Slow Hand (16 page)

He made no voluntary motion, but I saw the rising of his
heavy cock, and the blood-flushed, rounded head parted the silken curtain of his dressing gown, roused by my nakedness. I had never seen it before, and it was bigger and more solid than any of my fantasies.

I smiled and licked my lips. A few steps more, and I sank to my knees before him.

“No,” he said. He caught me by the shoulders and raised me up.“I’m going to fuck you—the way I should have done years ago. You won’t get away from me this time.”

I was stunned. It wasn’t possible that this was the same young man I’d picked up in a bar almost twenty years before—he wasn’t old enough, and he spoke with an English accent. But if he wasn’t the same man, how did he
know?

His hands were on me, rougher than I remembered, and greedier as he felt and fondled my nakedness. Then he pulled me hard against him, the silk of his robe like the cool fall of water against my skin. His warm, firm cock butted at my sex, and he kissed me. How I could remember such a thing with any certainty after so long a time, I don’t know, but his lips felt like the same lips, and his mouth tasted still of desirable sins: of whiskey and sugar and, very faintly, cigarettes. I nearly swooned with pleasure as his tongue moved in my mouth and his hands, gripping my hips, moved to caress and explore my buttocks and finally between my legs.

He laughed, finding me so wet and ready for his probing fingers.“You’re hot, aren’t you? Can’t pretend you don’t want me.”

“No,” I murmured into his mouth, agreeing. I wanted him, now, hard, fast, slow, any way at all.

Without letting go of me, his mouth fastened firmly, devouringly, on mine, his cock prodding me, he walked me backward and pushed me down on my back on the very same leather couch where I’d sat drinking coffee with my husband a few hours earlier.

The shock of memory, of sudden guilt, made me struggle up and exclaim,“No—I can’t—”

“Oh, yes you can.”

“No.” I said it reluctantly as I struggled to rise, sorry that he wasn’t stopping me, outraged that I wasn’t stopping myself. But my freedom was an illusion. As soon as I had regained my feet he caught me in his arms and picked me up with a strength I had not known he possessed. Ignoring my feeble efforts to escape, he turned me around and pushed me down, face first on the couch. It was warm and solid, both yielding and supporting, covered in leather so fine that I had the sensation of having been pressed down on top of some other person. Before I could even catch my breath he was lifting me by the ass, a cheek in each hand, and then I felt his lips on my labia, his hot, clever tongue raking my clitoris.

All protest, all urge to flight, rushed out of me in a low moan of pleasure. He drew his head away with a low laugh.“Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Let me do anything but fuck you…. But that’s what I’m going to do, and nothing you say can stop me.”

I said nothing. I didn’t think about what I wanted, or what was right. I lay still and let him position me for his pleasure. I was lying nearly flat, facedown on the broad leather-cushioned couch, my legs dangling over the edge. He lifted my ass and parted my legs and the head of his cock nudged at the slick lips of my cunt. I couldn’t see him anyway, this stranger my lover behind me, so I closed my eyes and gave myself up to physical sensation.

He was very big and greedy in his lust. Although I was very wet and willing, he spared me no tenderness but thrust himself inside me hard and fast, using his hands to part the cheeks of my ass at the same time, as if he wanted to split me in two. Even as I welcomed and wanted this penetration, at the same time the sensation of being forced was strong, and I cried out, half fainting with the shock of it.

“No …oh, no…”

He laughed and thrust again, this time burying himself to the hilt in me. Withdrawing slightly, he thrust again.“No?” With each thrust he repeated the word which came out sometimes as a croon, sometimes as a gasp, and I echoed him.

“No … no … no …”

Our denials came closer and closer together as he found a hard, driving rhythm that satisfied both of us. I lost all sense of place and time and even of self as he drove into me and drove himself, and me, finally, over the brink into a fierce, all-consuming orgasm, with a final shout in which our two voices mingled.

A little while later I felt him withdraw. I made a small sound of protest but no move, too exhausted and happy where I was, sprawled facedown and legs spread on the couch. Until I heard the door to the library open.

Annoyed that he could leave me this way, I opened my eyes and raised my head just as the lights came on. There in the doorway, coolly surveying me and my lover, was my husband.

He looked at me, lying naked and flushed, and then at the man, also naked, his still-rampant penis glistening with our mingled juices. It was very quiet. And then, shockingly, he smiled.

“Happy anniversary, darling,” he said.“I hope you enjoyed yourself?”

I began to push myself up, my mind whirling.

“Oh, no,” he said.“Stay there, please. Or shall I ask our friend to hold you down?”

My erstwhile lover was beside me at once, his hands on my shoulders firmly keeping me from changing my position.

“I certainly hope you enjoyed yourself, because now it’s my turn,” my husband continued. There was a note in his voice that I had not heard in a very long time, and I suddenly realized that he had set this up, a sexual game of a sort I had never imagined he would want to play, an unexpected anniversary gift for both of us, and suddenly I felt more excited than I would have thought possible.

“You’ve been a naughty girl,” said my husband.“So I’ve asked our friend to stay…. I’m going to have to punish you first, before we can kiss and make up.”

I began an ineffective struggle to get away, but the stranger had no trouble restraining me.“No,” I whimpered.“Please. No.”

AU
THOR’S NO
TE

The exuberance of Liz Clarke’s story was extremely heartening to come across, after seeing so many submissions by older, wiser—and more depressed—women closer to my own age who either lack for opportunity or who’ve pretty much, for the usual reasons, given up on dancing (or“scrumping”) the night away. The sexuality of such nineties students as Clarke depicts, shadowed as it is by AIDS, perhaps is more highly charged, more polymorphous
because
of that mortal threat. But I can’t say that I felt anything other than grateful after encountering this not quite sophisticated—yet not quite innocent, either—example of their youthful energy, optimism, and zest for romance.

“S
o you have multiple lovers. How exciting.” Joel was starting to get on my nerves. He was also lying through his teeth; he was jealous as hell.

I just smiled at him. My feet were starting to freeze. I’d taken my shoes off to run through the mud in the cornfield, but
now the wind was picking up. We’d just gotten back from spring break. Or rather, he’d gotten back; I’d stayed on campus.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“We agreed not to tell. You know how people gossip around here.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Not a sno-cone’s chance in hell.“I’m sorry, Joel, I promised.”

He sulked. Several hundred yards away, at the edge where the field and woods met, there was another het couple rolling around. I looked out across the field at Mt. Jasmine and the Gourami Range.

“Tell me about your break. How was LA?” I said. That distracted him for a while. He told me about all the parties he’d gone to.

“I missed you,” he said.“You’re the sexiest girl I know.” Translated, that meant I wasn’t beautiful but he considered me worth fucking anyway.

“Woman,” I corrected automatically.

We walked back to Amphlett Place.

“Who was it?” he persisted, reaching to touch the bite-mark on my throat, which was what had tipped him off.

“Joel. I really can’t tell. Don’t take it personally.”

“Was it Elliot?”

“Please!”

“Gabe or Cat?”

“What makes you think that?” I said, very very casually.

“You said you spent break in your apartment bonding with them.”

I laughed.“It wasn’t Gabriel or Cat.” It was Gabriel
and
Cat.

Joel went back to his apartment. I went back to my apartment. As far as I was concerned, after the way he’d dissed me before break, he’d better consider himself lucky to ever see the inside of my room again.

I’d gone over to his place the night before he left to say good-bye. He was scrubbing the bathroom sinks, and he had a Crockpot of beef stew going. It was like walking into the Twilight
Zone. I have hideous psychic scars from childhood Crockpot meals.

“What are you doing?” I climbed onto the counter beside where he was scraping at several semesters’ worth of smeg.

“Cleaning. I mopped the bathroom floor and cleaned the kitchen and did all the dishes everybody left.”

Oh, Lord. The problem was, he was rabidly attractive. He had Bambi eyes and long dark curls, and he smelled sweetly of clove cigarettes and reefer. Twenty years from now I’ll catch a whiff of cloves, and it’ll knock me to my knees. I reached out and traced my finger along the curve of his ear. He had his hair back in a faded ribbon ponytail holder. Stop cleaning that damn sink! I hadn’t
intended
to jump him when I went over, but maybe it was the challenge, or the cloves, or something. He put the sponge down. Progress. I pulled him over and locked my legs around him, slid my tongue up from his collar to the notch behind his ear.

“I’m cooking dinner for Katya. She’s coming over in about half an hour,” he said.

I took hold of his hair and kissed him good and slow, grinding my hips into him. Oh, yes. That ought to get his attention. When I slid off the counter to press my whole self against him, my knees were syrupy.

“How long?” I pulled him into me, my back against the doorframe of his room. My hand down his belly to a firm hold on his crotch.

“Half an hour.”“Mmm …”

His head went down to the space between my breasts, and he unbuttoned the top of my shirt. Half an hour was realistic, knowing him. I could manage with half an hour. I wanted to drag him into his room and throw him down. I could hardly breathe. God, what
was
it about him?

He squeezed my thighs and pulled away from me.“Katya’ll be here soon. You’d better go.”

You’ve got to be kidding. The smells of Crockpot
au boeuf
and Comet cloaked the scene. He turned back to the sink and picked up the sponge. He wasn’t kidding.

I buttoned my shirt.“Have a good break,” I said, heading for the couch where I’d dropped my leather jacket.

He followed, sponge in hand. He had a lot in common with sponges.“You too.”

“Have a good dinner.” Die of botulism. I pulled on my jacket. My knees still felt shaky, and my cunt was screaming in frustration. Which person in this picture has the warped sex drive?

“Thanks.”

I paused in the doorway, holding it open.“Tell Katya hi.”

“Maybe you can come over later tonight.”

“Maybe.” Maybe, as in, maybe you fully deserve to eat Crockpot beef stew. He’d seen the last of that shirt I borrowed from him.

Outside the stars were ice chips. I glanced toward my apartment. Patricia had materialized and suction-cupped herself to Gabriel as soon as Alan and Sarah had left together. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that; not right this second. I wasn’t in the mood to do anything except fuck. All lubed up and no place to go, I thought sourly.

Except that wasn’t entirely true. Cassie had come over a couple of days earlier and told me she’d changed her mind about our ban on exchanging fluids—as we romantically phrased it. Actually, it was her ban. I failed to see the difference between her exchanging fluids with me and with the men she was fucking. If anything, my fluids were safer.

At the moment I certainly had a surplus of fluids, so I turned around and went to Cassie’s. The Goddess was smiling on me; she was home.

When she’d come to see me on Thursday, Cassie had also had a suggestion involving Gabriel. And her. And me. I didn’t know what kind of revelation she’d had, but I wasn’t going to complain. Maybe it had to do with what was going on among the group in the apartment already. Gabe had of course expressed interest when I informed him of Cassie’s little proposition. Anything sexual caught Gabe’s interest. But, he said, he wasn’t too into it. Mainly he didn’t know Cassie all that well.
And I knew Cassie all that well, but I wasn’t really into the specific nature of her idea. We needed to talk about it.

It was as good a pretense as any.

Warning! this part of the story reinforces the notion of bisexuals as promiscuous scum who view same-sex recreation as a substitute for the Real Thing. If you believe that stupidity already, nothing I can say is going to change your mind and you’ll get offended in a few paragraphs.