by Fiona Zedde
Renee swallowed, uncertain about what to say. He sat in a chair near the bed, light from the bedside lamp illuminating the life-size version of what she’d seen on her computer screen. Long legs were crossed at the ankles. His sprawl in the chair emphasized the thick weight between his legs. He sat up.
“Does the light bother you?” he asked. “We can turn it off.” He reached over and clicked off the lamp.
Darkness dropped onto the room, but his image had already burned itself on her retina. A muscled, dark-skinned man in a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans. His meaty fingers, oddly gentle on the tiny knob of the lamp when he turned it.
Renee walked deeper into the room.
“You don’t want to talk?” he asked. “That’s fine. Usually I’m not much of a talker anyway, especially standing in front of someone as pretty as you.”
At that last bit, Renee smiled. Some of her anxiety disappeared. Even in the midst of an anonymous encounter, this man couldn’t stop himself from tossing out the compliments, the bait, to lure her—the female—closer. His words were seductive even though she doubted he could see more than a vague outline of her shape now.
“A gorgeous body like yours is unmistakable,” he said.
He took a deep, audible breath.
Her thigh muscles clenched and released at the power of it. He was being quiet because he thought she wanted it. He forced himself to be whatever she asked of him, because he wanted her sex. Renee’s nipples tightened.
His silence now allowed the sex in the room to speak. The whisper of her gartered and stockinged thighs as she crossed the room.
The darkness moved as he stood. But Renee stopped him, pushed him back down in the depths of the chair. His chest was hard under her palms. Still saying nothing, she slipped off her headscarf, the thin trench coat, and dropped them at his feet. Heat caressed her bare shoulders, the tops of her breasts thrust up in the lacy black bra that he couldn’t see. That he didn’t need to see. She moved closer to give him a chance to feel her. The breath from his open mouth misted over her skin. His body heat scorched her.
It has been so long.
She reached for him and moaned silently when he pressed stiff and sure against her hand, his masculinity plain through his jeans. Her stranger came closer. Closer. Anticipation twisted like a wild tornado in her belly. She straddled him. His hands settled on her hips.
Her center, stretched wide between the black parentheses of her garters, ached to swallow his hardness. She unbuttoned his jeans. He breathed deeply under her hands, not moving, waiting.
His hands touched her breasts—finally—squeezing her nipples through the cloth, surrounding the gentle rise of flesh. Plastic crinkled and he stopped, chuckled, retrieving the condom from inside her bra. She heard him unwrap it, felt him move to put it on, but she stopped him with a press of her hands. Renee wanted this.
There were so many things she missed about sex, the intimacy of kissing, of sharing breath with her lover, but there were other things that she craved more and more these days, that made the blood run hotter under her skin. The simple act of rolling on a condom was one of them.
She sighed, taking his thick stalk between her hands, closing her hands around the throbbing heat that would soon be inside her. Delirium rolled inside her hips. She moved against his thighs, the sensation coming over her in waves as he played with her breasts through the cloth. He moved closer. She rolled the latex on him. His hands freed her breasts from the lace. His mouth claimed a nipple.
Renee couldn’t stop the low gasp, the grateful squeeze of her hands around his maleness.
I need this. She felt the words in her spine. Said them silently as she mounted him and he gasped around her nipple. A groan worked its way past her throat at the tight stretch. So good. She pushed his shirt up and off, wrestling quickly with the cloth, crying out at the temporary loss of his mouth on her skin. But when it came back—oh! He licked her nipples, one after the other, squeezing her breasts, thrusting smoothly up into her. His grunts vibrated under her chest. All of him. Renee wanted to feel all of him. This stranger who seemed to want this struggle of the flesh as much as she did.
Renee dug her fingers into the back of his neck as she rode him. Fire pulsed through her thighs, up into her belly. His mouth locked around her nipple, sucking, teeth scraping, hips thrusting up into her as the rough denim rubbed the inside of her thighs.
The moans rose in her throat, but she swallowed them. She wanted to hear him, the sounds they made together, the grunt, slap, hiss of their sex and the chair slamming against the wall, and the tiny panting noises she couldn’t prevent from escaping.
A hard knot of pleasure grew in her belly. Expanded with each breath and grunt and slam of his maleness inside her. She squeezed him, reaching for her satisfaction as surely as he was reaching for his. Her stranger’s hands gripped her bottom, jerking her harder and faster on him. Her breast popped free of his mouth, the nipple wet from his kiss. Sweat dripped between them, down her belly, her face. He was full and hard inside her and she gasped with the molten delight of it.
He grunted, a freight train, thrusting harder, pistoning into her enough that she could—internal muscles straining, thigh muscles aching—push herself there. He arrowed up, shaking, coming hard and fast. And she knew she had to get hers now or risk not getting anything at all. She sank her nails deeper into the back of his neck, clenched her internal muscles around his already softening dick, riding him hard until—
“Oh my God!”
Her heart rocketed in her chest. Her body caught ablaze. And fell slowly back to earth. Thigh muscles twitching, gasping, she collapsed against him.
He breathed deeply above her, his body limp too, but his heart at a gallop under her cheek. The gallop slowed to a trot, then a slow canter. He grasped at her thighs again, pulling her against his damp body.
Suddenly, the sweat and bristly hairs on his chest were too much to bear. Renee gently disengaged herself from him, pulled her bra back up, and adjusted her panties. She leaned down and kissed his bristled cheek.
“Stay, honey.” He snared her in a strong grip. “I have a lot more where that came from.” His voice was a low, postor-gasmic buzz over her skin.
Renee froze. Was this the point when things fell apart? She licked her lips and slowly straightened, anticipating the worst. But his hand dropped away harmlessly. He fell into silence again.
Renee swallowed past the lump of fear in her throat. Bending down, she felt around on the floor for her coat and scarf, pulled them on. She walked toward the door. This was the most daring thing she’d ever done. And with the minute tremors of orgasm still flitting through her body, Renee smiled.
In the dark hotel room, she could hear her stranger’s deep breaths, smell the sex they’d just shared. This was worth it. Exhilaration and satisfaction trembled in her throat.
She paused in the mouth of the open door with light from the hallway pouring over her shoulders. Like when she’d just walked in, her stranger sat in the chair. Now he was sprawled, thighs spread wide, the jeans yawning open and shoved down to make room for his sex.
He stirred in the dark, a slap of latex against metal as he threw the used condom in the trash. The darkness bathed his features, but she knew his complete attention was still focused on her.
“Thank you,” she said and gently closed the door behind her.
Chapter 8
It didn’t seem real. Yet it had been. The slight soreness between her thighs was proof. She had felt the man’s heart beating against hers, felt him slamming into her body, pounding pleasure and sensation into her hungry center until she cried out. And there had been nothing attached to it. No promise of another date. No expectation of a call. Nothing.
And nothing remained from her hour with him, not even the sweat from their sex. It disappeared down the drain, swirling amid the bubbles and water, gone. She sighed in remembrance as the water flooded over her and steam hung heavy in the bathroom, thickening her air. It
didn’t seem real. Yet it had been. Silent and real and exactly what she needed.
Chapter 9
Mayson knew when Renee called on Saturday night to change the location of their Sunday brunch to a restaurant instead of her condo, something had happened. And she had a fairly good idea what that something was.
She got to the restaurant first and claimed a window booth, sitting in the full spill of the sun with her dark glasses on. The weekend had been a peaceful and meditative one so far. No women, no drama, just an early morning phone call from her giddy parents who were still renting a house in Jamaica while waiting for their own to be built. Mayson hadn’t heard from them in almost a month and didn’t realize how worried she was until a sigh of relief burst out of her at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“May, you know that we’re okay,” her mother said in her deep, country voice.
“I know, Ma. But it’s good to get a confirmation phone call once in a while, too. There’s a lot in the papers about crime down there.”
Her tone brought her father running to the phone with apologies, but she knew the same thing would happen again. After three months, her parents were still excited about the move. She’d called their house phone a few times but no one answered.
“It’s okay, Papa.” She had been the one reassuring them at the end of the phone call. “I won’t worry so. Next time I’ll leave a message.”
When the waitress stopped by the table with a glass of water and a smile, Mayson looked up with a smile of her own.
“What can I get for you today?” the girl asked.
By the time Renee breezed in wearing her pageboy hat, skinny jeans, and red stilettos, Mayson had already been through two glasses of lemon-flavored, room-temperature water and was working on a third.
“Don’t you look well-fucked,” she commented with a twist of her mouth as her best friend bent to give her a hug. Renee smelled like vanilla lotion.
Renee stuck out her tongue and sat down, dropping her handbag into the booth beside her. “Don’t be jealous.” She paused. “Not that you’d want any of what I had last night.” Her eyes danced from under the brim of the charcoal-gray hat.
“So how was it?” Mayson asked, though the answer was fairly obvious from Renee’s scrubbed and smiling face.
“It was good,” Renee said with a smile, the dimples sinking deeper into her cheeks. “Very good.”
“Thank God for that, at least. No murderer or guy with too-kinky tastes.”
“Nope. It was perfect, like I went out and picked my own Christmas present.”
Mayson couldn’t hide her surprise at her friend’s gushing tone. She raised an eyebrow. “Would you do it again?”
“Absolutely.”
She decided to ask the question more plainly. “Will you do it again?”
“I think so. Wouldn’t you?” Renee reached for Mayson’s water and took a long drink.
Mayson nodded, not bothering to reach for a lie. “If it was half as good as that smile on your face says, hell yeah, I’d go back for more.”
Renee leaned toward her, teeth flashing. “It was so intense, May. I had so much power in that room, more than I ever felt before with a lover.” Her smile dimmed. “At one point I got a little scared, you know, but he backed off right away.”
Mayson shook her head, wanting to know, but not wanting to know. More than anyone, Renee deserved all the happiness that a full sexual life could bring. Her sad marriage to Linc had closed her down to the possibilities of her body. Although he’d said he wanted to explore all of sex with her, toward the end of their relationship there was no sex. His impatience with her sexual inexperience coupled with his insistence on comparing her to previous partners turned Renee away from him, both physically and emotionally. When she’d shared these things, Mayson wanted to punch Linc in the stones until he was the one who cried.
If these encounters with strangers could repair the damage Linc had done to Renee, Mayson was all for them. But she couldn’t stop the worry.
“What about the next guy, what if he won’t back off?”
“Maybe I’ll just keep going out with this guy. He’s safe, not to mention a really hot lay.” Renee grinned. She took a sip of her water, winking at Mayson above the rim of her glass.
“Whatever. I doubt you even make it to a bed with this guy to lay anything down.”
Renee looked away, grin still firmly in place. She suspected that a scorching blush burned under her friend’s cocoa skin. Mayson’s phone vibrated just then and she slid it from her pocket. It was Iyla, a friend in LA she’d been playing phone tag with for the past few days. Mayson pressed “ignore” and put the phone back in her pocket.
“Ready for something more substantial than water?” The waitress materialized at Mayson’s elbow.
Renee’s dimples reappeared. “Absolutely!”
They shared a mound of wheat and nut pancakes, scrambled eggs, a plate of fresh fruit, and a pitcher of Bloody Marys between them, settling into their old Sunday afternoon rhythm, bantering back and forth about the previous week, life, and nothing at all. By tacit agreement, they let the topic of Renee’s strangers go.
A couple walked by their booth with children in tow, heading for a nearby table. The woman, slim and brown in tight-fitting jeans and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt, caught Mayson’s attention and held it.
“They need some condoms,” Renee said, glancing briefly at the couple, young and barely past college with their three young children, the youngest a baby dangling from her father’s hip.
“That wasn’t quite what I was thinking.” Mayson followed the twitching backside of the young mother. “But I’ll go along with that too.”
Renee gave her The Look, but quickly lost it when Mayson gave her lips an exaggerated LL Cool J lick and sank her teeth into a slice of pineapple. Renee fell back into her chair in a fit of giggles.
“I thought you didn’t do straight girls.”
“It doesn’t hurt to look. There’s no touching of that forbidden flesh in my future, you can believe that.” She wiped the pineapple juice from her lips.
“I’ll remember you said that,” Renee murmured, still smiling.
“Please do,” Mayson said and reached for her fork.
Chapter 10
Mayson slung her messenger bag over her shoulder and closed the door to the studio. Although it wasn’t time yet for Dhyana Yoga to close, her last class was done for the day. She liked to have her sessions first thing in the morn-ing—the first one at eight, the second at ten, and the last one at twelve-thirty—so she could have the rest of the day to herself. It rarely worked out that way, but today she got lucky.
She sighed in anticipation of her midafternoon bath and a session of solitary meditation in her sunroom. Smiling, she grabbed the railing and jogged down the sturdy wooden stairs toward the parking lot.
“That’s a different outfit from the last one I saw you wearing.”
A woman stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her way. She looked Mayson up and down, her eyes clearly appreciating the sight of Mayson in the black yoga pants and a snug gray tank top that bared her subtly muscled arms and clung to her tight belly.
Mayson stopped. An eyebrow rose in question.
“Do I know you?”
The woman was conventionally pretty, thin, with above-average-sized breasts pushing against her red T-shirt. Long black hair fell around her face in shiny waves like she’d just walked off the set of a shampoo commercial.
“It’s Kendra,” the woman said, her smile wilting around the edges. “We met at a party a week or so ago.”
Mayson tilted her head in question, still not quite recalling.
“I spilled champagne all over your pretty tuxedo.”
Ah. Yes. The pushy one. Mayson recalled in wincing detail the cool spill of the alcohol down her neck and the woman’s insistence on paying the cleaning bill.
“Excuse us.” Two women dressed in the yoga uniform of black tank, black pants,
and sandals came up behind Kendra, heading for the stairs.
“Oh, sorry!” Kendra moved aside and the women walked up the stairs, greeting Mayson with identical white smiles. Their yoga mats, clutched under their arms, forged a path ahead of them as they moved past.
Mayson turned back to Kendra. “What can I do for you?”
“Not much. I found out you owned this place and thought I might luck out and catch you here.”
“Well, here I am,” Mayson said. “Now what?” She could have already been in her car and halfway to her bath by now.
“A couple of people I met at that party take classes here. I was hoping you’d talk to me about yoga. Maybe give me some advice on what classes to take. I can even start today.”
But Kendra didn’t look ready for yoga. If anything she looked set for a night at the club in a tight red T-shirt tied off at one hip, black Capri leggings, and gold sandals with straps that wound up her slender calves.
“My classes are done for the day,” Mayson said. “You should come back tomorrow morning. My beginners’ session starts at eight-thirty.”
She came slowly the rest of the way down the stairs, her steps deliberately unhurried under the weight of Kendra’s intense stare.
“Tomorrow sounds promising. But for right now, how about some coffee?”
“I’m not a coffee drinker.” Mayson made her voice carefully neutral. If this woman was a potential client, she didn’t want to piss her off. But if she was just hitting on her, May-son wasn’t in the mood.
“There’s a great place I know that has the best tea and smoothies.” Kendra smiled, leaning against the stairs. Her car keys jingled in her hand. “Caffeine-free.”
There was something simultaneously inviting and secretive about the woman’s smile. But again, Mayson wasn’t in the mood.
“Listen, Kendra. I’m flattered but—” She stopped when her cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”
She slid the phone out of her hip pocket and answered Renee’s call. “Hey.”
