American Goth

by J. D. Glass

  “Drink,” I said and could feel the tiniest quirk of a grin work my mouth.

  “Wait here, then,” she asked, “otherwise you won’t let me pay for them.”

  I rolled my eyes at her and was about to argue the point when she curled her fingers into the edges of my jacket and tugged me to her. The kiss she gave me was purely sensual—and she didn’t merely slide her tongue between my very willing lips, she pressed her body to mine and kissed my mouth with intent, an intent I answered even as it made my knees loosen, made me force a hand around her waist and the other to the nape of her neck, everything forgotten but the race of blood through me, through her, the very real need to—

  “Wait,” she whispered into my ear, and leaving me with another small kiss, she strode through the crowd to the bar.

  With my heart rate and my knees unwilling to let me move very far, I leaned my back against the steel column and fumbled into my pocket for a cigarette and a light as I watched her, the set to her shoulders, the toss of her head, the pure “don’t fuck with me” confidence she radiated as she moved. She was beautiful, on every level, inside and out, and I knew it.

  Fran, I thought, was every inch, every bit, the golden champion everyone had so admired in high school.

  It had been…interesting, I reflected.

  When we finally had “switched,” since I’d promised we would, it had been a little awkward at first, and as I caressed her hips, untwisted the strap that had gotten caught up and smoothed it along the silken skin, I realized something: she was afraid, afraid of her own strength, her own power, and as much as she’d helped me find and explore myself, she hadn’t done that for herself, not really.

  Something had changed, between us, within me. She accepted me, welcomed me, let me be whatever I was, without reservation, without hesitation, from the embrace of my cock within her to the deepest hurt of my heart, a hurt we shared honestly. And it was the sharing, the sincere and accepting acknowledgment, that somehow set yet another part of me free, a part even I didn’t know was there; it allowed me to love her with an ease I hadn’t had before.

  As her friend, I wanted to help, wanted her to know herself; as her lover, I wanted to see that, to feel it, because I saw it so clearly in her. Her bravery awed me, left me humbly honored knowing that she would dare so much, face so much, test herself so deeply, with me, for me.

  I watched the muscles play in her back as she took another step away from the bed, and she adjusted whatever she needed to. I took in and admired the fall of her head, the drape of her hair as she set her hands on her hips, then glanced down her own body. And then, suddenly, something shifted for her, in her—I not only witnessed it, I could feel the switch.

  She squared her shoulders and tossed her head, and as she turned to me with the light from the window glancing from her eyes, the tiger no longer prowled behind them, trapped within. From the bronze cast that lit her skin in that same light, the jut of her jaw, the proud, proud set of her body, she was the great hunting cat, the lion unleashed.

  She really was. That beautiful body, the muscles that built her shoulders, stretched across her chest, the lush breasts I couldn’t fill my hands enough with, nipples dark, hard, tight…the taper of her ribs to her waist and the split, the narrow channel that led down her stomach to her navel, down to the lovely curve, the demarcation sharply heightened by the dark leather that skimmed skin over skin on compact hips. She wore that cock nice and low, good and proud. She wore it perfectly.

  I wanted that, wanted her, all of her, and I did my best to let her know it. “God, how I want you,” I told her, the words barely audible above the beat of my heart. “You…that…you’re just so fucking hot!”

  “You think so,” she stated more than asked, her voice silky and low as she neared.

  I glanced up at her eyes, the bright flame in them. “Yeah,” I breathed against her lips and I wrapped my arms around her and drew her down, the warm fit and weight of her on me very welcome as I covered us against the chill of autumn.

  Fran sucked the tip of my tongue, drawing it between her lips and into her mouth the same way she did my clit as her legs fit along, then became a velvet slide between mine.

  “Sammy,” she whispered when she took her mouth from mine, “is it really okay for me to want you like this, to want to do this?”

  A wayward lock fell down over her face, tickled against my neck, and I carefully stroked it behind her ear, reading the desire, uncertainty, and fear that swam in her eyes. I brushed my thumb against her cheek. “Yes,” I assured her, then pressed my lips against her neck to confirm it with the taste of her on my tongue. I reached down between us and guided her cock to me. “I want you,” I told her and gently bit the delicate skin under her jaw. “I want you to.”

  She drew in a slight shuddering breath before her body closed over mine, then caught my mouth with hers. She kissed me with a deliberate intensity she’d never shown before, a commanding thoroughness that delivered her intent, a sending of riotous sparks that flared under my skin while her cock slid between my thighs.

  Her fingers covered mine and I let go so I could smooth my hands along her face, her neck, the span of her shoulders and the muscles of her arms, to feel for myself the contained power and the strength of the woman above me, the tremor that moved through her, the result of her restraint as she played her cock against my pussy, and the pounding in my chest was painful, savage. My breath caught, became a solid weight in my throat, and in that one very naked second, I realized why: I was scared.

  “Sammer,” Fran groaned into my neck as her cock pressed with contained urgency against my entrance, “do we love each other?”

  “We do,” I assured her and myself. Still, I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through me.

  “But…but we’re not in love, right?” Her eyes searched mine and I searched deep for the answer, in me, in her.

  There was no denying we loved each other in ways so profound I had no way of defining them, and I knew she couldn’t either. But there was something… In these conscious moments, where there was time to reflect, to analyze, it was almost as if there was one last step, one last barrier held in place only by the fact that it seemed that if we said it out loud, put it into actual words and admitted this…this indefinable thing, it would plunge us both into something neither one of us could handle.

  “I think…” I began as I stared up into her eyes, caught once more by what I saw in them while I reached to skim my fingertips against her face, to loosely twine them in her hair over and over again. What I read, what I felt, from her, for her….it wasn’t something we could say, I could say, only show. “I don’t know.”

  She shifted her weight and caressed my cheek, traced my lips with her fingertip. “That’s okay,” she said and smiled so gently it pierced my heart, made my eyes sting. It made the fear recede and it completely disappeared when she lowered her mouth to mine. “I think I don’t know either.”

  If there was a kiss that could convey everything someone felt and meant, even with the meld we already shared, this was that kiss: honest love and muted longing, real friendship and unmistakably deep desire. It was the melody that played over the deeper, anchor notes of pain, linked in perfect harmony and timing to the rhythm of life.

  As strange as it may seem, there was a safety in that, a security in knowing that while I couldn’t, or perhaps, wouldn’t, name what we shared, we did share it, and we loved each other.

  We held each other carefully, tenderly. “I do know that I love you,” she whispered as she moved against me, erasing everything in the building need that made me burn, burn with a flame that licked along my legs as I skated my fingers down her spine, then fanned them across the toned and tight flex of her ass.

  “Me too,” I murmured against her lips, “I love you too.” It was such a relief to finally say it, to say it and know that she knew what I meant, the way I meant it, how much I meant it. And then I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, all I could do was
hold her tight, cling to her with everything I was, everything I could be as finally, finally…she filled me.

  There was the initial slow breaching of entrance that was a combination of thrill and bruise and I was surprised, the shock a lurch in my chest, that it actually hurt. But she pushed past that and farther into me, replacing the discomfort with the absofuckinglutely incredible slide of her cock fully within me, stretching me, and I couldn’t help but bear down on that.

  “Oh…” It was a soft and beautiful sound in my ear as once again she rested her body on mine and wrapped her arms around me. “This…feels really good.”

  “It does—you do,” I told her, reveling in the way we moved together, the profound sense of satiety at the complete body contact. Even my skin felt full.

  It wasn’t at all the same as other ways we’d shared love, but ultimately it wasn’t very different, either, and it was more than really good, the effort and strain of muscles that shifted under my hands, the glaze of her belly as her breasts grazed against me, and the clear, clear knowledge—beyond the hurts, the loss, the past—that I loved her, I really, truly loved Fran, my Frankie, for herself. It blazed through me, a heat that moved into my chest as she took my mouth with hers again, and I knew, I knew, she felt it too.

  Soon. It was too soon to end the sheer beauty of our embrace as my body tensed below hers and Fran herself was a sexy, sweet encouragement, in my ear with every hitch of her breath and the low song in her throat, the taste of her tongue on mine, the deliberate drive of her dick deep inside me, the heavy wet thrust. Her hands…her hands touched me everywhere with a love and longing that made me ache with her desire.

  “Don’t stop,” I begged her, speaking to the moment between us, what she was doing, to the pure clarity of how completely she loved me. It made me desperate to be even closer to her, to reach through until her very heart touched mine through the skin that slicked over hot, working muscles, the breasts that now pressed firmly against mine with the sublime ache of coalescence as we held each other in the ultimate connect, through the air and the Aethyr.

  I gripped and slid my hands along her back, to her waist, her gorgeous ass, wrapping my fingers around the leather that fit so snugly against her, then unable to stop running my fingers through the beautiful hot wet that lay beneath it.

  “Baby…please…don’t stop.”

  “I won’t.” She caught my face in her hands and as she stared into my eyes, I saw the glint of tears in hers. “Sweetheart, I promise—I won’t.”

  There was so much she meant in that, so much she was telling me, the rapport between us once again perfect, the sending of emotion and intent so clear that I let my body speak the words I couldn’t say any other way as I thrust my fingers into the open softness of her cunt and I came, wrapped around the lion that roared in my heart.

  And still, that wasn’t enough for her as she covered me with kisses stained with sweat and tears, a burning trail until she had me in her mouth, and I understood, I so very much understood her need to do that, to touch and taste the place her cock had been, because I had done that, had needed it too. But I also understood something else: I might not speak my pain, but she wouldn’t voice her desire—and what she wanted, what she really wanted was so very easy for me to give.

  “Frankie…” I spoke past the eloquent way she sucked on my renewed hard-on, dipped her tongue inside me with a precision that was about to make speech or even thought impossible as I stroked my fingers through her hair. “Baby, come here,” I asked and held my hands out to her.

  She raised her eyes, then folded her fingers around mine, and once more she covered me with her body, her cock dancing between us.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Do you—”

  “Shh.” I hushed her with a kiss, explored her mouth with my tongue. I let my hands, let my body guide her until I was where I knew she wanted me, and she had what she needed.

  “I’m gonna come, baby…” Her voice was a hot breath behind my ear that flowed down my neck, her arm wrapped tight around my waist as she jerked me off, the hard muscles of her belly working smooth along my spine as her fingers clutched through mine.

  “Oh yeah,” I groaned out, “come just like this, just like this inside me.” She felt so fucking good, and she felt so fucking right and I could feel how good she felt for herself, in herself, in me, and then there was no room for words, no room for air, no room for anything but Fran, my Frankie, beautiful and beloved, filling me exquisitely while her fingers were frantic on my clit, and over and under was the beat, always the beat, of my heart, of her heart through me as she came taking me with her, to her, her lips so wondrously soft on the nape of my neck, her body a beautiful warm weight on my back until we rested, amazed, sated, overwhelmed by the exchange.

  We lay awake for what seemed like hours afterward, reassuring each other of the naked power in touch, of the very real enjoyment of our bodies as they were, and we finally slept to the whisper touch of kisses and the incredible clutch upon the flutter of fingers within which in the end we both preferred.

  So with that on my mind and her kiss still fresh on my lips, the flame that flared before my eyes surprised me as a voice I recognized said, “You’re the prettiest boy I’ve seen in a while.” And as I recovered and accepted the light for my cig, I looked up into Kenny’s eyes.

  “Kenny, it’s me,” I told him and laughed at the searching look he gave me before he righted himself and grinned.

  “Bloody hell, mate,” he chuckled, then clapped my arm, “you look just like my kind of boy, and if we weren’t in a band together, I’d definitely do you anyway.” He grinned broadly. “Unless of course, that doesn’t trouble you?”

  “And what exactly is it that shouldn’t trouble her?” Fran asked as she stepped up with a pint for me and one for herself. She smiled sweetly at Kenny, but her tone was exactly like Elizabeth’s: silk over steel.

  I took the mug from her and she casually draped her now-free hand across my shoulder.

  “Nothing at all,” Kenny answered hastily.

  It didn’t require any extra sense of anything, or even the connection between us, to know that Fran had not only heard the earlier exchange, but was less than pleased about it.

  “I’m not sleeping with you, Kenny,” I told him very deliberately and I smiled at him as I eased my arm around Fran’s waist to reassure her. I slipped my fingers beneath her waistband, scrunching her tee out of the way a bit so I could smooth them against her satiny skin.

  “Right-o. No touchy, then,” Kenny agreed and saluted us both with his drink. “But still, you’ll make a boy turn his head, that’s for sure. Oh hey, Hannah and Graham will be here in,” he peered at his watch through the ambient flicker, “about fifteen minutes. And what’re you doing out and about anyway? Isn’t this a school night for you or something like that?”

  Fran took a sip from her mug, then snuggled closer and brushed her lips against my ear before leaning against me.

  “Night off,” I answered shortly, because suddenly the skin on the back of my neck prickled, sending a cold shiver through me that I covered by shifting my stance along the column, but then two things happened that took those thoughts out of my head.

  “Wotcher,” Graham greeted with a grin that turned into a wide smile as he caught sight of Fran’s head on my shoulder.

  “Hey.” I couldn’t help smiling back; I was the one with Fran, after all.

  “Hi,” she said and I could hear her smile as I felt her slide her thumb into my waistband.

  “Can’t believe you’re out tonight—great band’s coming on!” he said enthusiastically.

  “Yeah?” I may have sounded a bit more distracted than I’d meant to because Fran was skimming her fingers—a light little stroke that fit exactly to the circumference in my back pocket—teasing against the denim in the same way she would before she entered me, and it sent bolts of arousal flaring through me. I kissed her temple, let my fingers slide over the ridge of her hip, and p
ulled her that much closer to me, pressing and massaging against the warm skin, an unconscious imitation of how I’d move within her, until I suddenly realized what I was doing. I didn’t stop, though.

  “Absolutely smashing—they’re playing under a different name, of course, trying out new stuff, and”—he turned as a hand grabbed his arm and resolved into Hannah’s face above his shoulder through the flicker—“perfect timing!”

  “Of course—I’m a drummer,” she teased, before she saw me. “Ann, is that you or your brother?”

  I laughed. “It’s me—and I’m my brother,” I joked.

  “Looks fantastic,” she said and Fran’s grip shifted slightly as Hannah’s gaze seemed to almost automatically travel down past my waist. But in the next moment all was forgotten, because the lights went out for half a second and the most amazing sound flew through the air before the stage lit up.

  Graham, I decided, knew a lot about dicks, but less about music. If this was the new “dark-wave” stuff he’d decried weeks and weeks ago, then he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then again, he had said this was a fantastic band—maybe this was the exception to his rule, because Floorshow played the most amazing music I’d ever heard—and if it was dark, it spoke to me, and when it moved, it was with a sensual thrum that needed no translation. For the first time in my life, I was completely transported by the live performance of music, and I got it, I really got it. That was the music I wanted to play, to write, to breathe, to be to, and I listened and stared, rapt, lost in rhythm and melody, carried by the muscular pulse of the bass as they played.

  When Fran wasn’t next to me, people kept grabbing my rear end. Correction—men kept grabbing my rear. One particular guy I’d bumped into, or more accurately, was bumped into by on the way back from the bathroom was a bit more aggressive with his come-on.

  “Nice ankh,” he said after he’d jostled me. He pointed at the charm that hung over my shirt with his glass.

  I gave him a quick glance. He was pretty enough, several inches taller than me, with dark hair swept to one side and curving to his jaw, dark, dark eyes under full lashes that made his face look delicate. He wore the requisite black long-sleeve tee that hugged his frame and the single hoop earring that so many favored. Kenny’s sort, I thought as I gave him a brief nod in acknowledgment.