by Sacchi Green
I open the bedroom door again and sashay in, only to be beset with doubts. I should have put a butt plug into your enticing ass or inserted those lovely steel balls that we keep in the silk case next to the bed into your open pussy. Or at least remembered to gag you. I reach for the diary, your eyes on me, and try to page through to the scene you wrote.
“Put the damn book down and get over here.” And I start to do just that, right up until I catch a glimpse of myself in the bedroom mirror. A demon queen stares back at me from the shadows of our room. Whatever she is, she’s not a gal who just does what she’s told, no matter who’s doing the telling.
I perch on the chair nearby and continue paging through your diary until I find the scene I was reading when you got home. Then, I read it out loud, pausing and purring out the good bits in my sexiest voice until you start to squirm against the cuffs. I stop long enough to reach for the toy box and pull out our tiniest butt plug and some lube. I get it nice and slicked up and slide it into your tight butthole. You yelp and bite down on the pillow. “I’m not done reading to you yet,” I murmur as I bend down and lick your ear.
This time, you mutter a couple of choice words and a suggestion about what you’ll do to me when I untie you. Old Me from a mere hour ago would have melted into a puddle and unfastened the cuffs. New Me laughs, swats your butt, and slips a finger into your pussy, only to withdraw it when you push back against it. I lick my finger off, slowly, bending over your face so you can watch, then I go back to my chair and your diary.
I keep reading, at least until your running commentary of groans gets too loud for me to hear myself. Then I get up and tug the ball gag free of its bag. You seldom use it on me so I fumble a bit putting it on and you nip at my fingers, your frustration palpable. But I get it on you at last.
Then I slip my fingers into my panties, dip them into my aching wetness and smear it just under your nose. Your hips buck in frustrated desire as I run my hands down your body, checking to make sure that you’re aroused and just for the fun of touching your burning skin.
I read some more, but now I pull one of my boobs out of its lace enclosure and play with my nipple while I read to you, to us. I make sure that you can see my flesh getting hard under my nails, see my hips shift involuntarily against the chair. Your diary is proving most instructive, at least the parts I’ve given myself permission to read.
The bedroom reeks of all the sex we’re not having yet and I slip my panties off before I go to the kitchen and get us some water, yours in a cup with a straw. I remove the gag so you can drink, then put it back as you start to say something that sounds like a plea. Then, I crouch over you and slide my soaking-wet slit down your back and onto your ass. Stretching back, I stick my fingers into your pussy, pulling them out before you can come, then sticking them inside me.
I realize that it’s going to get too difficult to keep reading and I pull my hand reluctantly free of my aching wetness and grind myself into your buttcheeks instead. You are squirming beneath me, body pleading in a thousand different ways for every flavor of my touch. My knee brushes your paddle and I pick it up, giving it a moment’s consideration before I flop over to your side and give your ass an experimental whack.
I’ve never used the paddle before, only been the one experiencing its exquisite torment, and my ass aches in sympathy for what I’m about to attempt to do to yours. I give you a few more smacks, trying to get used to the feel of it in my hand. You groan and your flesh jiggles at the impact. I shove my hand between your legs, thrusting inside you with a sudden motion that makes you howl around the gag. The sound, the scent of your desire: this scene bowls me over until I am driving my hand into you, demanding your orgasm in a way I never dreamt of before.
Your surrender arouses me until I think I’ll explode if I don’t come soon, and I move so that your thigh is between my legs. I try to rub myself off to the same rhythm that I’m fucking you, but it doesn’t quite work and you come first with an explosive series of moans and gasps, soaking the sheets underneath you.
It takes me longer, but at last, I too rub myself to a shaking, yelping orgasm on your leg, sending my juices out to coat your flesh. I reach up and unfasten the gag, worried that your labored breathing means that you might be in trouble. Instead, you grab my wet fingers in your mouth and suck them frantically, your tongue between them and over every bit of my palm you can reach.
Reluctantly, I pull away and tug the butt plug gently free from your hole and drop it into the toy-cleaning bowl that we keep on the nightstand. Then I clamber off the bed and grab the steel balls from their silken nest. They are inside your wet, aching warmth in an instant and you groan at the chill contact against the most intimate portions of your flesh. I know just how you feel, and part of me desperately wants to untie you and switch positions.
But I don’t think that I’ve taken you as far as you want to go, not yet. So I give you another drink of water and pick up the paddle again. This time, I stand up to get a bit more weight behind my swing. You give me an unreadable glance and tense up, so I pause to touch you, to kiss your back and your nearest asscheek. I caress you, even darting my fingers inside to shift the balls around until your moan reassures me that you’re ready.
Hoping I am, too, I smack your ass once, twice, then alternate cheeks as I watch your skin turn a satisfying red. You’re yelling into the pillow now, writhing and yanking at the ties until I wonder if the bed is going to survive tonight. Not that it matters. I’m enjoying this new side of you, and I want to see more of it.
A few more strokes and I can tell you’re getting close from the way that you’re breathing. I set the paddle down and reach for your clit, rubbing and circling it in the sea of your juices that I’ve managed to call up. When you come, it’s sudden and even lovelier for that. Your body shudders against me, legs locked, then spasming, muscles twisting, your mouth open in a howl.
I rub until you finish, then withdraw my hand slowly. The aching need between my own legs is getting too intense to ignore, and I don’t want to just use your thigh this time. I set you loose, letting you rub your wrists and ankles as I start undressing. But you grab me before I can finish, shoving me onto the bed and riding me with your mouth, your tongue, until I come so hard I think I’m going to black out.
As I gasp my way back into my body, you murmur, “I want you to start keeping a diary.”
RELICS
Sarah Fonseca
With a wide variety of miniature accessories, a doll hospital, and a hair salon with personal stylists, they are perhaps among the most luxurious toys ever invented.
Seven hours. The stale vacuums of the airport, the late afternoon flight; the asphyxiating incense of the rental, a car-freshener fir bouncing about on the rearview mirror, mocking us. When we arrived in that flat town in Georgia, our tired lungs welcomed big swallows of the clean, wet air. I could forgive the heat.
Begonia parked by the mailbox to not wake her auntie with the headlights’ glare.
“She does know we’re staying here? Right? B?”
Begonia was busy unlocking the entry gate to the gravel path that led to her childhood home. Her brow remained furrowed until the lock finally caught.
She didn’t answer. I decided that I didn’t want to sarah fonseca know. Her posture slumped under the weight of both our suitcases, which she’d insisted upon carrying. Head bowed, her bangs caught in her eyelashes, she blew them away. The rest of her hair became helplessly tangled in the bags’ handles. As we approached the clapboard house with the partial second story, I realized that our path was lined by dozens upon dozens of little plants, some with violet flowers, some not, all bearing furry leaves: begonias. She wasn’t the only one. We weren’t the only ones.
The last time I’d felt truly alone with Begonia, we were in her bed in Chicago.
“Come with me,” she whined before she took me in her mouth, kneeling above me, back bowed terrifically, a skinny cellar cat of a woman. Whenever she had me like that, I ima
gined her mouth at my nipple. Whenever she suckled at my breast, I envisioned her below. Four hands, four breasts, two wet clefts, two mouths. There never seemed to be enough of us; our fucking was never without a joyful dissatisfaction.
While I too fantasized about shared tremors, I couldn’t actually do what she wanted. I was never able to make love like a synchronized swimmer. I became too engrossed in the other’s undoing to experience my own at the same time. But I could try. The room was pitch-black; there was only one outlet near her bed. Her beloved KORG and a floor lamp, the lone source of lighting in the basement apartment’s bedroom, often fought over it. That night, the keyboard won.
I leaned forward and found her opening, appreciating the throb above.
“No, Cacey,” she whimpered, moving my hand to her thigh. “I mean, come with me to Valdosta.”
“What’s in Valdosta?” I managed.
“A wedding. But if I tell you that there’s more of this in Valdosta, will you join me?” Her tongue teased, nudging folds away, hiding and unveiling me until I was too swollen to be concealed. “I want to lap you up in a thousand states.”
“But we’ve only got fifty.”
“Forty-nine now to go, technically.”
The comforter became drenched. The sheets were tugged away from the mattress by the rhythm she encouraged. I don’t remember when, but I agreed to accompany her. Tagging along to watch her dear old friend hitched was nothing. If Begonia wanted to rob a bank, I would’ve held its door open for her with a curtsy.
The front door opened creaklessly. Begonia veered to her left, leading me by the hand.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she said with a whisper and a wink.
I felt the shape of the carpeted stairs beneath my feet. They grumbled under the weight of our bodies and luggage. I prayed that this primitive alarm system, relied upon heavily by the parents of starry-eyed adolescents, didn’t apply to thirty-year-olds.
When she reached the top, Begonia pressed the weight of her body into the door, opening it. An intricate stained-glass lamp sat atop a small nightstand, illuminating the room all by its lonesome. I realized that we were in her old bedroom. This was where she grew larger. I imagined her, young and sinless, gazing through that tiny window each night as the sun set over the thicket of poplars. But looking around, I was forced to stifle a giggle. The nightstand was covered with Minnie Mouse stickers. The twin bed’s surface was monopolized by decorative throw pillows. Begonia’s old room was in a heightened state of feminine conflict, as though its invisible boarder, trapped between girlhood play and womanly opulence, decided she simply must have both.
Her Auntie Ethel, she explained, wasn’t really her auntie but had taken her in when she was still quite young. Ethel was a busy woman, caught between Clerk of Court duties and odd jobs that Begonia never fully understood. Unlike most parents with an empty nest, Ethel had never found time to empty the room of its juvenile trappings or exchange its twin bed for something more age-appropriate. Unable to find time to subtract, the woman added. She purchased the lamp, miscellaneous accents, and new sheets from Belk. High-thread-count Egyptian cotton–– for a child’s bed!
My jaw went slack at the sight of three dolls in hoop-skirts, clearly not made for playing with, at least during this century, staring blankly at us from a decorative shelf, their ceramic faces impossibly white. Their hair was long, reaching all the way down their backs to their tiny doll bottoms.
“Auntie . . . her tastes . . . I’m sure she thought I’d appreciate their hair, but . . . ”
“Is your auntie responsible for that welcome sign hanging at the city limits, too?” I laughed. “Southern Charm, Not Gone With the Wind.”
“I’m sorry you had to see these,” she sighed, turning each doll 180 degrees so her blanched ceramic nose was pressed against the wall. “They’re so pale. You’d think the Southern belle was subjected to cruel experiments in phlebotomy.”
I recalled what an American history professor at the University of Chicago once told our class about such toys, specifically those found in the South. One women’s college, I believe in North Carolina, celebrated each outgoing senior class with a custom doll, complete with a unique dress. The first Black woman graduated from the university in the early 1970s. As for the dolls, well . . . they remained as white as they’d always been. That seemed to be the persisting slogan of the region, one that seeped into the floor of our old bedroom: as they’d always been.
“My stomach hurts.”
Begonia was hanging her lavender bridesmaid’s dress in the closet between a graduation gown and a prom shift. She didn’t pause to look at me, only pointed to a pencil box on her old kneehole desk.
“There’s something in there that might help you.”
I opened it to find small cotton bullets with shrink-wrapped casings.
“You’re so mean.” I rolled one of the tampons between my fingers. “These have to be expired.”
“Cotton doesn’t expire, does it?”
“I don’t know. Does it?” I asked, eying her aunt’s dolls. I pelted Begonia with the bullets. We laughed until it became too difficult to breathe again.
As she filed the dress between those of earlier rituals, a wicker basket tumbled from the closet’s highest shelf and onto the floor, narrowly missing Begonia’s nape. From it spilled palm-sized spheres, hearts, and stars, all made of colorful plastic. Some of them burst open like oysters as they hit the floor, unveiling miniature pastel worlds full of staircases and domestic trappings and, in some instances, the pearl that was a miniature woman who bent at the waist.
Begonia looked to me sheepishly. “Death by Polly. A girl could dream!”
A childhood toy carries as much clout as an old lover, a name that only enters the mind at odd intervals. At separate points in time, both were heartbreakers.
Rather than picking up our toys, we made more of a mess, tossing one another’s blouses atop bins of wide-eyed Barbies and our unpacked suitcases. She held me close on that skinny bed, our sides resting against those linens that felt like a white lie. Because my hurt was for Begonia, not because of her, it was easily relieved.
Her hands found my body before mine could grip hers. With a grade-school bully’s smirk, she pushed her way into me. When I gasped, she covered my mouth with the center of her palm, fingers curling and hooking against my jawbone for support. I liked the threat, the faint possibility of a broken bone. Her hand smelled metallic, like her amplifiers, microphones, guitar strings. The scent of her apartment in McKinley Park was never far behind her. I can no longer remember where, but in her old bedroom, I’d spotted a toy upright piano: the tiniest of unspoken origin stories.
My vision blurred as Begonia fucked me, fingers catching me on the inside as forcefully as they did my face. All I could see was pink in a hundred shades, from the curtains to the dresses of those terrible dolls whose gazes had been censored: carnations, puces, corals. My legs began to tremble. I pulled her from me by the wrist and shoved her down onto her own back.
A wooden placard above the old kneehole desk bore her name. That looping Begonia, hand-painted on rosewood. Her name, in her signature color. The one she appropriated during a dirty touch or thought. Like a mouth that supplied its own lipstick. Or the moth, Anisota stigma, deepening in hue to blend into a bed of leaves. I spread her knees apart, too far for that tiny bed that we risked spilling from, tumbling to the floor with a groan and a thud that would surely wake Ethel below. My rosewood. I longed for the ability to taste colors: before trying, I pressed my cheek to her rise. Cotton, silk . . . all put to shame by flesh.
Begonia, I knew, had been a little girl in that bedroom–– she was twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Grown-up sheets, nice though they were, couldn’t disrupt my fantasy by perpetuating adulthood. In looking at her that way, I too felt twelve, fourteen, sixteen; a girl who’d been living elsewhere in America, also trapped alone in her room with her things. My thoughts possessed the poor tracking of a home movie: What wou
ld it have been like to have rescued her? To tiptoe up that narrow staircase and into her bedroom in the dead of night? To have been young with the young! A sensation that had eluded me in my own bespectacled youth.
I sat atop her, my bottom moving against her, her––oh, what would Begonia, the unwilling belle on the shelf, have called it then? Her private part? Her pee-pee? Her cherry?
“Tell me about the first time you did this to yourself,” I pleaded. “It was here in this very room, wasn’t it?”
I pictured her years before, the more modest of her two hands caressing her thighs as the other did the devil’s bidding. Was the flesh she gripped nicked by the disposable razor she was still trying to master?
She nodded, lip between her teeth. Her head rolled to the side, toward the Minnie Mouse’d nightstand. “I, um, used a hairbrush.” She reached down, tapping the drawer where she’d hidden away that particular love. “I was seventeen.” She chuckled. “Later than most, I suppose? I started right before I left.” She sighed with defeat, as though she couldn’t account for lost opportunity.
I didn’t respond, eyes closed, imagining her first curious considerations and the cautious thrusts that followed. I recollected those years when the arousal between my legs was so new that it was startling, as though a heaving waterfall had developed in that strip of my cotton panties (and maybe one had, with no intent of ever going dry, romantic droughts be damned). While I loved Begonia so when we were cunt to cunt and panting, it was never our bodies’ physical symmetries that aroused me. I’d been with plenty of women before her. Women with breasts larger and smaller than my own. Women who, after a lifetime of pained longing, finally had access to a pill that allowed them to develop a sweet rise beneath their own nipples. With Begonia, It was her drip. Never had I been with anyone who wet herself as she did, as I did. The chicken-and-egg of it all: Which came first? Her wetness or mine?
