by Harper Bliss
She leans in and settles her lips on mine, gently teasing and exploring with her lips and tongue while her knee lightly grazes my sex. The kiss lasts so long I am lost. I feel on the brink of coming just from this unexpected tenderness. I think I would have been happy just kissing her and sharing this incredible intimacy, but apparently it isn’t enough for her.
She moves her mouth to my ear and gives a playful nibble that sends shivers racing up and down my back before she raises up until her nipple is at my lips. I’d wanted to suck it from the moment I first glimpsed her ample breasts in the leather bustier. Her sudden gasp lets me know she’s as turned on by nipple play as I am.
I lavish kisses on both her breasts and rub my cheek against the valley between them while her soft hands skim across my skin from thighs to shoulders and every sensitive area in between.
She slides her body against mine until her mouth is back over mine. This kiss is even more intense than the last. Her fingers move over me, against me, in me. Then she’s sliding again. Lower and lower. Stopping here and there to kiss and suck.
When she finally reaches my pussy with her mouth, I am long past teetering on the edge. I feel her thumbs spreading me slowly. Her soft tongue licks from my opening to my clit.
I push my hips up when her tongue leaves my clit.
“Be still, Pet.” She pinches my ass. “Or I’ll stop.”
Once again I am reminded who is really in control. I lower my ass back to the sheets and enjoy her sweet kisses on my thighs and hips. She pauses with her mouth just above my clit. Her warm breath keeps me so amped up. “Do you want me to fuck you now?”
I moan and writhe against the bed. She remains still. I summon strength from somewhere and regain the power of speech. “Please, Mistress.”
“Please what?”
“Fuck me.”
I’ve barely uttered the last word when I feel her hot mouth take my whole clit inside and two of her long fingers thrust in me.
The pressure that has been building for weeks suddenly finds sweet release. I am unable to prevent myself from bucking and moaning as she continues to pump me even harder. I am sore and tender in the most enjoyable way as she keeps up with her gentle licking.
She coaxes me to one more orgasm then crawls back up to share in another soulful kiss. I lie in her arms and drift off thinking I may never want to leave Vegas.
Hit the Top
Robin Watergrove
The first time you hit the top, you know it. There’s a point, beyond breathlessness and muscle fatigue, where your body will try anything to get you to stop. You’re breathing so hard and fast that your lungs feel like they’re caught in a perpetual gasp. The chest pains trying to pull your rib cage closed compete with the hot pressure of your heart trying to hammer its way out. Every muscle that’s not burning with exertion is shaking because you have no energy to steady it. There’s something thick and wet at the back of your throat.
You lift your hand to your face, and instead of rising in a straight line, it veers to the left and swings back in on its way up. Your fingers land imprecisely on your skin to wipe the sweat away, then fall back the way they came.
You can’t get enough oxygen. At the anaerobic peak, your body does the impossible. It pushes harder still, with no air, no fuel for the machine, simply because you tell it to. In the thick of the chaos, you are in control. Stripped down to just your essence, your tendons. One side of your open mouth curls up into a snarl. You hit the top. The pain is nothing compared to the rush.
You’re wiped clean. Reality’s messy balancing act of intellect, emotion, and physicality falls away. You’re all willpower. Everything else wilts in your grip.
It takes a certain kind of person to hit the top. You’ve probably seen us at the gym. I’m the one that’s getting undressed with shaky hands, leaving my sweaty clothes in a pile under the bench, and walking to the shower with my eyes on the floor. I’m still coming down from an hour of cycling or lifting or swimming and I’m not ready to look at you yet. I feel too exposed.
Kind of like how I cover my face when I orgasm. Working out is a lot like sex. You get out of it what you put into it. Some of us are more committed than others to finding that high. Maybe we feel like we need to reassert control over our wayward minds and bodies. Maybe it just depends on what you like.
“Hi Joe.”
“What’s up, worker bee?”
“Nothing new.” I set my lunch down on the break room table next to him.
“What’d you do today?”
He’s asking what I did at the gym, like he does every day. We’re creatures of habit. We do the same thing, over and over, all day long. Sit at computers, read things in one language, type them out in another language. It’s a great job, actually. I can work whenever I want, as long as I get in 40 hours a week. For me, that means two to three hour lunches, most of which I spend in the gym.
“Spinning,” I say.
Joe is eating a tuna sandwich, like usual. “Was she there?”
I nod through a mouth full of tofu. I wipe the back of my hand over my mouth and say, “Yeah. And super tan.” My favorite trainer has been missing-in-action for the past week and a half. I had been talking circles with Joe every day at lunch, hoping she was on vacation, worrying she was gone for good.
“She looks good,” I add. “She always looks good.” Better than good. When I walked through the doorway into the indoor cycling room, I saw her crouching down, putting her shoes on. My stomach hit the floor and nearly pulled me down with it.
Just the sight of her sends me spiraling. It’s less about her body and more about how she carries herself. It’s how strong she looks when her legs are bent and her head is lowered. It’s the subtle swagger in her step when she walks. It’s the way her head tips back when she laughs.
Joe is watching me. He says, “You should ask her out.”
We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. The impossibility of the suggestion doesn’t even trouble me any more. There’s no way I’d actually do it. “What should I ask her out to do?”
“Some—” Joe waves his hand, “some kind of workout stuff!”
“I only work out at her gym.”
“So start working out somewhere else and invite her.”
“Is that even allowed? She works at a gym. Can she go to a different gym?”
He stares at me. “You are the most put together person I know. How can you not figure this out?”
I work on top of the gym. Of her gym. My life fits together like a dollhouse city. I live in an apartment just three blocks from the office building where I work. At lunch, I come down to the gym on the first floor, work out, buy lunch from the deli across the street, and go back to my desk.
Some days I go by the Whole Foods a few blocks south; most days I forget. This evening, at home and grocery-less, I eat the heel of a loaf of bread with so much almond butter that my teeth stick together.
The real reason I’ve never asked her out is that she’s never given me any indication she’s interested. One time—exactly one time; I didn’t need to try twice—I hit on her, pretty directly. I complimented her workout tights, she said thanks, and that they were hand-me-downs from Terri, another trainer at the gym. I said, “They look better on you,” and she turned to me with wide eyes and said, “Wow.” She laughed a little and I laughed a little and we both walked away. Then I avoided her for a week.
She’s quiet, like me, so we barely talk to each other anyway. I wish I knew the secret to starting conversations because I’d love to know more about her. I wish I knew what motivated her, what she wanted.
I finish my untoasted toast and lick the last of the almond butter off my fingers. The floors in my apartment are always freezing cold in the winter so I’m wearing two pairs of socks and an old fleece jacket, holding my knees to my chest. Suddenly, loneliness takes a fistful of my insides and yanks down.
If I look my own motivations squarely in the eye, the curiosity is self-serving. I
want to know what she wants so I can be that. All I want is to fuck her, be fucked by her. We never talk, so what is there to want but her body?
The first time I took a class with her, I was impressed by the silence. Most trainers can’t shut up. But Jess—that’s her name by the way—knows when to stay quiet. She cues us up for the end of a spinning track. “Thirty seconds left. Now push.” Then she drops her head and rests her forearms on the handlebars, like she’s making herself more aerodynamic. We ride out the thirty seconds with just the beat of the music coaxing us on.
I watch her face for the moment one side of her lip curls up. I like to be there with her, at the top. Three breaths from failure, legs burning, hands trembling. Suffering next to someone is almost like knowing them. Competition is a bond you can share with strangers, so even the lonely can feel like they’ve made a connection.
I guess I see the way intensity thrums under her skin and I wish I knew how to tame my own thirst for more, to be better, stronger, fiercer, and wear it so effortlessly. I see so much of myself in her that the extra parts, all the things she has that I don’t—her confidence, her ease interacting with others, her commanding voice when she teaches—intimidate me. That’s why I keep my distance. I would never sign up for personal training with her. The pathetically one-sided sexual tension would be too much for me to deal with. Besides, I push myself hard enough.
I cry on the kitchen floor for a little while. I don’t ask myself why. Tears are like yawns. They just happen sometimes.
It’s January and the gym is full of New Year’s Resolvers. My usual locker is taken, so I end up in an unfamiliar corner of the locker room. I’m in my bra and underwear before I notice her standing right next to me.
Jess is pulling on a bright blue pair of tights. She has on a yellow sports bra and a bunch of jewelry I haven’t seen before. I startle, which startles her, and our eyes meet.
Now I have no choice but to say something. “Nice tights,” is the first thing I come up with, which makes it seem like I’m watching her get dressed.
“Thanks. They’ve got weird seams.”
“Oh yeah?” Drop it, drop it, drop it—too late now. “What do you mean?”
She finishes pulling the tights over her ass while I watch, try not to watch, watch anyway, then she twists to show me the back of her legs. The seams run from her inner thighs, down and back to the center of her calves, then around to the outside of her ankles. The line highlights her curves, the beautiful bow of her hamstrings. Trying for lighthearted, I say, “Weird in a good way, though.”
“You think so?” Jess starts stripping the jewelry off and setting it inside her locker. “I’ve got thick legs and you’ve got to dress for your shape.”
My head is racing, stumbling for something to say other than, You’re ripped. You have the most amazing legs. What comes out is an incredulous, “Nooooo.”
Jess just raises her eyebrows at me.
“Thick in a good way.” The words are building, latching themselves to each other before I can think them through. “I’d kill for your legs. Like, you should be proud. Of them.” I laugh nervously.
Jess is standing still, one hand resting in her locker. “I am proud of them.” She’s looking right at me, studying me. “You just have to dress for your shape.”
“Oh yeah.” Embarrassment becomes mortification. I’m nodding way too vigorously. “Yeah, I didn’t mean, I mean that’s good. You should be proud.” Jess is already walking away from me, but I’m still talking. “That’s awesome. Glad you are.”
My chest caves in. I’m ready to avoid her forever but it’s Tuesday and I haven’t missed her Tuesday weights class in months. The only way to make this whole thing worse would be to call attention to it by skipping her class to work out alone. I get dressed with my face bright red and my heart pounding.
I walk into the studio, step around a set of weights on the floor, and hear, “Hey Sarah!”
When I look up, this girl I met last week, whose name might be Amy, is smiling at me. “Oh hey.” I try to keep my voice down because Jess and someone I don’t recognize are standing right behind her.
“Hey, do you run?”
“I, uh—” I’m way too flustered to talk about this right now. “Yeah, sometimes. I’m a little rusty.” This is not true. I hate running with a bright and burning passion. It is the only cardio exercise that I avoid at all costs. But a lukewarm answer feels like a good way to end this conversation.
“When?” Jess chimes in from behind Amy.
“What’s that?”
“When do you run?”
“Oh, whenever I can fit it in.” Desperate to deflect the conversation, I ask, “You?”
“Five.”
“In the morning?”
“Yeah,” Jess says. The other women have walked away and it’s just the two of us again.
“Well, I guess that makes sense. You always seem so busy, working here. I’m not surprised you get up super early.”
“When do you get up?”
“Early. Pretty early.” I nod with raised eyebrows. This is also not true.
“Wanna run?”
“What?”
“I do better with training partners. I need someone to run with. Do you live around here?”
My heart jumps into my throat. “Yeah.”
“Meet me at Oak and 5th then. I’m off the rest of the week, so let’s say Monday at 5.”
“Okay, cool, yeah.” Jess turns away and I say, “I’ll be there.”
After class, I race up to the office and fly in through the break room door to find Joe already at our table. His head snaps up and I pretend to faint.
He laughs, eyes bright and wide. “Tell me! What happened?”
“We have a date.”
Joe’s jaw drops and he jumps to his feet. “You what?” He rushes forward and grabs my arms, “You have a what?”
I shake my head with the ridiculousness of it, giggling and delirious, feeling like a teenager. I say, “We’re going running. We’re going to be running buddies!”
Joe’s wide smile doesn’t budge but he shakes his head slowly. “You hate running!” As though this is also good news.
I crack up and Joe hugs me. He hustles me around the room in a little jig. “Good job!”
I’m so nervous Sunday night that I can’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. I get up at 3 a.m. and put on my workout gear. I have a waking nightmare where I manage five steps at Jess’s pace and then keel over with my hands on my knees and wheeze, “You keep going.” I leave the house wearing brand new running shoes, which I hope she doesn’t notice, and puffy insulated pants.
The reality of it doesn’t really hit me until I’m at the corner of 5th and Oak, waiting for her. It’s pitch black between the streetlights and there is no one but me outside in this frigid city. The sidewalks are slick with overnight ice and I’m shivering, breathing clouds.
Then Jess appears and my world narrows to the sight of her. She has on tights that show off her legs and a thick sweatshirt that rises in a fashionable cowl around her neck. It looks so soft. What if we just hugged, instead of running? I could say, saving us both the trouble, I’ll put my hands under your sweatshirt and keep you warm. She smiles and I smile back.
“Ready?” Jess asks when she’s close enough.
I figured we would discuss pace or distance or that she would at least give me a chance to warn her that I was going to disappoint her. But I just say, “Yeah,” and she starts to run down the block.
Her pace is faster than mine at first. I don’t know if I speed up or if she slows down, but we settle into a rhythm. It’s an uncomfortably fast rhythm, but I can probably keep it up for half an hour. Jess doesn’t talk and neither do I.
I focus on keeping my shoulders loose. What feels like half and hour comes and goes and we’re still running. I’m fighting myself to keep my breathing in check, scrabbling to pull air in, then shoving it out again.
Fatigue is insistent, te
lling me over and over that this is too much. I reach the point where I feel like I absolutely have to stop, then push past it. I reach that point again, feeling dizzy this time, and push past it again. I reach it twice more before it feels like all the blood in my body is pounding through my neck and pooling in my legs, making them heavy and clumsy. I vow to reach the end of the block before I tell Jess I’m done, but once I’ve caved to the idea of stopping, I can’t keep up the pace, and my steps start to slow. I see Jess start to slow ahead of me but can’t find the energy to call out to her. I stop with my hands on my knees, breathing so hard I can’t talk, can’t move. Too much, that’s much too much. My body keeps juddering like it’s falling apart.
I don't hear Jess and figure she’s run off until she says, “Good run.” She claps my shoulder, sounding barely out of breath. I can’t look at her. At least that’s over. “See you tomorrow?” she asks.
I give her a thumbs up without raising my head.
Tuesday morning, my body hates me. I’m resigned to it, standing on Oak and 5th with stiff hamstrings, ready to run silently behind her for an hour. Jess shows up, smiles, and takes off.
This time I was smart enough to bring my phone. I wait as long as I can before checking the time. I count down the minutes until 6 am. It comes and goes; it’s 6:06 and I’m still waiting for her to stop. Is she waiting for me to stop? I put my phone away and try to run like I’m not in agony, like I could run for as long as she wants to. I hit the mental wall, trip, find my rhythm again, hit the wall, over and over. I check the time. 6:17. My exhausted body starts to question my unwavering mind. Why is this rewarding? My knees are liquid. What is the reward for doing this?
To be close to her, my mind answers. To show her I can keep up with her. That I’m worthy.