Quirks & Kinks

by Laurel Ulen Curtis

  “We’re fine!”

  “Right. Just don’t get your figurative guts all over the set, if you catch my drift.”

  “I’m a goddamn professional!” Easie yelled, pretty much discrediting her statement instantly.

  One choked snort sniffled out of Larry’s nose.

  With that, he shoved back from his chair, leaving behind our scripts as he stepped out of the room.

  “Can you believe him?” Easie railed, spewing fire and looking seriously gorgeous the whole time she did. When I stayed silent, she appealed to me louder. “Well, can you?!”

  “Easie,” I said softly, gesturing to her wild hair and aggressive stance without making a move from my relaxed sitting position.

  She surveyed herself briefly. Untamed hair gave way to flushed cheeks, and the line of her body clearly said she meant to fuck some people up. If she wasn’t five foot nothing, it probably would have been extremely threatening.

  “Shit.”

  “Easie,” I murmured through a chuckle.

  She sank her head into her hands and squeezed at her forehead with the tips of her fingers.

  “I’m a fucking mess!” she mumble-yelled into her hands. Her head jerked up and her panicked eyes met mine. “He’s right. I’m gonna get guts all over everything!”

  “Hey,” I called softly, chuckling. Standing, I pulled her into my arms and wrapped her up tight, whispering into her tiny ear. “You’re not.”

  “I’m not?”

  “We’re not gonna explode.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, surrendering to it and trusting me completely.

  I closed my eyes tight and inhaled her sweet hair.

  And prayed to God and Jesus both that I wasn’t lying. Because when she’d gotten upset, this time, she’d turned to me to calm her down.

  Not a cigarette.

  When I first read that the show today was about a couple with Psychrophilia, or the arousal to being cold and watching others be cold, I couldn’t see an outcome where this would be good for me.

  When I’m cold I get cranky and all the things that I like to be big tend to get smaller. But, in a nice twist of reenactment fate, we were only pretending to be cold—or doing the exact opposite of what swimsuit models do in beach shoots.

  In reality, the heat was cranked to eighty-five, both in room temperature and Easie’s hotness factor, and the ice bed we were laying on was plexiglass.

  She had managed to trick her lithe body into feeling cold though, and goosebumps had formed up and down the length of her normally smooth arms. Each time the set assistant sprayed her knees and my back with a spritz of water to mimic melting ice, her nipples pebbled further and her body pushed even closer.

  She was searching for warmth, and lucky for me, I just happened to be radiating it.

  Between her plump lips sat an ice cube, and she moved it from one sensitive spot to the next, getting me colder and colder by the minute.

  They’d done her makeup to make her lips look just the slightest bit blue, and I had to fight the urge to be worried. I knew it was fake, but your brain plays tricks on you when it’s someone you care about.

  Refocusing, I went back to Noah, the man I was portraying, and tried my hardest to slip into the place that came from deep in his mind.

  I moved my breath slower, savoring her every touch and watching as my nipples peaked and played their part. She didn’t miss it either, working the flesh slower and trying to control the widening of her eyes.

  It was a strange kind of beautiful to have this kind of job with your new girlfriend, practically every scene introducing something to our intimate relationship and not at the same time.

  We hadn’t explored much in our personal encounters, and I was perfectly content not to. Some might describe it as vanilla, but Easie tasted more like any and every other flavor under the rainbow. Salty and sweet, she gave herself in a different and delightful way every time.

  When and if she wanted to explore, I’d oblige. But until then, working on this show together was like living a strange double life.

  “I give up!” Easie screamed, slamming her butt back onto the heels of her feet and breaking the scene.

  Howie looked from her to me and back again, waving off all of the lurking and curious onlookers as he did. Easie, however, didn’t look anywhere but at me.

  “What are you into?”

  Her hair seemed to grow in disarray with each second her pleading question went unanswered. I searched her face for clues, but I couldn’t seem to figure out what she was asking me. Her every nuance said that she’d been stewing on this for a while, but for me, it was purely out of the blue.

  “What parts of this you are real?”

  Confusion clouded the link between my vocal chords and my vocabulary, so all that came out was a grunted, “Huh?”

  “This version. Of you,” she stuttered to explain. “I can’t tell where you stop and where your role on this show begins—what’s underneath all of these layers.”

  Howie busied himself with nonexistent tasks, but I knew he was listening—and I was sure he wasn’t the only one.

  Lowering my voice to barely a whisper, I tried to get to the bottom of her random rant. “Baby, what in the hell are you talking about?”

  “This. You. On the show.”

  “I need more words, Easie.”

  Her eyes turned mean, and I could practically feel the sting of her phantom fingers on my cheek. She was right on the edge of irritation, just itching to make me feel it with her.

  “You just seem so into . . . I don’t know . . . everything.”

  “Everything? That seems like a pretty broad statement.”

  “Everything we do here. You very clearly enjoy it,” she huffed. “But at home, we don’t do anything out of the ordinary.” She coughed. Cleared her throat. “I’m just . . . I don’t know what you’re into.”

  Jesus. She was worried she wasn’t enough for me. Crazy girl.

  “You.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m into you. Slow sex, fast sex, red sex, blue sex. If it’s with you, I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it.”

  “Red sex? Is that period sex? Are you a Blood Hound?” Her words ran together with her speedy delivery, and she looked like she was going to cry. “God, I knew it.”

  “Um, no,” I laughed, shaking my head and looking up to find a smirking Howie not even pretending to work anymore.

  Jesus. Nothing was private. I guess I could thank Easie for that one in this instance though.

  “I was just kind of Dr. Seuss-ing it. You know, improvising?”

  “I don’t think Dr. Seuss would approve of the context.”

  “Hey,” I said. “You’ve got to use what you’ve got. And all I’ve got up my sleeve is the Seuss.”

  “So you don’t want me to wear a bear costume and growl through my orgasm?”

  Howie laughed out loud, one sharp burst that cut through the air and made Easie notice we weren’t alone for the very first time. Her cheeks turned a magenta shade of pink, but she didn’t take off running or curl up in the corner.

  I shook my head to enforce and validate my verbal answer. “No.”

  “But you seem so into—”

  “I guess I’m a decent actor then,” I told her honestly. “If you want to try something, I’m down. I always will be. Otherwise, all the fetishes and kinks you see here are just a part of the job.”

  “But you’re so openminded.”

  “Being openminded to other people’s wants and needs doesn’t make them my own. If I have something outside of the box, I’ve yet to find it.” I grabbed her hips and pulled her close, whispering in her ear with a smile on my face. “If you’re really set on me being into something weird, I guess you’ll just have to help me search.”

  “GOD, THAT FEELS GOOD.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Laughter bubbled out of my chest. “Don’t get too excited. I don’t think this really count
s as a fetish.”

  “It totally does,” she argued. “I looked it up on Google.”

  “Uhhh,” I grunted, just barely stopping my eyes from rolling back into the recesses of my head. “You sat and Googled fetishes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good Christ, I would have loved to see that.”

  “Stop talking and enjoy the spoils,” she commanded.

  “I still can’t believe fingernail scratching is the fetish you came up with. You wanted to start easy, huh?” I teased.

  It cost me. “Ow!”

  “Whoops,” she faked. “I must have slipped.”

  “Is this gonna turn into a good blow job? Or are we just going for a different kind of experimentation in torture?” She was tickling the area with fervor and giving me brief flashes of her neighboring tongue. Too much more of this, and it would have to lead to death. There was just no other option.

  “Is there really such a thing as a bad blow job?” she asked, swinging her loose hair over her shoulder and running the tips of her fingers up, down, around, and anywhere she could to make me squirm.

  I tried to keep the pitch of my voice even as I answered. “What? You think mouth on penis equals good?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  I shrugged and tried to push my cock toward her mouth. Some men liked to say there was more to it, that there was such a thing as a bad blow job. But I didn’t believe it. As long as a woman was into it, putting in the effort to satisfy you any way she knew how, that was all that mattered. It was pretty hard to find fault in a place that was wet and hot and lent itself to making a woman’s eyes look wide and willing and wondrous.

  I sure couldn’t anyway.

  “You’re right. Your mouth on my penis equals good no matter how I slice it.”

  “Too bad that’s not part of the plan then.”

  I might have whimpered.

  “Relax,” she laughed. “It’s not part of the plan because I had something different in mind.”

  “Oooh, Oh, Oh,” I said, sitting up like a dog and pretending to beg. “Tell me it’s your ass in the air, knees in the bed, and my cock driving into you from behind.”

  “Uh,” she stuttered, her eyebrows curving with an extra arch. “It wasn’t. It is now.”

  “Ah!” she screamed as I tackled her to the bed and brought my lips to hers, moving slowly down the line of her neck and ending with a nibble on her exposed collarbone and laughing into the skin there.

  “Well, we’ve found at least two things that you’re sexually open to. Dirty talking and doggie style.”

  She pulled my face from her chest and waited for my eyes to meet her surprisingly serious ones before she spoke. Fidgety fingers rubbed at the skin of my bicep. “I think I’m just sexually open to one thing.”

  Her voice was soft and timid in a way that it never was, and the hold of her body told me it wasn’t the time to joke. “Yeah?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s that?”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she somehow managed to speak even softer. “You.”

  My forehead met hers and my eyes closed. “That’s the best thing you could have ever said.”

  “Really?”

  I groaned. “Oh yeah.”

  Rolling to my back, I took her with me, settling her in an enticing straddle at the jut of my hips. She squealed at the suddenness of the ride, but I didn’t slow down. One knee up turned into two, and I used the power of my thighs to thrust my hips upward, forcing her weight forward and her body flat against mine.

  She tried to push up onto her elbows, but I held tight, forcing her naked skin to stay against mine and her mouth to open in surprise.

  I wanted her so completely, that my arousal, unwilling to stay trapped in the confines of my body, formed a cloud around us, thickening the air and making Easie’s eyes turn heavy.

  “Let me feel you, Easie. From the top of your gorgeous head all the way down to the tip of your cute little toes, make me feel you.”

  “Anderson—”

  “Come on, baby. I’m planning on committing this to memory. You’d better make it good.”

  With one simple challenge, she came into herself, embraced her every movement, and let go of all her inhibitions.

  And sweet baby Jesus, it was good.

  Twice.

  Ten after eight the next morning, my phone chirped with an obnoxious tweet indicating a text. I tried to ignore it, but unfortunately, I’d brilliantly set my settings so that it wouldn’t stop until I made it go away.

  On the third little bird noise, I groaned, rolling over to feel the warm skin of Easie’s back. She slept soundly through the commotion, and I wasn’t surprised.

  She almost never woke up before ten, and she never got up before I did. We’d stumbled into a routine over the last week or so, and I couldn’t deny that I was sleeping much better than I normally did with her by my side. But I was still a relatively morning person.

  Her phone went off then, adding to the cacophony of bird noises with the simulation of a spring thunderstorm.

  “Dear God,” I mumbled into the smooth skin of her back. “It’s like Planet Earth in here. What’s next? The sound of rushing waves?”

  “Shhh,” Easie ordered, snuggling her face even deeper into the plush down of my pillow. “Sleep good. Noise bad.”

  “Hey, it’s not just my phone making noise.”

  “Fuck the phones, you loud talker. It’s your voodoo doll I’m poking with imaginary needles.”

  I laughed at that, slamming my morning wood against her back. “I’m poking something else.”

  “No kidding.” She begrudgingly rolled over, facing me with sleepy eyes and a slightly swollen, pillow wrinkled face. “Jesus, of all the times for you to be well endowed and ready to rumble, this isn’t it. Can’t a woman get some sleep?”

  Reaching for my phone, I swiped the screen to read the message that had started it all.

  Larry: Meeting. Nine AM. Tell your girlfriend.

  Though delayed by my curiosity, I finally got around to answering her. “No.”

  “What?” she whined, lifting her head from the pillow and cocking one eye open. “Last night you said you’d give me anything I wanted.”

  Shaking my head, I smirked. “Different context, Easie girl.”

  “Easie girl is not a good nickname. Makes me sound like a whore.”

  I wagged my eyebrows and took a pillow to the face for my trouble.

  “Alright,” I laughed. “Sorry.” I smoothed a wandering hand over her naked hip, dragging the fabric of the sheets off of her as I did. “But you do have to get up. We’ve got a meeting with Larry in under an hour. Which means—”

  “We’re probably already late.”

  “Righto, baby.”

  “Ughhhh,” she growled. “What’s with Larry and the meetings?”

  I stood up from the bed with a chuckle, tossed the pillow back at her head softly. “I’m pretty sure that’s his job. Keeping us on task.”

  “We don’t need to be fucking micromanaged.”

  I raised a skeptical brow and looked pointedly at her position—still in the bed despite the tight timeline of our schedule.

  She was smart and didn’t miss much. This wasn’t an exception.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “We might need to be managed.”

  “You do,” I teased, and then yelled like a little girl as she grabbed the flat sheet and MacGyver-ed it into a whip in point two five seconds. “Ahh!”

  “Come on,” she prodded, standing in the center of the bed and swinging her newly fashioned weapon while her eyes zeroed in on my very bare crotch. “Do the helicopter.”

  All it took were those three words—and my subsequent serious consideration—to realize that if anyone in this room was being managed . . . it was me.

  Engage main rotor.

  Ready for liftoff.

  “YOU’RE LATE,” LARRY STATED as we stumbled into the studio thirty mi
nutes late.

  I knew it was unprofessional, but Easie was irresistible, and the urge to feel her coming all around me one more time before we left won out over propriety.

  “Yeah,” Easie explained, hooking her elbow through mine and flipping one splayed hand out. “See, there was a . . . helicopter.”

  “And a cat,” I added helpfully, earning myself a well placed, yet surreptitious, elbow to the ribs.

  Larry’s skin bunched between his eyes as his eyebrows pulled together. Big shoulders hunched, wrinkling the normally smooth line of his charcoal gray suit. “Huh?”

  “Traffic,” Easie mumbled, fueled by a growing stampede of nerves. All of this meant more to her than it did to me, and this guy held the key to her fate. I lifted my free hand and rubbed soothingly at the skin of her looped arm.

  “There was an accident?” Larry asked in an attempt to clarify.

  I took the reins, squeezing her arm lightly to let her know, both to help Easie and to ensure we would move on. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”

  Silence crept in as he looked from one of us to the other, trying to make sense of a conversation he had absolutely no chance of decoding.

  “Whatever,” Larry finally muttered, resigned to the situation for what it was. “Sit. We have big news.”

  “Big news?” I asked, pulling out two chairs at the table and settling Easie into hers before slumping into mine.

  A combination wink and coy head tilt told me I would be rewarded for my chivalry later.

  I made a mental note to open all the doors and pull out all the chairs. In fact, I made an addendum on my mental note to add as many doors and chairs to my daily routine as possible.

  “Yep. The season finale. As you know we’ve got two more shows to film before that, but we just got the go ahead.”

  “The go ahead for what?” Easie asked, gnawing at her lip during the buildup.

  Echoing thuds sounded from the converted kitchen table as Larry did his own version of a drumroll. “We’re going to Vegas!” His eyes let up, and his hands shot out like horizontal fireworks with a touch of jazz fingers.