by Louisa Trent
"That's not true," Kesley replied, angry now too and not exactly understanding why. "There must be a million people in any given night who have sex without learning a thing about the other person. You're a prime example."
He shook his head. "Not us. Our coming together will be about more than two separate bodies slamming away on a mattress seeking their own separate pleasures. We'll probably fall in love with each other, at least a little. It can't be helped. Our lovemaking won't be sterile. Are you prepared for the consequences of that, of the havoc it will create between us?"
Her heart raced. No, it wasn't so! Nothing essential would change between them. There would be no havoc! As Drew always liked to tell her, they got on well together. They were friends, she supposed, though she had never thought about him that way either, because friendship seemed so trite. He was Drew, the man she almost lived with, but without the sex. The man who made her laugh no matter how horrible her day had been. Why wouldn't that continue?
It would continue! This would just be a fun interlude, a brief departure from their usual same-old-same-old. The comical, never serious Drew, understood fun.
"I'll be your love slave," she said, trying to recapture that spirit of fun. "Your concubine. Your harem woman. I'll ravish you with my body, dance for you naked, peel grapes for you, then pop them into your mouth one at a time. For the next two weeks I am yours totally. Anywhere. Anytime, day or night. Is that prepared enough for you, or do you need it in writing?"
Drew's smile was sad. Slowly lowering his jaw to her scratched thigh, he fleetingly touched the bruised area with his lips.
Her sensitized nerve endings immediately picked up the warmth of his mouth; a jolt awakened her womanhood. His lips were so close to the center of her body! She felt like screaming, felt like pulling his head to her vagina so she could melt into the heat of his mouth.
Moaning, her grip on the countertop went from grip to white-knuckle tight.
Drew's jaw lifted. "Now tell me this won't change us."
A glass of ice water hit her in the face. Dear Lord, he was right!
"That's what I'm talking about, sweetheart," he said quietly, noting the expression on her face. "That's how good it will be with us. That's how hot I'll make you feel. By the time I'm done with you, there won't be an inch on your body I haven't had my mouth on. Now, I'll ask you again before we get in too deep here: are you prepared to open yourself up to me like that?"
She still felt the spot on her thigh where she had all too briefly felt the warmth of his lips. The loss of his mouth was almost unbearable. After their two weeks of sex, how would she ever let him go?
She would have to. Drew wasn't interested in marriage, in children; he wasn't even interested in living with her platonically. How had she not understood sexual magnetism would pulsate between them? How had she thought she could fan the flame and not get singed?
Drew knew.
Had he always known? Is that what his comic routine with her was about, a way to keep things superficial, to keep man-woman feelings well within certain safe perimeters?
Drew wasn't immune to her and it scared him. Now she was scared too. What had she done to them?
Because she craved more, deliberately, with malice aforethought, she had blown apart the safe little asexual cocoon they shared, catapulting them both into a whirlwind of mutual discovery. As a result, would she destroy the connection they had always enjoyed?
"Kesley?" he asked insistently.
She remained resolute. Comfort rarely precipitates change, but discomfort always does in some fashion. This was about moving forward. She wanted change! "I'm prepared."
"I hope you are prepared. I hope we both are. Because I have this sinking feeling in my gut that nothing will be the same between us again."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, I'd do anything for you. Anything at all, including this. But I want you to know that if I lose you because of this, I'll never forgive you."
CHAPTER SIX
Sometimes it really pissed Drew off that Kesley refused to see the dark lining lurking behind every rainbow. Take them. She thought the break in their routine would last two weeks and then things would return to pre-sex normalcy.
Ha! He knew different.
Today was only the first of many steps she would take away from him. That she was taking that first step with him, that he would become physically closer to Kesley than he ever had before, didn't make today's first step any easier.
Drew made a swift decision. "I'll start looking for a new place on Monday."
She blinked. "W-what?"
He was really irritated with himself for not taking the action sooner. Something had been bothering Kes for a while, and he'd do anything to make her happy. She didn't like where they lived so he'd fix it.
He explained. "You're right, this building is a dump. We can do better, we deserve better! How's this? We can move into the same building, maybe right next door to each other, or possibly on the same floor."
"It's not just the apartment, Drew. You're avoiding the issue. I need a man."
Kesley was a warm flesh-and-blood woman. Naturally, she needed a man. Just not Ted. Christ, the guy was a loser. Newly divorced, he was on the make. "Okay. Okay. I understand. You need a man. But I'll still look for a new place."
"Drew, I've been happy here, and once it was enough. But we're not in college anymore."
"I could get a car. That way, we can widen our search, look in the suburbs too for a place and commute to Boston to work like everybody else."
"I like living in the city! But get a car, if that's what you want. Me--I want sex. Marriage. A family."
Ted. She had her sights set on Ted.
The thought of losing Kes hit him hard. That he was playing a major part in what would eventually take her away from him just about killed him.
And it wasn't the sex angle. He could handle having another guy's hands on her, another guy's dick inside her, as long as it wasn't Ted's hands and dick. If some other guy slept with her, Drew could handle that. He'd even be man-to-man cordial with the dude, as long as he and Kes still met on the same stairway every day. Even if the weasel were to move in, Drew would learn to live with it. But once again, deep in his gut, Drew knew the situation wouldn't last. Kesley wasn't the kind of woman a man lived with for very long; Kesley was the kind of girl a man married so she wouldn't get away. What guy in his right mind would drag his feet and risk losing her?
No man on this planet.
A guy would want to get a ring on her finger, even if it took a leak in a condom and a positive in-home pregnancy test to put it there. Once that happened, Drew would lose touch with Kes. Married women never continue close bonds with single male...
Friends? Is that what they were, Kesley and him? Friends?
It felt deeper than friendship. Much deeper. She was his whole world. He loved her. Purely. Like a saint.
What the hell? He was coming up with some kind of weird stuff here, really creeping himself out with this sentimental glok. Time for a joke.
Like the best of lecherous pirates, he crooned oily and low, "Separate yer legs, me pretty, so I can get at yer precious jewel."
Twittering, Kes separated her thighs. "Please, sir, take the jewel but spare me my life."
The joke sounded unnatural and forced to Drew's ears, and they had never been either with one another. The false note just about wrecked him. Forgetting himself, he lowered his jaw to claim her lips in a kiss more forceful than he intended, his mouth on her mouth rough, and yeah, angry.
Why couldn't she just fuck around like everyone else? Random sex didn't mean anything, and he should know. So long as she didn't screw up what they had going, he wouldn't mind. He'd give her some experience like he promised, get her up to speed, give her a taste of how good it could be, then let her loose on the male population. Too busy sowing her wild oats, she wouldn't bother with Ted or marriage or babies. It was a plan.
Reaching up her leg, he c
arefully tunneled under her skirt so she wouldn't have to bare anything. The consideration was for his sake, not for hers because who knew what he would do if he actually saw her pussy up close?
The kiss deepening, anger turning to lust, Drew zeroed in on the pubic curls.
Kesley's pussy. He was touching Kesley's pussy, after refusing to think about that part of her body for so many years.
It felt strange, not exactly incestuous, but forbidden all the same, like he should have his hand cut off or something for daring to cross the line.
God, the fur was so soft.
Kesley's pussy was so fucking soft, like mink under his fingertips. He could've petted her for hours, rubbed his face back and forth and in her pelt. Christ, no more two-day beard growth for him on the weekends. He didn't want to scratch her skin. Already, his life was changing.
The kiss turned fierce when he found her heated core. With his lubed middle finger, he separated the folds, and Jesus, pushed up and into Kesley.
When she made a little cry into his mouth, he wanted to cry too. The cherry was there, all snuggly in place, designed to keep fornication-prone guys like him out until the wedding night. Kes was a virgin in every sense of the word.
Drew had hoped against hope that she might be only a technical virgin, that the scrap of membrane had been ripped, torn away years before without her knowledge. But it was there, right would it should be, right where his finger could reach.
He groaned, broke the kiss. His forehead grinding to hers, his finger still lodged inside her, all pretense of humor faded away.
This was monumental. What did a man say to a woman at a time like this, upon discovering she'd never before been touched? What did he say to Kes, whom he admired and respected, who had waited for the right man to come along to do what he was doing now?
Almost spiritually moved by the trust she'd placed in him, he told her the truth. "Nothing's ever been so precious to me."
She hiccupped a giggle. "What about your comic book collection?"
He rubbed his jaw alongside her face, his heart racing, his big hand housed between her shapely thighs, his index finger perusing her hymen. "Not even close," he said hoarsely. "Nothing comes close to this." Drew took a ragged breath before continuing. "I've never been with your kind before. I avoid your ilk. It's fun and games. It's hooking up, it's fucking around, it's nooners, quickies, sixty-nines, one-night stands ... it's not about blood spots on sheets. And I can't do this on a counter top."
But his finger stayed right where it was inside Kesley.
"Before I let you get down, I gotta see it. Please sweetheart, let me?"
She rolled her eyes. "Men are such visual creatures..."
"I'm serious. Pull the dress up." He could be dominant when the situation required it, and Kesley, for all her wanting to shake things up, was dragging her feet on certain basic requirements of sex. Like letting a guy take a peek.
Shimmying her hips, she rucked the dress up around her waist. "The counter feels cold under my ass."
Kesley had an ass. Not a rear end. Not a butt. Not even a bottom. A genuine ass. And he was getting a piece of it. He was allowed to think about that now seeing she had opened things up.
He wanted more things opened up, because the glimpse of pussy she was allowing was not nearly enough.
Drew swallowed. "Kick off the sandals, put your feet up on the counter."
Afraid of missing something, he didn't blink while she maneuvered.
He waited. "How come your knees are touching?"
"Because I'm not at the gyn's?" She grinned.
The saucy routine didn't fool him. His sweetheart was a human wreck, and there was nothing he could do to make it any easier, except stay matter of fact about the whole uneasy business of seeing Kesley's pussy up close and personal for the very first time.
He motioned her to open, a modified hand signal universally understood.
Feet together on the counter, she widened her knees.
"How ya doin'?" he asked.
"Fine. Just fine." She looked away.
"No! You need to look. Looking is part of it, and not just for the man. Looking excites the woman too. So look."
She did, as his free hand--the fingers none-too-steady--moved along the inside of each thigh.
He looked, too. At his wrists, wide and sinewy, sparsely covered in wiry light hair, there between her legs. He never thought he would ever see his hand there, his index finger penetrating the pink slit.
So dirty, so raunchy, so transcendental, seeing his hand covering the notch. "You have such soft skin. Lovely, dewy skin," he said, bending so he was eye level to her opening. "Such a sweet pussy."
"You're the first man ever to see it," she said, answering the question going around in his lurid-sacred thoughts about Kesley. "There was some above the waist, over-clothing petting in high school, but nothing more than that. In college, my refusal to jump into bed the first time out with a man ended any subsequent dates. I needed time, and no one wanted to take the time to get to know me first."
What those stupid, impatient, sex-jocks had missed, Drew thought, blowing a humid breath across the sensitive region of her ... of her...
He didn't have to say it aloud, but he did have to think it to himself. It was unnatural not to think it. Every guy thought it. When a man got this close to it, a pussy automatically got upgraded.
Kesley's cunt.
He was blowing a moist breath of air across Kesley's cunt.
She held herself steady, but he wondered if inside she shivered and trembled and danced.
"Will you be a screamer?" he asked. "Now that you've given me permission to start wondering, I have all these questions. It will take me a while to get readjusted to thinking them. Do you understand? I can't rush this. It's too important. But don't worry--we'll fit it all in, everything you want to do. But right now, I need to take it slow. Okay?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Lowering his head again, he blew another breath across her cunt, under the fragile eyelet lace of her slip that still covered much of her upper thighs. Smiling his delight, he watched the weightless lace dance for him, as he hoped Kesley danced for him in her thoughts, as he danced for her now. Not a fast dance. A slow dance. Just for Kesley.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A fragrant small envelope waited for Kesley inside her mailbox. No stamp in the upper right-hand corner confirmed the message was hand-delivered.
Heart pounding, she opened the flap.
Written within the folds of the scented yellow stationery was a masculine scrawl:
Kesley, sweetheart- meet me at Gordon's Furniture after work. This is a rendezvous. Drew.
She hugged the note to her chest. Not having heard or seen Drew since her fall into the rose bushes, she thought that, deciding to renege on his promise, he was deliberately avoiding her.
She should have known better! She should have had more faith. Drew always kept his word! As horrible as it was to admit, the note set her mind at ease. Drew hadn't skipped town without telling her! Not only that, he'd initiated a rendezvous! Imagine Drew planning a secret assignation with her. It was all so incredibly romantic.
"Anything wrong Kesley?" Doris looked up from the fax machine to ask. "That was a mighty big sigh."
Snapping out of her reverie, Kesley turned to the streetworker. "I sighed?"
Doris gave a worried nod. "Still concerned about John Smith?"
"No, actually I'm feeling better about him today. He kept the appointment I made for him with the Mobile Med Van, so things are looking up. But I think I'll hit the streets with you and do a follow-up, see how it went with the health screening."
"You know our schedule, every weekday night 2 to 10, we make the rounds."
"I'll be there."
Kesley wasn't a streetworker. She only canvassed the spots where homeless kids hung to do outreach on kids she felt were at risk. Sometimes just talking, showing that you cared, was enough to diffuse a crisis.
John Smith
--phony name, phony age, belligerence not remotely phony--was one of the 400-plus runaways and adolescents The Shelter serviced every year, and a kid, though with much potential, could go either way. Drop out for good or find a way back into productive society.
He was so young! For that reason, family intervention and mediation was the best way to go.
But first, she had to gain his trust. Trust takes time to earn and Kesley knew she couldn't rush it. Sometimes it took only days for a budding trust to form, other times years. These kids were deeply scarred; there was no quick and simple fix for long-standing complicated problems. Offering support, but not pushing, was the key.
If--and in this business, that was one gigantic two-letter word--they developed a relationship, maybe then she could prompt him to call home. If the situation at home wasn't salvageable, if the factors that caused him to leave home were horrendous, returning might not be the optimal or even a possible option. If John Smith couldn't reconcile with his family, if reunification wasn't in the cards, then she would work towards arranging an alternate living situation for him.
The thing was to empower the kid, make him part of the decision-making process, direct him in such a way that he would want to take responsibility for his own life. He'd taken that first step when he kept the med appointment she had made for him, and that was encouraging. Because she was fairly sure he was a male prostitute, he needed HIV and STD testing, and a myriad of other medical and psych services.
Normally, she would use Drew as a sounding board. He blew off psycho-babble with a snort and some adolescent potty language, but when it came to the nitty-gritty reality of how teenage boys got by on the streets, how they thought, where they congregated, he was always right on target. But she wanted these two weeks to be free of work-talk. She needed a break.
Already she missed talking with him. Drew had a real empathy for homeless kids. He even employed a few of her social work "success stories" in his business. And there were success stories.
