me.”

  Chapter Nine

  I think of those words a million times: I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait. He makes me think of them when he’s just standing there in the kitchen, cooking eggs on the big double-top stove, in a jumper that barely fits him and which seems as though it could just slide right off one shoulder at any second.

  When he turns around I can see his chest hair, poking out of the top of the slight V-neck. It’s almost obscene, with those three words rattling around my head as a backdrop. And then he flicks his gaze up to mine as he pushes a mess of scrambled eggs onto four plates, and I don’t know what to say or do or think.

  He’s so…he’s so…my Corin.

  “You want more eggs, Allie?” he asks, as though those are the thoughts I’m trying to transmit to him through my wildly staring eyes. I’m all about a need for breakfast foods, rather than an insane lust for his glorious, gigantic body.

  I wonder if he knows now that I lust for his glorious, gigantic body. He must, surely? I’d whispered to him in a fever the night before, about how I couldn’t wait for that too. And then we’d spent an hour shrieking down dark corridors with Kitty hot on our heels, everything like some strange fever dream that’s only tangentially based on reality.

  Looking back on it now I think of Byron and Shelley and Keats, only we’re the budget version. The bizarre, erotic version, with every one of my thoughts turning back to his hands underneath my arms and his mouth on mine and the hint of a promise in his words.

  When, I think, when? But no when comes. He had gone to bed in the middle of the game, leaving me susceptible to Wade’s wandering hands, in the dark. Half my clothes gone already because, by God, Kitty’s a ruthless player, all of me wondering if I was brave enough to just throw caution to the wind and find my way through the shadows to his room.

  I think that may be what he wanted me to do. To just creep there and lock myself in with him, then explore all the things Byron and Shelley and Keats probably did, anyway. Their real books How We Had A Giant Orgy: Volumes I, II, III were buried beneath the floorboards in that big house in wherever-it-was, never to be seen again.