Jason

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I bit a little harder on Jade's breast, and she startled. The reaction let me know it was too hard for her. I was beginning to suspect that I'd bite breasts harder if I could find a woman who enjoyed it.

  J.J. raised her mouth up enough to ask, "Do you like breast play as hard as you like other things?"

  I had to let go of Jade's breast to answer, "Yes."

  J.J. looked back at Jason. "How hard can I bite?"

  He answered still holding on to the bedpost. His voice sounded much calmer than the look in his eyes. "Bite down with slowly increasing pressure; Anita will let you know when you've reached her limit."

  J.J. turned back to me with wide eyes. "Really?"

  "Yes," Domino answered, from the edge of the bed where he had wrapped his arms around himself, as if he were holding himself back from the bed with his own physical force.

  A shiver of power made me look at Nathaniel, who was only a couple of feet from us. His eyes had bled to the rich gray-blue of his leopard's eyes. He was the only blue-eyed leopard I'd ever seen, as if even in animal form his eyes had to be unusual.

  J.J. used her hand to mound my breast up so that she could slide her mouth over it, and then she began to bite down slowly, so that it was just pressure.

  "Harder," I said.

  She rolled her eyes up, and they were uncertain, but she put more pressure, and after two more times of me saying, "Harder," she was in the ballpark for how hard I wanted it in that moment. Some nights I didn't want to be bitten, but tonight was not one of those nights.

  I breathed out, "Harder!"

  Her eyes rolled up to me and finally held that darkness I had never seen in another woman, like the eyes of a lioness looking over the body of a gazelle, and she bit me. It bowed my spine, threw me writhing over the bedspread, hands grabbing at the bedspread for something, anything, to hold on to. I found Jade's hand, but she pulled away so that I was left with the bedcovers wrapped in my hands while J.J.'s mouth rode my breast.

  I cried out for her, and finally said, "Safeword, safeword, stop, stop!"

  She rose up from my breast and left a red ring of her teeth imprinted on my right breast. She hadn't bled me, but it was a nice mark.

  "Did I hurt you?" she asked, voice breathy and a little thick.

  "No," I said, and laughed, "no."

  She moved up so she was even with me, and studied my face for a moment, and then she smiled. "That was fun."

  "Yes, yes it was," I said, and my voice was breathless and happy.

  Some small sound made me turn my head. Domino had moved farther away from the bed; Nathaniel had his eyes closed, body straining against the ropes, as he fought for his own control. It was Jade kneeling in the pillows at the head of the bed, tears shining on her face.

  I sighed, and lay there for a second, not wanting to go to her, because there had been other times with Domino, or Nathaniel, where I'd gotten some of the rougher foreplay that I liked, and Jade had freaked. She had so many triggers that reminded her of her abusive ex-master, and most of those triggers tended to be sex that I enjoyed.

  J.J. looked down at me, and I didn't try to hide the look in my eyes. "Sorry," I said.

  "It's okay, not your fault."

  "No," I said, "it isn't." I got up so I could go and comfort the other woman in the bed, but honestly, I didn't want to. It wasn't that I was unsympathetic. It was that I'd been sympathetic for months and months. She wouldn't go to therapy unless I went with her, and I'd told her, no, therapy was an inner journey and had to be walked alone, and besides, you weren't honest if other people were in the room. I'd finally found a therapist who specialized in domestic abuse survivors, and I'd gone with her, but she had made it all about how we weren't getting along, so it turned into couples counseling. I'd tried to bring up the abuse she'd suffered from her ex-master, and all Jade had wanted to talk about was how to make her and me a better, more workable couple. I finally told the counselor that since I was already engaged to three men, I didn't really see how a girlfriend who didn't like men that much was going to fit into my life. It's not often you see a really good psychiatrist stumped, but she didn't have a comeback for that.

  Jade had cried and tried to get me to go back to the counselor with her, but I had stood firm, so since I wouldn't go and hold her hand, she wouldn't see the counselor. Jade wasn't ready to deal with her past. She was so broken, but that wasn't the problem; Nathaniel had been broken when I met him. The difference was that Nathaniel had been willing to work his shit, to try to get better, but Jade wouldn't help herself get better. She just wanted to cling to me, and to Domino to a much lesser extent, and be afraid. If I'd been in love with her I'd have been more patient, but I so wasn't in love with her, as I crawled over the bed to dry her tears. I fought to keep my feelings off my face.

  Nathaniel made a small sound as I crawled even with his face. I looked down at him, and he whispered, "Love you."

  "Love you more."

  "Love you mostest," he said.

  I smiled and leaned over for a kiss. His lips tasted and felt so right. I was surprised when I drew back that there was lipstick on his mouth, faintly, but there. I'd have thought it had all been worn away by now.

  I stroked his hair, the side of his face, so that he leaned his face into my hand like a cat will, to rub against your skin and mark you as theirs, and I was his, so much his. But I was also Jade's, or she wanted me to be. I looked at her huddled against the headboard, crying, and left my wonderful boy for later, after I'd handled the crisis at hand.

  My breast ached as I moved over the bed; just the movement of the breast itself made it hurt more, and it was a wonderful reminder of J.J.'s mouth on my body. I liked the pain as I crawled over the bed, but the happy endorphins were fading as I let Jade wrap herself around me. It took everything I had not to recoil away from her, or be angry at her. I'd talked to my own counselor about Jade, but could only talk about my issues with the situation. Jade wouldn't talk to anyone about herself, except me and a few others here, like Envy, but we were her friends, her lovers, and the damage she was suffering from was above our pay grade. This was professional-level broken, and none of us were professionals at fixing it.

  J.J. came and helped me comfort Jade. J.J. was able to talk and soothe better than I could, because she didn't have the emotional baggage I was fighting through, so the two of us got her calmed down. I probably would have given in and done the sex just the way Jade wanted it, though honestly, it didn't appeal to me, but J.J. helped us come to a compromise.

  We used Nathaniel's body for the "pillow" to prop Jade up high enough for oral sex. She put her red silk nightie back on, but it was actually very brave of her to be willing to lay her nearly naked lower body across his groin. On the other hand, she was getting oral sex from not one but two women--like I said, a compromise.

  Jade was only comfortable with her bits pointing toward Domino's side of the bed, but J.J. was naked, too, so I thought there'd be a problem from her about Domino seeing her, but there wasn't.

  She said, "I dance nearly nude sometimes; you deal with the issue, or it hurts your performance." She said it in a tone that made it clear that she didn't let anything mess with her performance.

  So, J.J. lay on the bed with the back of her naked body pointed to Domino's side of the bed; if it bothered her that a strange man was getting to see her most intimate parts, you couldn't tell it. I liked that a lot.

  In fact, J.J. wrapped her hands around Jade's thighs, and buried her face between her legs with a practiced comfort that I envied. I wasn't sure I'd ever be that comfortable with another woman. So many men in my life had been such good sports about sharing me with other men, or even interacting with the other men, that I felt it was almost a failing on my part not to be as good a sport myself. If that sounds weird, then so be it; it was how I felt.

  Nathaniel lay on the bed, pressed to the white satin bedspread, his hair shining against the white like a red-brown pool, outlining his body and theirs like auburn
lace edging some kinky valentine. J.J. lay on the edge of his hair, her nude body like a work of art carved in muscle and the bare swell of hips through her own art. I realized that she had sculpted her body as carefully, with as much love and passion, as any piece of marble had ever been carved by chisel and hand. Her blond hair fell like yellow water around her shoulders, hiding most of Jade's lower body from the room. Jade lay on top of Nathaniel, most of her body covered by the startling scarlet of the silk, her long black hair spread out behind her turned to the color of raven's wings and night skies by the white of the bedspread, and the pillow we'd propped under her head, and the red contrast of her clothes, and her own pale skin. None of them were tanned, but with their bodies pressed so close together you could see that Nathaniel was naturally darker. Jade was second palest, with white skin that hadn't seen the touch of the sun in most of the last few centuries, so that her black hair and fire-colored eyes were all the more shocking, and then J.J. with her milk-white skin to match the yellow hair and the spring-blue eyes. In fact, her hair hid most of what she was doing. I could tell she was doing different things from Jade's reaction, but could see precious little of the action even kneeling beside them all.

  I knew progress was happening, because Jade's breathing was speeding up, and her eyes were starting to soft-focus. Nathaniel's arms and legs were straining in the ropes, his eyes fluttering shut, and I realized for the first time that having a silk-clad woman writhing on his groin while another woman ate her out might actually bring him. We hadn't planned on that, because usually his stamina and control were phenomenal, but this was a new type of scene for him, and new sometimes flipped your switch quicker than you'd planned.

  I was torn between trying to watch what J.J. was doing so I might learn something, and asking Nathaniel how close he was, and finally moved close enough to stroke his cheek and make him look at me. His eyes had bled back to lavender from their earlier leopard, but they were still soft-focused, and he had to fight to narrow his vision on my face.

  "Are you close?"

  He shook his head, but then his neck bowed, eyes closing. His arms strained against the ropes, his body quivering with sensations. I looked back at the other women. Jade looked like she was doing a crunch push-up, her face showing something between pain and utter pleasure. I watched her body writhe, while all she was feeling crossed her face, soundlessly. She almost never cried out during oral, I wasn't sure why, but it meant that her body reacting was often my only clue that I'd hit the right combination.

  Nathaniel managed to say, "No, not close."

  Domino's voice came from behind us. "Why in the name of God not?"

  "I'm with Domino on this one," Jason said; he'd moved to the bedpost on this corner so he had a view from the side, rather than staring at the women's heads.

  J.J. raised her head up, and her mouth and chin shone in the lamplight. "I hadn't thought about Nathaniel going from this; can he take more, or do we need to move her?"

  "No moving," Jade said, in a voice that was thick with the screams she never let herself have.

  "Don't move," Nathaniel said; his tone was distracted, but his words were clear.

  "Okay, then," J.J. said, and turned to look at me. "Did you see anything I did?"

  I shook my head. "Not really."

  "Then come down here where you can see."

  "Yes, ma'am," I said, hesitated, and then thought, How else am I going to learn? Screw it; we'd make it a tutorial.

  10

  I GOT DOWN beside J.J. so I could watch more closely. I was vaguely aware that Jason and Domino were both behind us, still not on the bed, but getting the best view they could. I didn't care, they were both my lovers, they'd seen me before. They were both seeing one new naked lady apiece, but even Jade had stopped caring about that; something about the second orgasm had helped her get over her insecurities about Jason seeing her nude for the first time.

  "Wait, what did you do just now to make her body react like that?" I asked.

  J.J. rose back from the other woman's body enough to say, "I licked here along the edge instead of down the center. She doesn't seem to like a lot of direct clitoral contact until she's closer to going."

  "How can you tell she's ready for more direct contact?"

  "Breathing quickens, and she clenches her hands; it's like a tell in poker."

  "So everyone's tell is different," I said.

  "Sort of; almost every woman's breath speeds up, and her face reacts in some way, unless the orgasm catches her by surprise."

  I nodded. "I do that sometimes, so I get that."

  "You want a turn?" she asked.

  "Yeah, that way if I'm not getting the same reactions you can help answer questions."

  "It's like a lesbian tutorial," Jason said.

  We both turned and gave him a look over our shoulders. He held his hands out, like no harm meant, but honestly it might have been a record for the longest he'd ever gone without making a joke of some kind.

  "Maybe you'll learn a few things, too," J.J. said.

  "Are you saying I need to learn?" he asked.

  She grinned. "Well, no, you're excellent, but still, it's not just a lesbian skill."

  Domino raised his hand. "I'm learning things."

  That made me smile at him. "Good, me, too, now let's see if I can put practice to purpose."

  "Better check on Nathaniel first," J.J. said.

  I looked up at my bound sweetie. His face was nearly slack with concentration, eyes focused to the side, staring at nothing. He did that sometimes when we had sex; he said it was his way of concentrating on not going.

  "He's fine," I said.

  "You sure?" she asked.

  Nathaniel made a thumbs-up gesture.

  "He's good."

  J.J. moved over so we could trade places. There was always a moment before I went down on Jade where I hesitated and sort of looked at her body and thought, so many little parts, and not sure what to do with them. Men made more sense to me and were a lot easier to play with: bigger parts, less guesswork about where you should be licking and sucking.

  People joke about women tasting like fish, but Jade always tasted more like meat, red meat. I'd asked Nathaniel and he'd confirmed that I did, too, but he'd also said that some women did taste like fish. If you were willing to ask the questions you could learn all sorts of things.

  I teased my tongue along the edge of her, between the tiny folds of skin. She shuddered for me, and I realized that because J.J. had already brought her twice I had a head start on the next round, but that was okay, I needed the head start. I was so damn good at oral sex on men that it had sort of hurt my pride to be less spectacular with women. It had been one of the things that had made me willing to ask the questions. I would get better, damn it.

  I licked on the other side of her, mirroring what I'd done, and she shuddered again--nifty! I started licking from side to side, not directly over the center of her, but going lower, so that I didn't lick over her clitoris, but below it. That would have driven me nuts, because I liked more direct contact, but Jade's body began to shiver as I licked back and forth. Her hands convulsed on the pillow, and her breath got faster. I licked higher over her clit as I went from side to side, and her breathing sped even more, so that she started making little almost-sounds as she panted. I went back over her one more time and her body bucked, startling me, but I stayed on that sweet spot in the middle with quick flicks of my tongue, as fast as I could, like J.J. had showed me. It was a lot harder than it had looked, and I felt the beginnings of a charley horse in my tongue, so I switched to sucking, because nothing kills the mood like a muscle cramp at the wrong moment.

  I sealed my mouth over her, drawing more and more of that small, happy bit of her body into my mouth, so that I was sucking it a lot like I'd suck a man, but totally different, it was just the only analogy I had. Her body bucked, up and down on the pillows and Nathaniel's body. Jade slid off the pillows, and only my grip on her thighs and other things kep
t her from sliding off the other side of Nathaniel.

  He cried out, wordless, and I thought for a second he'd gone, too, but if he had it was trapped under Jade's body where I couldn't see the mess we'd made of the red silk. I let the thought go and kept paying attention to Jade's body, because once the orgasm started a woman could just keep going sometimes; nothing irritated me more than a man getting me to the orgasm and stopping before every last drop of pleasure was wrung from it. Until I tapped out, I didn't want someone to stop on me, so I tried to offer Jade the same, but my grip on her thighs was an awkward hold to support an entire body while she writhed and bucked. I wasn't sure I could keep sucking and change my hold, or keep doing it and not have her slide away from me on the other side of Nathaniel's body. It was one of those real-world sex problems that no one ever thinks about when you plan the group sex.

  Jason was suddenly on the bed, moving with that blur of speed the wereanimals were capable of, so that he caught Jade and moved her back onto the pillows. I was able to ease my death grip on Jade's thighs and just concentrate on giving her as much orgasm as possible for as long as I could. It was the best one I'd ever managed to give her, and I wanted to make it last.

  "God, you move so fast," J.J. said, "I can't wait to see what a choreographer could do with that kind of speed."

  I couldn't see Jason's face without moving, and I wasn't going to do that, so I gave myself over to the woman at my mouth, under my hands. Her whole body started to shake continuously, and then a cry tore from her mouth. A cry of pleasure and release, and she collapsed boneless and motionless except for small twitches in one hand. If Jason hadn't been there to catch her she would have slipped off the pillows again, but this time he had to hold her in place as if she were unconscious from the pleasure.