by Sacchi Green
“Yes, but kiss me. Kiss me hard.”
I obliged and we tongue wrestled. Her arms went around me and I jerked as desire flooded me. Desire and something else. Something I’d forgotten, left behind.
When I reached between her legs, her quim was hot and swollen. I found the doorbell and rang it good, giving her a clue as to what would happen when she opened the door to let me come in.
“Is this right? Am I getting it?”
She moaned and I took her by the back of her hair and pulled her head so I could look her in the eye. “You have to tell me or I’m just guessing,” I lied. “Everyone is different, everyone wants it their way. Tell me your way.”
“Uh, down, a little more, and circles, make circles,” Miss Titty said, her face growing red. That shy admission turned me on. I wanted to see her splayed out on the bed, open to me, but I wanted it on her terms.
I wondered what Karen’s terms would be. Oh, we negotiated, but I had discovered her desires and needs while she was cuffed and vulnerable. I never asked her. I learned by reaction.
Miss Titty pulled on my belt and opened my pants, her tiny hands cold as they slid under the waistband and down to my briefs. She boldly slid her hands into them and then paused as she felt Big Blue’s harness. I watched her face as she followed the straps down, her eyes confused and then big as she realized what she was touching.
“You have a dildo?”
“I pack, yes, but I’m not going to fuck you.”
“You aren’t?”
“Do you intend to fuck this woman you want?”
She stared at me for a long moment as she replayed whatever fantasy she had going. “No,” she finally said. “No, I never thought of it.”
“Well, then, no fucking.” I traded my finger for my thumb on the doorbell and then slid a finger in, curled, reaching up high. She humped, opening up so I could have as much as I wanted.
She moaned softly, her eyes shutting in bliss. Her mouth was open and those darling crooked teeth peeked out from under those bow-shaped lips.
I kissed her gently and lifted her up. She was light, like nothing, and, in three steps, I had laid her on the bed. I looked down at her, her legs open, the lube on her snatch shining in the lamplight, her hair tousled, her tits red, the tiny nipples standing as tall as they could.
“Gawd, you are beautiful. I want to make love to you.”
I hadn’t done that to a woman in years. I had fucked them, spanked them, flogged them, and we had enjoyed it. Always hard, wicked, nasty, but never tender.
I knelt between her legs.
Kissing her mouth, nibbling my way down her neck, I paused to lick her earlobes, which made her laugh and I smiled.
“Making love should be beautiful and funny,” I murmured, remembering how Barbara and I’d had jokes that became private ways to make love in public.
“It should be filled with naughty phrases, filthy words, and jokes that you will cherish, that keep you close even when you’re not in bed,” I said.
I worked my way down her breasts, nipping and licking, teasing those tiny nipples with my tongue, lightly, never biting. I held her waist, my hands nestled between her hips and ribs, my thumbs arching over her belly button, making it the center of a temple that I worshipped with my tongue.
“Ah, that is weird.”
“Good weird or bad weird?”
“It’s just weird to have your tongue in my belly button.”
“Good to know,” I said. “No belly-button fucking.”
She laughed and I moved on down to her snatch. I blew gently on it and she groaned.
“Do you like that?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” she said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever you want to do.”
“No, because then you’re a plaything. And this is making love.”
“But I don’t know what I want,” she wailed.
“Okay then,” I slid my finger between her lips and played the doorbell. “Number one or”—I pulled out and knelt over her to put my tongue between her lips, touching her clit—“Number two.”
She leapt like a racehorse from the gate and only my hands on her waist kept her in place.
“Oh, oh, number two. Yes, number two.”
Laughing, I went back down on her, “Number one or number two,” I said into her snatch as I changed techniques, positions, speed, pressure.
Little by little we discovered what made her come, and come hard she did, with her pelvis smashed to my mouth, three fingers in her twat, and her hands gripping my head to hold me where she wanted me.
Afterward, I crawled up to lie beside her. She was tiny when I cuddled her. I felt protective and warm.
“So that’s how women make love,” she said, sleepily.
“That’s enough to get you going. Ask questions, be curious, be brave.”
I felt like a hypocrite, thinking of Karen cuffed to the cross, completely open to whatever I had negotiated with her. It was pleasurable, but always at arm’s length. She was beautiful, caring, but I had been too wary of what Barbara had wanted to let myself go anywhere near that with another woman.
“And now it’s time for you to get out of here.”
She looked up at me. “You don’t want me to, uh, practice on you?”
I didn’t think I could bear that. And something told me it would be easy for her to lose sight of her objective with her face buried between my legs.
“Nah, go practice with the woman you’re chasing. Go on, get up, get out of here.”
She rolled out of bed, and went to the bathroom. After she cleaned up, she dressed and followed me to the living room, where she gathered her bag from the chair. I opened the door. She paused, reached up, and kissed me gently. “Thanks, Louden.”
I shrugged. “Go get ’em, Titty.”
She blushed and play-socked my arm as she left.
I sat on the couch and sighed.
Barbara was a long time ago.
And Karen was a totally different woman.
I pulled my cell phone out and dialed.
“Whattya doin’? Want some company? Yeah, really. No, I’m all right. Great, I’ll be there in twenty, no, twenty-five.” It would take at least five to run in and grab some flowers at the market. And maybe a bottle of wine. Yeah, I knew she liked wine, although we never drank before we played and she was too out of it afterward.
Maybe it would be interesting to see what would happen closer than arm’s length.
MOJAVE
Dena Hankins
My guts rose before the rest of me as I crested the sandy hill. Anything could be on the other side. Brush. Another four-wheeler. A hippy gathering. A twenty-foot drop-off.
The springs of the Odyssey rang as the small vehicle’s weight came off its wheels. I launched it off the hill as fast as it would go and almost got some air. The little machine’s roll bars and wrist straps and harness formed an exoskeleton of hard steel. I wanted to throw it against the world, knock the world around a bit.
Nothing on the other side except more trail. I could ride for hours in the Mojave around Edwards Air Force Base without seeing another person. Out in bluegrass country, I used to scream. Walk out my front door and push the stillness right out of me through my mouth. I thought it would be better after I left those slow hills and slow trees and slow crops behind.
I’m not military. I teach math to adolescents who hate me, who barely know each other with all the moving they dena hankins do. Every conversation feels like déjà vu, and every kid thinks they’re unique. The odd talented one rarely catches fire with it. The future physicists and engineers are few and far between.
But just behind base housing is the Mojave.
I thought about jerking the wheel as I came up on a scrap of hardy grass the color of sand. Hitting a clump with the side of the wheel would flip the little four-wheeler right over. The wrist straps keep me from automatically putting my hand out and getting it broken. I rotated my wrist
s against the nylon webbing.
Instead, I set myself at the tallest hill around—a couple hundred feet. Mysterious military antennae sprouted from the top, artificially high, and a rutted dirt track speared straight up a ridge on the side. The little motor whined as I sped at the hill, determined to find a limit somewhere and thinking this could be it. I hit the abrupt incline and was tossed into the sky. I hardly touched the dirt, fat knobby tires slipping in grit. The motor struggled to maintain my momentum, but gravity defied the chugging pistons. I rocked in my harness as though I could swim through the air to the top. On such a steep grade, I might not be able to get back down without burning out the brakes or racing down so fast that I crashed in a truly violent, uncontrolled way.
I shuddered with life.
The Odyssey groaned and the smell of burning dust came from the overheating engine. I urged the machine at the last, steepest portion.
My right front tire came off the edge of the rut and the last of my momentum bounced the front end high enough that gravity switched directions. The wheels kept going, right over my head, and I steered the air in an unthinking attempt at control.
Upside down and beyond, I yelped my abandoned joy. The roll bars took the impact and the Odyssey slid, upside down, about fifty feet downhill. Dust invaded my throat and eyes, silencing and blinding me.
My lips shifted grit across my teeth and gums. My shoulders and chest ached where the harness held me tight to the seat above me. When I opened my painful eyes, my rashed wrists made a red counterpart to my white knuckles.
My head sang, thick and brilliantly red, with adrenaline and gravity-fed blood. I slipped my hands from the straps, reached over my head, and touched the ground with pulsing fingertips. Did I want down or was I exactly where I needed to be, hanging upside down on a man-made mountain in the middle of nowhere? The flashing memory of my futile attempt at control spurred me to laughter, which turned into coughing, which morphed into screams that shook with my shuddering abdomen and tore me open.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Self-consciousness sprang into being. My voice stopped short. The entire picture came to me clearly. The overturned four-wheeler with a deranged screamer digging into the sand under her head with fiery desperation.
Why did it have to be Phoebe?
I needed to be upright. I needed dignity, faked or real, but for that I needed to get out of the harness.
My fingertips burned from the sand and Phoebe’s gentle hand covered mine on the four-way harness buckle. Phoebe teaches English, comp and lit, to the seniors and we had chatted some in the teacher’s lounge, though I’d imagined doing more. Her hand on mine sparked a favorite fantasy: driving my hand into her pussy with hard thrusts of my hips, her hands cupping her tits like offerings.
“Come on. We’ll get you out, but you have to be ready for the drop.”
Right. I took a deep, dry breath. I had no suggestions.
She didn’t need any. She arranged herself under me, inside the buried roll bars, with competent economy of action, and ducked her head inside to sit up next to me. If I turned my head, I could kiss her belly. We both smelled sweaty and I wondered what she thought of my scent. Hers made me breathe deep and want to nose at her crotch like a dog.
She caught my upside-down eye and said, “I’ve got you, Van.”
The aftermath of excitement had me shaking a bit. The sky behind her head was pure white and her face, even in the shadow of the Odyssey, looked overexposed. Only the dark, dark brows, the deep red of her lips, and the mink of her black eyes contained enough contrast to coalesce in my blown-out vision.
While I inspected her and tried to stop shivering, she inched me away from the seatback. She pushed an arm behind me as she loosened the shoulder straps and my shoulder pressed into her soft chest.
“Are you ready?”
Before I could squeak, she pushed the pad in the middle of the harness and all four straps fell away.
I dropped, my head and neck guided into her lap. She grunted and I let my legs fall out the side so I wouldn’t jackknife right on top of her. My anklebone hit the ground hard, uncontrolled, but her legs cushioned my hip.
Gently, she smoothed my hair back from my face. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” I croaked a bit over the word and cleared my throat before trying again. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I couldn’t find the professional politeness I’d used with her for months, hiding my attraction. “Phoebe, I—”
“Don’t talk. You need water.”
The words burned my throat more than the dust, but I stopped. I didn’t know exactly what I’d been about to say anyway.
Excuses? Explanations?
Why? I was just another nature-lover out looking around, except that I’d turtled my four-wheeler and been found screaming by a coworker I had a crush on.
I scrambled off Phoebe’s lap, bumping my shoulder on the roll bar and scooting gracelessly in a semicircle that slid the back of my neck across her thigh.
“Slowly, Vanessa.” She gripped my shoulder and slipped out of the roll-bar cage after me. The blood that had pooled in my head ran downhill toward my feet and left me light-headed, so I lay flat on the coarse sand. The bright red sun beat through my eyelids.
“Better.” Phoebe’s teacher voice grated on my nerves just enough that I wanted to act adult and together, like someone who didn’t need commands and comfort. I wasn’t sure I was that person, though. I wanted to cry and, whether it was from emotion or adrenaline crash, the heat of her body next to mine made me yearn to hide there.
“Can you move everything? Arms, legs? Neck, shoulders?”
I wiggled obediently as she named body parts and everything worked, though I ached over most of my body.
“Let’s get you to my campsite. I have a first-aid kit.”
Of course you do, I didn’t say.
I tightened my abs—ow—and sat up before opening my eyes. It was the right move, since even the sand between my knees was brighter than I could handle. I blinked until my vision cleared and I could see Phoebe sitting next to me, waiting quietly.
I looked at the Odyssey. If Phoebe and I could roll it over, could we stop it from taking off downhill as soon as the wheels hit the ground? I didn’t even feel up to trying.
“Come on, Van. Let’s see if you can stand.”
I watched her rise and put my hands flat on the hot sand. The incline was enough that standing wouldn’t be hard, but she would want to steady me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be touched. I didn’t feel like I had any skin.
The sand burned harder on my fingertips and I looked at my hands. My bare wrists looked bad, but my fingertips stole my attention. They throbbed in answer to my questioning look. Yes, you fucked us up royally. Each one swelled raw and red, and fine dust sparkled in the tiny drops of blood that welled here and there.
Phoebe reached out and I jerked. She stopped, a questioning look on her face, and then stood. I don’t know whether I blushed at giving away . . . something . . . but she put her hand out, fingers up, and spoke quietly. “Give me your hand.”
I did, going palm to palm in an arm-wrestling grip that didn’t require me to hold on very hard. We pulled together and she put her hand under my elbow as I rose. Her touch unraveled my calm enough to make me lean toward her, but not enough for me to step into her arms for the hug I wanted so badly.
Her hand slid up my arm and squeezed. A flickering question—did she just feel up my biceps?—gave way to the realization that she wasn’t going to release my hand until I showed I could stand on my own.
I straightened and took a deep breath, which started me coughing again. She let go so I could cover my mouth but stayed close. My head was so clear it felt empty, and I could see for a hundred miles around.
“What the hell?” A carpet of lavender-flecked yellow spread across the sand, greens sparked against the ubiquitous tan, and even the Joshua trees looked like they were having a good st
retch.
“The flowers? Amazing, isn’t it? I come out here after every rain, if I can.” Phoebe scanned the desert and I saw her absorb the short-term vitality of the wetted land. I burst into flower and turned to her, raising my lips for her kiss.
She jolted and her expression flickered between surprise, temptation, and something else, something that made her hesitate and pull away.
I turned and stumbled blindly toward the upside-down four-wheeler.
“Come on, Vanessa. My camp’s this way.”
She didn’t touch me, just stood in my way. How she’d gotten in front of me, I had no idea. Okay. We were going to play it cool, like I’d never tried to kiss her. Like I’d never stomped on her heavenly moment with an unwelcome pass.
The ache in my ankle battled for attention with all the other places I hurt, and I focused on walking carefully up the steep grade to her campsite near the fenced antennae. The last thing I needed was to humiliate myself further by falling.
Phoebe’s camp consisted of a small tent, big enough to sit up in and shaded by a fly, and a rock-edged impromptu fire pit. She went to her knees in front of the tent and unzipped it. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t look away from the curve of her waist and thickness of her haunches.
She pulled out a hiking pack. I stood, awkward, and waited for instructions. The first-aid kit was in the front pocket and she tossed it back into the tent, leaving the pack on the dirt. “Let’s get out of the sun.”
A distinct urge to back away was no match for her magnetism. I’m not one to get in trouble taking stupid dares, but I wanted to be in that tent with her.
She knelt to the side of the entrance, her hands flat on her thighs, for the split second it took to decide I’d do as she said. I creaked down to my hands and knees, keeping my raw fingertips off the sand, and shuffled across the zippered threshold.
A flat pallet of dense foam spanned two-thirds of the tent’s width. I shoved aside her sleeping bag so I wouldn’t get it dusty, collapsed on my side, and rolled onto my back.
Phoebe appeared over my feet and crawled up next to me. She pushed the first-aid kit ahead of her in a yellowish-green glow diffused by two layers of nylon. I was taking up too much space, though I was the smaller by far, so I scooted to the edge of the tent. The empty span of pallet looked huge until she perched on its edge and folded her legs to one side.
