Curve Ball

by Charlotte Stein

  Then by way of explanation, he tells me this:

  ‘Why did you have to wear a dress like this, huh?’

  Which should be sort of aggressive, and rude, and not arousing at all.

  So how come it is? How come a burst of arousal goes through me to hear it – so thick and intense I actually stop breathing, momentarily. I mean, I think I pretty much gave up on normal bodily activity back when he put his hands on my waist.

  But now it’s really getting bad. I’m afraid that I might pass out due to oxygen deprivation, at any moment. I keep trying to force my lungs and throat to operate properly, only they’re not obeying. They just hitch and stick and refuse to be calm – though I can’t really fault them.

  They’re just following suit. The rest of me is doing the exact same thing. I’m all fizzy and electric, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair, and I suspect it’s only going to get worse as this thing continues. I don’t even know what this thing is, so at the very least I can predict some apprehension.

  However … I don’t predict the moan I make, when he finds and pinches one stiff nipple. Of course I don’t. How could I ever? I was unprepared for him standing this close to me, so suddenly slipping his hand beneath my bra to fondle my bare breasts has to be right out. It’s completely off the charts of anything I’ve ever expected.

  As is everything he keeps saying. Oh God, I never imagined him saying stuff like this – not even during actual fantasies about having sex with him.

  ‘Oh yeah, you like that,’ he says, only it’s not a question. Naturally it’s not a question. I just told him I like it with my absolutely ridiculous moan. I’ve confessed to enjoying my nipples being teased without really meaning to, and now he’s got some kind of green light. He’s going to do more, I think, loads more, and worse …

  I don’t mind at all.

  I’ve no idea why he’s doing this, or where he got the idea that this is the next logical step, but my body couldn’t give a flying fuck. My body is screaming in delight even as my mind says hey, hang on a second, let’s just see if you accidentally spiked his drink with a sex drug that’s made him crazy, and I know it’s my body I’m going to listen to.

  I don’t really have much of a choice. He puts his hot mouth against my throat, and all other considerations are rescinded. I even arch back into it, because God it feels amazing – oh man, just the pressure of those soft lips, and then oh then the shocking slipperiness of his tongue …

  He’s actually touching me with his tongue. Steven Stark, childhood friend and long-held crush, is squirming and rubbing his slick tongue against the already crazily sensitive skin of my throat.

  I think I might have died. This definitely feels like heaven, at any rate. He keeps making this rough, impatient sort of sound as he mouths his way over to my shoulder, and the tension rolling off him is just incredible. It’s as though he’s holding himself back, despite how little he seems to be holding himself back.

  I mean, we’re quite a bit past chaste friendship, here. It wouldn’t be that shocking if he let go of all restraints and ripped my clothes off – the way he seems to want to. Oh, I’m pretty sure he wants to. He’s pulling at the middle of my dress without popping any more of the buttons, but when I glance down I can see how much he’d like to do just that.

  His hand has made a big red fist, and it’s sort of shaking.

  I can sympathise, however. I’m shaking too. I started right around the time he put his hands on his waist, and I don’t think I’m about to stop any time soon. He’d have to go back about a thousand paces to make me stop, and I know he’s not going to do that.

  I can tell, for several reasons:

  a) That’s not a misplaced melon he’s touching.

  b) He can never pretend he didn’t pull open my dress, because I’m now missing a button. Of course he could probably sew the button back on and act like nothing happened, but I don’t think he’s much of an arts and crafts sort of person. Plus, that whole scenario is insane.

  c) There is something pressing into the small of my back, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t a tube of Rolos. And if it is, he really needs to tell me where he bought such an enormous packet.

  I love Rolos.

  Though I confess, I also love knowing it’s his penis. Just the feel of something so heavy and hot and insistent pressing into me … It’s enough to make me clutch at that hand he’s fondling me with. But of course, once I’ve clutched him, the green light explodes in a shower of glory. All of my barriers drop, like hot rocks.

  So it’s a shame, really, that he chooses this moment to stop touching. And it’s not just a shame either. It’s a great yawning chasm of disappointed, so large I’m almost afraid to find it inside me. What sort of person likes being silently manhandled for vague, inexplicable reasons? I should at least be asking for his motivations behind this.

  And yet, somehow, it’s just better without. It’s almost a relief without. I don’t have to wonder and worry and get into a big internal debate about this.

  Or at least I didn’t, until those hands dropped. Now I’m going to have to deal with him coming to his senses, in the worst possible way. He probably felt my love handles and suddenly remembered he’s allergic to fat. In a second he’ll start sneezing, and swelling up, and when the ambulance men sadly stretcher him away he’ll say the words that every girl dreads:

  ‘How come you murdered me with your flab?’

  And worse, I won’t have an answer for him.

  Because the question is the stupidest thing I’ve ever let my neuroses imagine. It’s so stupid, in fact, that I’m almost laughing and shaking my head at myself, when those hands suddenly find their way to my thighs. And then I wish I hadn’t almost laughed at all. It’s quite a leap to go from rueful amusement to oh God OK this is still happening.

  Only somehow, it’s even more intense and confusing than it was before. I can sort of feel him ruffling my dress on the outsides of my thighs, but my brain won’t process why. It has to wait until he’s managed to get the material all the way up to my hips, before I get it.

  He’s lifting my dress. He’s lifting it, while I remain stalled five steps behind. By the time I catch up, his fingers are hooked around the waistband of my panties, and naturally I know what happens next. It’s just that I can hardly believe what’s going to happen next.

  So much so that I actually gasp when he slowly starts working them down my legs.

  Is he going to fuck me? Is he going to just fuck me here, like this, with the unmade drinks still in front of me and Jason and Kimberly barely 30 steps away? They could probably look through the porthole and see this happening, though oddly the thought doesn’t scare me.

  Probably because I’m already terrified of the strange, heavy silence, and Steven’s rough breathing, and my own body – so thick, suddenly, with sensation. My blood feels as though it’s turned to glue in my veins, hot and sticky. It clings to everything as it passes through, including nerve endings I didn’t know existed.

  And of course my heart has to pound really hard, to make sure this adhesive blood keeps flowing. It has to pound so hard I can hear it in my fingernails, and my elbows, and definitely, definitely in all the places that Steven is currently touching.

  He’s made it to my knees with those panties. My knees are alarmed to suddenly hear my heartbeat. They want to buckle, but I swear to God I will never let them - not even when he brushes the insides of them with that material and a lightning bolt of pleasure shoots through me.

  In fact, the lightning bolt just strengthens my resolve. It’s all new and mysterious, and I desperately want to feel another one – just to see if the first was a fluke. I’m itching to say to him “go on, go on then”, but the truth is I don’t know where he’s planning on going on to. What if it’s Up-the-Butt City?

  He’s definitely the kind of man who’d be into that. In truth, I’m almost bracing myself for it – for sudden rough sex I’m not quite ready for – when he urges me to part m
y legs. Only he does it in this really gentle, easy sort of way, smoothing over my thighs as he goes. And his voice, when he speaks, is soft and persuasive.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ he says. ‘Open up.’

  Not that he needs to be soft and persuasive. While I’m busy shuddering with shock and another sudden gush of excitement, my legs simply obey him. They spread without a second thought. My brain is jealous of their ability to not over-think things – though not for long.

  My brain stops thinking too, a moment later. It just shuts down the second I feel his hands on my backside, stroking and stroking and finally … Oh Lord, finally he sort of spreads everything, so he can see. He’s definitely doing it so he can see. He’s looking up at my completely bare and very exposed sex, and once he’s done stunning me with that, he caps it off by letting me feel something even more brutally exciting.

  His hot breath, ghosting over the slippery place between my legs.

  Because I’m definitely slippery, by this point. I’ve never been so aroused in my life, so really it’s a given – but even if it wasn’t I’d know. I can make out the slow, agonising slide of it against my flesh, every time I move. And after a while of this torture – of his mouth just inches from the most sensitive part of my body, each whisper of air so soft and heated – I know my wetness is starting to trickle over the insides of my thighs.

  I know this, because he tells me.

  ‘Oh man, you’re like a river,’ he says. ‘How come you’re so excited, huh?’

  How come he expects me to answer that? Is he mad? I forgot how to make words 17 hours ago, even though we haven’t been doing this for 17 hours. It’s so intense that time has folded in on itself, causing an eternal loop of him almost kissing me between my legs.

  Then he actually does it, and the time loop bursts into flames.

  I burst into flames. I thought I was shocked by everything before, but it turns out I didn’t know what shocked was. This is in an entirely different dimension, where I have to actually say his name out loud in a voice that isn’t mine. ‘Steven,’ I say, as though I’m some old lady at a WI meeting and he’s a flasher who’s just run into the room.

  And I go up on tiptoes too. I don’t want to, because going up on tiptoe means I’m moving further away from him. But sadly, I don’t have much of choice. My hands even grab at the bar in front of me, to help me get as high as possible. I’d probably be over it and halfway to China, if he wasn’t so strong and massive.

  He employs both weapons to keep me right where I am. Worse – he seems to anticipate that I’ll immediately bolt for the hills. His arms loop around my thighs before the first syllable of his name is out. I can feel his biceps tensing against my leg, as he exerts enough pressure to immobilise a rabid wildebeest.

  Which is, let’s face it, an accurate description of my current state.

  Not that Steven seems to mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. Once he’s cemented me in one place, he isn’t content with some light, tentative licks and maybe a kiss for good measure. He buries himself between my legs. He rubs everything he’s got against everything I’ve got, and when he’s done with one weird face-rut he just starts all over again at the beginning – as though he likes it.

  No … No … Correct that.

  As though he loves it.

  And just when I’m on the verge of laughing at myself for believing such a thing, he makes it 500 per cent clearer. He lets out this helpless groaning sound, right into my spread sex – so loud I actually feel it vibrating through my over-sensitised flesh and up through my trembling body. His fingers clench too tightly around my thigh; his biceps gets tauter, tenser.

  And, best of all, I can feel him shaking.

  Whatever this crazy thing is, it’s making him shake. The taste of me, the feel of me … Something on me is making him shake. He has to take a small break, I think, and oh God I really want to see what that looks like. I’m so eager to check if that’s what he’s doing I almost fall over him, while trying to glance behind myself.

  But nothing is clear. All I can see is the top of his dark head, and that one killer biceps – after which, my priorities shift somewhat. They go from trying to see him and how much he’s enjoying this, to something much more quantifiable.

  Like how it feels to have Steven Stark lick you.

  And the answer is, of course: oh my God oh my God.

  ‘No don’t,’ I say, though I don’t really mean to. The sensation is just so intense it’s all I can come up with. I’m frightened of a sensation like this one, so he should really stop making it happen.

  Though naturally he doesn’t. He just licks again, so I can get the full benefit of his insane skill. I wasn’t able to process it before, because the back of my head came off. But now that I’m more reasonable I can appreciate a thousand weird nuances – like how wide and flat his tongue feels. Is that because he’s doing it like this, all back to front and from below? Or is it just that his tongue is infinitely superior to most other men’s?

  I’m going to go with the latter, though there’s something to be said for technique too. He holds me tight to him, so I have to experience every single sensation fully. And the way he strokes through my folds in this weird, darting flicker … Ohhhh yeah that’s so good.

  It’s too good.

  I think I’m going to come, and he’s barely been doing this for 30 seconds. He’s only just warming up to some of the truly amazing stuff: like the way he eases his fingers into my clenching pussy, just as I’m aching for something more. And the sensation of his tongue rubbing and rubbing over my clit, soft and slow then quick and fierce.

  It totally shouldn’t be possible.

  But either way I know it’s happening. I’m holding my breath the way I always do, when I’m close. And once I’ve fully processed everything he’s doing, it’s kind of hard to stop the out of control car that is my orgasm. The idea of him doing this is exciting enough – then coupled with the solid, driving sensation of his fingers and those long, slow laps around my clit … It’s just too much.

  I can’t hold myself accountable.

  Though I can hold myself accountable for the words I speak, when it hits. Oh, I know I’m going to pay for those, later. There are years of humiliation ahead of me, and all because I lose control at the last second. Just when I’m almost safe and out of this, I let that strange silence – the silence that has wrapped around me for as long as I’ve known him – drop completely, and I tell him exactly what I want to:

  ‘I adore you,’ I say, as I drown in pleasure. ‘Oh God, I adore you, I do.’

  Chapter Four

  I think I could have gotten away with it if I hadn’t said that “I do”. Those two words not only confirmed that I’d just said what he probably feared I’d said, they also hit some rather unfortunate notes. Like the notes that sound during the wedding march, for example.

  It’s really no wonder he ran away the second he had the chance. He practically leapt for the stairs when Jason called down to ask us if we’d died while making drinks, and I don’t blame him. I wanted to leap for the stairs too, only I couldn’t.

  It’s hard to make sudden moves, when you’ve still got a pair of panties around your ankles. And it’s even harder if you’ve just been punched all over your body by an enormous orgasm. I think my hands somehow melted to the bar in the middle of it all. At the very least, they refuse to come unstuck for a good five minutes or so.

  And even after I’ve managed to get them free, the rest of me doesn’t want to follow their example. My shoulders have locked into place. My knees are frightened to bend, in case bending collapses the fabric of my body and turns me into some kind of unspeakable gelatinous mass.

  The word “stunned” doesn’t really cover what just happened. “Immobilised by Steven’s insanity-venom” would be more accurate, even though I’ve no idea what that means. It makes no sense at all. It just seems to fit much better than any other explanation.

  He’s a supernatural lizard who briefly
went nuts, and then attacked me.

  He is not, under any circumstances, a good friend who just administered oral sex.

  Mainly because I don’t know what to do if that’s the case. I don’t know how to explain it. A week ago, he voiced his very loud and unfortunate opinion about less than slender women. And though I still kind of hate him for that, I can’t completely erase it from the insides of his head. I don’t have that kind of access.

  So what, then?

  Was this some sort of oral sex based apology? Maybe he felt his attempts at making me feel better – through ordinary means like swimming and conversation – had failed, and something more robust was in order.

  He threw me a pity-lick.

  Which sounds even more insane than the lizard theory, I have to say. There’s no such thing as a pity-lick. Nobody does this to say sorry and help validate someone. At a push, they might have really sad, slow, creepy sex on a creaking bed, while crying.

  But they don’t do this big exciting thing, all in a mad jumble. No jumbling is allowed when you’re just quite sad for someone. He didn’t seem quite sad for me when he was busy grunting that I should get my legs open, and he definitely wasn’t melancholy in the middle of all that groaning.

  Oh God, his groans. Even if I do my utmost to forget all of this, I know those groans will come back to haunt me. They’re haunting me now as I slowly fumble my way back up on deck. I have to grab onto the rail around the boat just to keep myself upright, and each step is interesting, to say the least.

  Is it possible for a vagina to suddenly triple in size? Because that’s what it feels like has happened, between my legs. The whole area is swollen and slippery and way too hot, and of course every time I remember the sounds he made the problem intensifies. By the time I get to the table I’m a shivering wreck, glassy-eyed and completely gone.

  And of course Steven is just sitting there, as though nothing ever happened. In fact, his nothing ever happened stance is so convincing that for one long, horrible moment I actually wonder if I just imagined the whole thing. He’s got his arm spread out over the rail and this laidback, lopsided expression on his handsome face … He could have just finished telling an off-colour joke after a leisurely lunch.