They break apart. “I love it when you kiss me like that,” the one called Annie says.
“You’ll like what I’m about to do better.”
“Orla, no, not here—”
“Here, yes here.” Orla is insistent. “There’s no one around. All the families have gone to bed. The football has finished. And if you’d booked a cabin we’d be in it now, loving our brains out in peace and privacy instead of out here on deck.”
“It’s cold,” Annie whines, but Kate can see her hands burrowing around Orla’s waist, pushing up the bulky sweater to reveal a line of white flesh. Is it really that ethereal white, or is it the moonlight?
“You were hot inside,” points out Orla.
She’s the one choreographing this. Kate can see her pressing Annie into the Perspex, her hands moving purposefully over the waiflike body.
Kate knows she should move. Her cigarette is finished, and she should return to the privacy of her own cabin, go to bed, and sleep. But instead, she takes a sip of wine and continues to watch. Orla and Annie. Annie and Orla. A nice coupling to their names.
With a swift movement, Orla moves back, pushes up Annie’s shirt, flicking the buttons so that the garment falls open. Kate sees pearlescent flesh and small high breasts, tipped with moonlight. No bra. Annie’s nipples are raised to the moon. A brief moment of clear sight, then they are covered by her girlfriend’s hands, thumbs flicking her nipples. Annie’s head falls back, hits the Perspex.
Kate tilts her head the better to see, peering slightly around her shaded alcove. She tries to breathe quietly, although it’s doubtful the women will hear her above the thrum of the diesel engine and the creak of the boat as she cleaves through the inscrutable sea. In front of her, the women are kissing again, and although she can’t see, she senses that Orla’s fingers are working the fastening of her girlfriend’s hipster jeans.
“Ker—iste! Don’t bloody bite!” Orla’s fingers muffle Annie’s shriek. Orla holds her hand over Annie’s mouth, even as her face is buried in her neck.
The objection fades to a sigh, and Annie kisses those same fingers as they stroke across her lips. Orla stoops, and one of those high, tight breasts is engulfed in her mouth. Annie’s hands wind in those disordered wild curls.
Kate fancies she can feel a mouth on her own breasts. There’s a tingle between her thighs, a sensation long absent. The scene in front of her has a surrealty to it; the moonlight, the dark night outside its path, and the two girls, edged in gilt and silver.
Orla kneels—how hard the deck must be on her knees—and Annie’s jeans descend. There are bowed white thighs and black panties banded across her narrow hips. Then the panties are gone, slipped down below her knees.
Annie spreads her legs as wide as the bunched jeans and underwear allows, there’s the dark shadow, the hidden cleft. Fingers part the bitter sea, and then Orla’s mouth ducks down, her nose wedged firmly in the forest. She’s there a long time. Annie’s fingers wind in her hair, holding her there. When she lifts fractionally, Kate sees her chin is wetly shining. Her hand shakes as she takes a sip of wine, and her mind spirals back to the last time someone’s face was between her legs. How long ago? She’s forgotten the exquisite sensation, forgotten the feeling of being completely loved, forgotten the feeling.
Kate is so caught up in her own memories, her own cunt throbbing hotly, that when Annie comes with a glass-shattering shriek, she’s caught by surprise. Kate’s wine glass slips from shaky fingers and crashes to the deck.
“What the fuck?”
Orla rises, wiping her mouth with her hand while Annie struggles to pull her jeans up. They are impeded by her panties, which have twisted around her thighs. Both women are peering into the long shadows that spill from the bulkheads.
Kate waits until Annie is decent again, then moves forward. “Sorry,” she says. “I dropped my glass.” She moves as if to retreat back to the ferry’s interior, but Orla’s harsh words stop her.
“Have a good look, did you? Like what you saw? Going off to complain to the steward?” And under her breath, “Fecking middle-aged puritan.”
Kate pauses, turns slowly. “Guilty on the middle-aged part. But I’m not going to complain. You were...” She hesitates, knowing she should simply offer a frosty smile and leave, but is compelled to tell them how they made her feel. But the words are too clumsy for the poignant feelings of love and loss entwined within her. She settles for, “You were beautiful.”
Silence greets her answer, and the girls exchange surprised looks. Suddenly, they’re no longer the confident young lovers; they’re shy and used to censure from strangers.
Annie moves to stand with her lover, wraps an arm around her waist and leans her head on her shoulder. “How so?”
“I like to see young people in love. It gives me hope that sometimes there’s a happy ending.”
“What do you mean?” Orla stands protectively of Annie.
Kate shrugs, aware she’s said too much. She considers several replies, but simply says, “It’s not always a fairy tale.”
“And don’t we know it.” Shared smiles, and a tentative bond strings between them all.
Kate moves again, makes to sidle past them and away, out of their lives, but an impulse makes her say, “I have a cabin to myself. Why don’t you take it instead of me? Then you can continue uninterrupted.”
The women exchange wary glances. “Why would you do that?” says Orla. “Where will you sleep?”
“Where were you going to sleep?” Kate watches them. She’s already slightly regretting her impulse. Her bones are too old to sleep on the floor.
“In the children’s play area,” replies Annie. “There’s foam on the floor, and there’s only a couple of people there.”
“Then that’s where I’ll go,” says Kate, decisively. She fishes the key out of her pocket. “Come with me now, let me get my stuff and I’ll be out of your way.”
They hesitate, so she adds, “I promise I won’t disturb you, and you can have some privacy.” She addresses her comment to Orla. “Besides, I think you’d like to let Annie return the favor.”
A snort of laughter. “Indeed.” She makes up her mind. “That’s very kind of you. Come on, Annie.”
Kate leads them through the ship to her tiny cabin. “Let me get my bag.” Swiftly she gathers her toilet bag and her nightie, stuffing them back in her case with her clean underwear.
When she turns, Orla is right behind her.
“Two bunks.” Orla states the obvious. “Why don’t you have one and we’ll have the other?”
Annie giggles; a breathy sound, hastily choked off.
Kate arches an eyebrow. “Privacy. Remember? You don’t want me listening in.”
Orla advances so that she’s practically nose to nose. Kate fights the urge to step back. “But you wouldn’t mind listening in, now would you? After all, you stayed and watched on deck.”
Kate draws herself up to her full five feet three. “I didn’t have a choice then.”
“You have one now.??
A beat of hesitation, then Kate shrugs, feigning a nonchalance she doesn’t feel. Her heart is leaping like a spooked rabbit. “If you insist. I’ll have the bottom bunk.” She takes her nightie back out of the bag and disappears into the tiny bathroom. When she emerges, hair hanging loose and nightgown brushing her calves, the others are in bed. There are muffled giggles from the top bunk, and two heads crammed in together. She arranges herself in the lower bunk, turns to the wall, and closes her eyes.
For a minute or two, all is silent. Slowly, Kate releases her pent-up breath, aware of a faint sense of disappointment. She didn’t really want to hear them making love. No, she didn’t.
The lights are out, and it’s velvet black in the inner cabin with no porthole. The only glimmer of light is the slight luminescence of the safety notice on the wall. Kate tries to steady her breathing, self-consciously aware of its fast, uneven pitch, fast above the steady throb of the boat’s engines. Fina
lly her body relaxes, limbs twitching on the edge of sleep.
That’s when there’s a noise from the upper bunk. A thump, and the sound of a body turning awkwardly. Something hits the wall, and there’s the slide of skin over sheets. A sigh; Orla’s, thinks Kate. She turns on her back and opens her eyes. Too dark to see anything. More rustling, then the sound of soft kissing. Kate imagines lips sliding over heated skin, imagines the taste of another woman.
“Yes. Like that.” Orla’s voice, gruff and tight.
Then there’s only the sound of Orla’s breathing, faster, loud in the quiet cabin.
When she starts to moan, breathy little murmurs of encouragement, mumbled affirmations of pleasure, the knowledge of what is happening pierces through Kate in a vivid dart of imagination.
“Oh yes,” Orla says. “Oh yes, yes, yesyesyes.” And Kate’s arousal swells out into the cabin to mingle with Orla’s. Her own cunt is throbbing, in sweet, pulsating waves, and she feels molten. The sound of pleasure—even a pleasure not her own—is compelling.
Quietly, slowly, she inches her own thighs apart, and even though no one can see, or care if they could, she casually rests a hand on her own curved stomach and concentrates on keeping her breathing slow and even. Her hand inches down to her panty line and farther, down to the patch of hair, stealing ever onward until she can slide a finger along her slit, finding her pleasure point.
Orla’s litany of joy is continuous, and Kate’s mind runs through a flickering kaleidoscope of possible scenarios. Is Annie kneeling between her parted thighs, her face plastered to Orla’s slick and swollen gash? Or are they lying entwined, with Annie’s fingers pressing and rubbing between Orla’s legs? Maybe Annie has three, even four, fingers in her lover’s pussy, curling them around, pressing on pleasure points, filling her, stretching her so that she knows that engorged feminine fullness. What endless possibilities they have. Kate’s mind spins, and her fingers rub tiny concentric circles over her clit.
“Faster,” commands Orla, and there’s another bang, as if her head has contacted with the wall.
Kate pulsates in time to the breathing she hears. Stealth and silence are abandoned, and she spreads her legs, rubs faster, uncaring of her hitching breath.
Orla comes in a crash of noise, a howl of pleasure, and the bunk above Kate shakes. Her fingers push her over the edge into her own orgasm, a more muted pleasure than Orla’s although she’s sure her rapid breathing has given her away.
The flutters still twitch around her fingers. She withdraws them and raises her fingers to her own lips. Tentatively, she tastes. Above, mumbles of pleasure, a small whisper of love. Then a strange, hung tension permeates the room. Do they all simply roll over and go to sleep now? Talk? Get to know each other? Kate wishes for a cigarette. But, in the darkness, here in the company of strangers, she’s content.
*
As the ferry noses its way into Cherbourg, Kate stands on deck with a cigarette. She sniffs her fingers. She can smell the sea.
Her
KI Thompson
I am not a greedy woman. In fact, I pride myself on my sense of self-restraint and a “moderation in all things” approach to life. I was shocked, therefore, to discover that these tenets could so easily be abandoned, all because of her.
The day I met her began auspiciously enough when I decided to alter my usual routine by walking home instead of taking the train. Looking back now, I don’t recall why I decided to make this five-mile jaunt on foot and in heels, except that it was such a lovely October afternoon. The leaves in the park displayed colors of autumn fruit and the air held that crisp expectation of mulled wine and evenings spent fireside. As I exited the park and crossed the street, I was enveloped by the heady aroma of baking bread emanating from a patisserie adjacent to the corner. My stomach growled in anticipation of café au lait and a warm, buttery croissant, so I diverted from my intended path and entered the quaint shop.
It wasn’t her looks that initially attracted me to her, though even now, the thought of her full lips and topaz eyes arrests my soul. Rather, it was the way she moved, like quicksilver unrestrained by its container, free-flowing and sensual. She was placing a fresh rack of baguettes on the shelf when the tiny brass bell hanging over the doorway called out its welcome. Stopping in her tracks, she glanced up at me and the temperature in the already warm room spiked.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted, looking intently at me.
“Hello,” I returned.
I watched as a graceful hand rose up to place an errant strand of silken jet hair behind a delicate ear. When it lowered, a streak of white flour smudged her cheek, contrasting sharply with the porcelain skin. I smiled inwardly and approached the glass counter with confidence. A sample plate sat near the register and I selected a piece of pain au chocolat, popped it into my mouth and let it dissolve between my tongue and palate. She watched as my eyelids closed with pleasure.
“Good?” she asked.
“Oh my, yes. Very good.” I opened my eyes and found myself lost in hers.
“I’ve tried to make bread at home,” I said, “but it just doesn’t compare with this.”
“You can’t be afraid to handle it firmly.” At this, a slow smile made its way leisurely across her face. “But don’t overwork it either.” She hesitated, her thoughts reflected in her eyes. “I’m about to make more bread right now. I can show you how, if you like.”
“I like,” I said, returning the deliberate smile.
She stepped out from behind the counter and my eyes pursued as she sauntered to the front door. Grasping a hanging sign that said Closed, she flipped it so it faced outward onto the street. Then with a loud click, she shoved the deadbolt to the locked position. Turning, she crooked her finger at me in a conspiratorial manner.
“Follow me,” she whispered with a look that harbored no refusal.
How could I resist? She led me behind the counters and through a door that meandered back to the kitchen. The apron she wore in front exposed a small ass from behind and I ogled salaciously as it swayed irresistibly in front of me. I was at least six inches taller than she was and knew my large hands could cup those cheeks easily. The thought made me weak in the knees. She stopped suddenly in front of me and I nearly teetered forward into the very backside I was admiring.
We were standing in front of a stainless steel table that shimmered from the fluorescent light overhead. It gave a clinical feel to the room and made me shiver, whether from anticipation or the cool feel of it under my fingertips I couldn’t be certain. A miscellany of baking items occupied the center of the table including a bag of flour, its top cut open with a small amount spilling onto the surface, and a half-full pastry bag. She lifted my hand, drawing my attention away from the table, and deftly inserted my index finger into her mouth. The warmth and wetness of her tongue as it wrapped itself sensually around my fingertip instantly dispelled any sense of chill I had and I groaned, pressing the length of my body against hers.
“Mmm, that feels good,” I breathed as she sucked rhythmically.
Removing the digit slowly from her mouth, she pulled me by the back of my neck with her other hand until our lips met. Tentatively at first, then with greater force, she entered my mouth and explored its depths. She took my tongue into her mouth, sucking slowly and gently as she had with my finger, while at the same time pushing me down onto the surface of the table. When my feet went out from under me and my back hit steel, my head almost collided with the sack of flour left haphazardly near the edge. Climbing on top of the table, she swept the bag off to one side in a single motion, knocking it over in her haste. To keep from sliding off the slippery surface, I reached out to grab the edge of the table, only to smear flour onto the sleeve of my suit jacket. I didn’t care.
“You are so hot,” she rasped.
She knelt over me, straddling my hips, and then slowly sat until her buttocks rested lightly over my crotch. I pushed upward, trying to connect with that soft ass, and felt her press down and
undulate above me. I could feel myself getting wet, and the throbbing that always accompanied that feeling began to pulse its urgent demand. Needing more contact, she reached down and pulled my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms, pushing it to one side of the table. Her mouth descended and took a hardened nipple between her teeth, sucking it through my silk blouse.
“Oh, Jesus, yeah,” I exhaled sharply.
I craved to feel skin on skin and, sensing the need, she began to unbutton my blouse. Frantically, I fumbled behind her back at the apron strings, yanking it off her waist, and then returned to the zipper on her pants. Almost simultaneously I had her unzipped while she had me unbuttoned. Shoving her pants down her hips, she rose up to help me lower them while I leaned up so she could push my blouse down my shoulders. We helped each other remove the pants and blouse and then removed the rest of our clothing on our own.
“God, you are so beautiful.” I looked at her in awe.
Her breasts were small and firm, the nipples bright rose against her pale skin. Like the hair on her head, the triangle between her legs was dark and thick, and I could see moisture glistening in its depths. I couldn’t resist; my hand snaked out to gently caress between her thighs, my thumb gently stroking the soft nodule I found cocooned there.
“Oh God,” she moaned.
I looked up to see her eyes closed tightly in concentration and her mouth slightly open, breathing erratically. As my thumb continued its exploration of her clit, I allowed my index finger to search out her opening. When I found it, I teased the sensitive area by lightly flicking in and out around the edges, like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. She began to move faster over my thumb and finger.
“Please,” she gasped, “go deeper. Fuck me as hard as you can. I am so ready.”
My efforts doubled as I plunged two fingers fully into her and felt her come down hard in response. No longer capable of sitting upright, she collapsed forward, her hands planted firmly on either side of my head with her breasts dangling tantalizingly in front of my mouth. My free hand reached out once again to seek the edge of the table for support, but something soft and pliable found its way into my hand instead; the pastry bag. I grasped it firmly and brought it between us. When I squeezed it upward, a ribbon of chocolate spurted unexpectedly across her left breast. Liking what I saw, I repeated the process on her right breast. Tossing the bag aside, I took possession of her right and left breasts with my mouth, alternately sucking and tugging and lapping up the chocolate.
Lessons in Love Page 13
