Women in Lust

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Finally, I hear his footsteps. My teeth ache. My lips are so dry I swear I can feel them cracking. The knife has been in my mouth for a long time now. It’s become part of me. I know its edges and its flavor. I am still afraid, but not the way I was before. That was the kind of fear that would have made me jump and clench, that could have put me in danger. This fear is sharply honed, as finely pointed as the blade in my mouth, and it narrows into a straight line at my clit.

  “Open,” he says, and I drop the knife from my mouth into his hand.

  He catches it easily, flicks it open where I can see the blade shine. “Good slut.”

  Instantly, I’m wet again. All that time waiting slips away and my body returns to where it was, hips rising up into the air in want. I lick the bit of dryness from my lips, my tongue already salivating around the missing taste of metal.

  Kade presses me down with the flat of his palm, until I am a long straight line on the bed. One hand reaches between my thighs, a few fingertips stroking.

  “Still scared?” he asks.

  “Yes. No.”

  “Perfect.” The not-sharp edge of the blade makes a few slow, long sweeps across my back. I hold myself still, don’t arch up into his touch, even though that’s what I want. Harder. Stronger. Faster.

  He sees the restrained movement. “Do I need to tie you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Breathe.”

  I exhale, then exhale some more, pushing out all the breath I have in me, emptying my lungs and then whatever reserve lies beneath my lungs. And then I am still, not just the outside, but the inside, in that place that never, ever quiets.

  Kade turns the knife, lets the very tip drag across my skin. The pain is not as bad as I expected, a sharpness like a nail. It is both dulled and heightened by his slippery fingers slowly teasing my clit. It’s a very light touch. He’s breaking my skin, but barely. Like the scrape of a fingernail. Not even a paper cut.

  The next path is spine to shoulder, a sweeping drag of blade. He isn’t cutting into me, I don’t think, not enough to draw blood, but it’s hard to tell.

  I breathe with my whole body.

  He draws with his whole blade.

  Together, Kade and the knife create their unknowable pattern across my skin. Every touch of the blade sends me somewhere deeper and somewhere higher. My nipples are hard and sensitive, and when I exhale, they brush against the sheets in a sharp ache that’s so different from the thin lines of pain across my shoulders.

  Each pull of the knife is different from the last, and the same, too. The way it starts, sharp pinprick; the way it slides, slippery line of pain; the way it ends, fading so quick into nothing that I am already aching for the next one. I feel like a knife myself, lying so straight and still, everything honed. Invincible even as Kade is opening my skin, exposing the part of me that no one else has ever seen.

  “Don’t come,” he says. “You’ll shake too much.” His voice is low and growled, his breath tight and quick, and I realize suddenly how much restraint he is showing, how hard he must be working to hold back.

  This alone makes me want to come. I let out a sound that might be a response, or it might just be the final bit of breath leaving me.

  “No, please,” I say, which makes no sense, but my mouth is not working, my brain is not connecting to my tongue. “I can’t…”

  “Just a few more,” Kade says.

  I breathe.

  He stops drawing.

  “Done,” he says.

  At the same time, he sends his fingers deep inside me and leans down to lick the edges of his work. The heat of his mouth, the slow draw of his tongue over my teased skin, his fingers curling inside me while his thumb circles my clit—it sends me down and up, every bit of me clenching and releasing until my head goes dark. I see red and black, I feel red and black—they’re the colors of my nipples against the sheets, his fingertip across my pulsing clit, his hand holding the knife against my back.

  When my head stops spinning and sliding, Kade kisses my neck, softly. “Beautiful,” he whispers. “You have to see.”

  I reach for him instead, my hands trying to find his body. Right now, all I want is his cock—I want to see his arousal from what he’s doing, to wrap my tongue around the curve of his head while my back pulses and aches, to lie down on the sheets, feeling them scratch my tender shoulders with every thrust inside me.

  “Later,” he says.

  He holds me tight, then helps me up and positions me so that my length is in the bedroom mirror, my back to the mirror. One of Kade’s hands is on my neck, the other still holds the blade.

  I turn my head so I can see. Kade’s blade has cut me, not to bleeding, but to marking. A pair of raspberry-colored wings feathers out across my back and shoulders.

  “It’s…” I don’t have any words for what I feel when I see it.

  I am marked. Seen. Exposed. I am all of these things, but only for Kade. Only because he makes me do the things that I am most afraid of, the things I want most of all. I feel a sense of relief, as though I’ve passed a test, a test of strength and arousal, of my ability to be stretched and broken open.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I sag against his body, let him hold me up.

  “I’m not done,” he says, and his voice shifts, deepens. His hand on my neck tightens, and fear slides down through my belly, clinches my pussy in a tight pulse. The knife in his hand flashes and shines. “In fact, I’ve hardly begun.”

  “On your knees, slut,” he says and when I don’t move fast enough, he bends me down on the bed, his nails digging at the back of my neck as he forces me into position. I shiver against him, let out a noise. I can’t help it.

  “Aw,” he tsks. “Are you afraid, slut?” he wants to know, his teeth edging my ear, that hard edge cutting the corners of his voice.

  “Yes,” I say. My voice is muffled by the sheets, by the greedy clenches of my pussy, by the pulse that pounds in my throat.

  The point of the knife draws lazy circles across my back, begins a soft, slow cut into my skin just as he slides the tip of his cock between my legs.

  “Good,” he says. “You should be.”

  COMFORT FOOD

  Donna George Storey

  One bite of that butterscotch pudding and suddenly I knew everything was going to be all right.

  If one of my more sensible friends had been sitting at the table with me, she would have told me the pudding had nothing to do with it. The new buoyant sensation in my chest was the natural outcome of a relaxed vacation by myself at a charming country inn. The crazy grin on my face, the almost sexual quickening of my breath, were but a long-delayed visceral understanding of all the work I’d done in therapy over the last year. There was no need to wallow in misery any longer. Dylan’s affair and my subsequent decision to divorce him were only symptoms of our buried grief for the real death of our marriage years before. It was time to move on.

  However, since I was alone and had no need to be reasonable, I knew the epiphany was all in the pudding. Perhaps it was the creamy smoothness caressing my tongue like satin? Or the bottomless depth of flavor: caramel, tropical vanilla and an almost floral sweet cream, all mixed together with something else mysterious, alluring, even addictive?

  Whatever the reason for the magic, at that moment, I was very glad to be alive.

  When I finished my dessert, resisting the urge to lick the bowl clean, I waved over the pretty waitress.

  “Does your chef give out recipes? I’d love to make this pudding at home to remember my vacation.”

  “Actually, I’m new here, I’m not sure,” she said, blushing. “I’ll ask Joseph.”

  I gazed out the window overlooking the lodge’s perennial garden, wondering what trials of the spirit awaited that fresh, young thing in her life ahead. Or would she be one of the fortunate few who enjoyed the thrill of love without tasting its sorrows? Did such a person even exist?

  I was still lost in my reverie when I became aware of a stocky
male form in a white chef’s coat standing beside my chair. Already my nerves were singing from the warmth of his body, his scent of cumin and olive oil, but when I looked up and met his sky-blue eyes, my pulse skipped two beats. “Joseph” was younger than I expected.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed your dessert,” he said.

  “The pudding was exquisite,” I said, pleased at the strangely sultry depth of my voice. “I’d love to have the recipe as a souvenir of my stay here.”

  The boy chef hesitated. I took advantage of the pause to drink in his smooth skin kissed with a touch of five o’clock shadow, the sensual yet determined mouth. Beneath his chef’s toque, his chestnut hair was tousled and very touchable. And who wouldn’t be enchanted by those cerulean eyes, boring into my soft, secret places more pleasurably than my favorite ice-blue dildo?

  Here was a tasty dish indeed.

  Finally he spoke. “Again, I’m delighted you liked it, but I’m afraid I don’t give out my recipes.”

  I’m not quite sure what possessed me then. I’d spent most of the last year either sobbing or staring off into space in a self-pitying gloom, but suddenly a fire I’d thought dead forever sparked to life.

  I tilted my head and smiled. “You remind me of my great-aunt Patricia. She was a fabulous cook, and I know she seduced more men with her culinary talents than many a beauty queen. But, tragically, she refused to share her recipes. They all died with her. Isn’t it a shame to deprive the world of your treasures?”

  Joseph folded his arms. “I’m planning on being around for a while.”

  “It might be a lonely existence. Pleasure was meant for sharing.”

  “That’s the price I have to pay,” he replied saucily. “But I will tell you one thing. When you make pudding, never use ultrapasteurized cream. The processing kills the flavor. Just plain pasteurized is what you’re looking for. Start with quality ingredients and you can’t go wrong.”

  I shrugged. None of this was news to me. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “My pleasure.” He emphasized the last word ever so slightly. “You have a great evening now, ma’am.”

  “Hey, wait,” I called after him. “At least tell me what kind of vanilla beans you use.”

  He paused, midstep.

  “They’re Tahitian, aren’t they?” I continued. “There’s no mistaking those floral notes.”

  Joseph wheeled around, his eyes glowing with new respect.

  “You’re right,” he said, “I do use Tahitian vanilla beans.”

  “That didn’t hurt, did it? Now I’d guess you use brown sugar, but the flavor’s so rich, it could be caramelized white.”

  He smiled. “Sorry, no comment. I’m onto your tricks, ma’am.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.” I met his gaze. He was a luscious young fellow. “Maybe you’d better get back to your kitchen before you divulge any more professional secrets.”

  Pudding aside, it had been a long time since I’d enjoyed anything as much as making that boy blush.

  That night, in my bungalow tucked away at the far corner of the mountain resort, I finally convinced the baby-faced chef to spill all.

  It was perhaps too easy in the end. Boys that age will do anything to get their rocks off, and at forty-four I knew all the ways to bring young men to their knees.

  But that was dessert.

  First came the appetizer: peeling off his sauce-streaked chef coat, and the Coldplay T-shirt he wore underneath.

  “Give me the recipe for that pudding,” I demanded as I ran my hands over his broad chest and shoulders.

  “My apologies, ma’am, but there’s nothing you can do to make that happen.” His words rang with conviction, but his eyes fluttered closed.

  “Oh, no?” I raked my fingertips over his biceps, circled my way down over the sensitive skin of his arm to his wrist.

  He sighed.

  I grasped his large, sturdy hand, the one that chopped and stirred and coddled ingredients into wondrous, life-changing elixirs, and brought it to my lips. Taking his index finger in my mouth, I slowly sucked it down, like a cock. He whimpered and shifted his weight. I let his finger float in the soft, liquid heat of my mouth for a moment before I used my tongue on him—flicks and swirls and lapping strokes, a little preview of the things I intended to do to another long, stiff part of his anatomy.

  “There’s more of that if you tell me the recipe.”

  “No…I can’t…I…”

  Smiling mischievously, I took his fuck-you finger in my mouth, fellating it with all my skill until I swear it stiffened and quivered in release. All the while, he was mewing and purring, making sweet feline sounds of pure submission.

  My blood was roused and I pulled off, licking the drool from my lips. “You like that, don’t you? But what you really want is for me to do the same thing to your cock.”

  “Yes.” His voice was hoarse with need.

  I knelt before him. His cock was so hard, the fly was practically splitting open from the throbbing pressure. I unbuckled his belt, then yanked down his trousers and briefs. My eyes narrowed in hunger at the vision of that ruddy sausage rearing up between his thighs.

  “What a delicious hunk of meat. God, I want to suck it.”

  “Please,” he whispered. “Your mouth is so hot and wet. When you licked my fingers, I thought I was going to come in my pants.”

  “But you’d rather come in my mouth?”

  This time his “Yes,” was a low, beseeching moan.

  “You know what you have to do first,” I taunted him.

  I saw a single tear of frustration roll down his cheek. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. It was my grandmother’s special dessert. I promised her on her deathbed I’d never give it to a stranger.”

  “Don’t you think we’ll be pretty intimate if your dick is buried in my throat? Even Granny would have to agree.” I wrapped my hand around his cock and pumped slowly. The shaft thickened and swelled, and the head was so red and weepy, it threatened to burst like a ripe fruit.

  “All you have to do is give me that recipe and you’ll get the blow job of a lifetime,” I cooed.

  Now his legs were shaking and he was panting like an animal. “Oh, fuck, all right. Suck it and I’ll tell you. Just suck it, please.”

  I touched the flat of my tongue to the sensitive spot beneath the head. His whole body shivered.

  “For eight servings, you start with a cup of brown sugar…” The words caught in his throat.

  “Don’t hold anything back now,” I warned him, unzipping my own jeans and jamming one hand down between my legs.

  “Okay, it’s dark brown sugar…oh, god, keep licking it, please.”

  I gave him one long wet swipe of my tongue from shaft to head.

  “Mix in five tablespoons of cornstarch…”

  I closed my lips around the helmet of his glans.

  “Press the cornstarch into the sugar with the back of a wooden spoon…” He swallowed the words in a groan as I sucked his stocky shaft all the way inside.

  Shifting the hand I’ve wedged into my jeans into the proper position, I started to strum my clit. I was so hot and swollen down there, I knew it wouldn’t be long.

  “Slowly stir in two cups of milk and two cups of heavy cream, not the ultrapasteurized kind though, and…oh, fuck, oh.” He thrust his hips and pawed my hair as he shot his own dish of sweet cream pudding into my mouth.

  This was the image that finally pushed me over the edge as I fingered myself on my bed, my body wracked by a series of spasms that made me thrash so wildly, the mattress creaked in protest.

  It had been a hell of a long time since I’d come so hard.

  I laughed softly as I stretched my shaky limbs like a cat. I was soaked in sweat, and my palate tasted faintly of semen, although I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d given Dylan a blow job. For so long, sex for me had mostly been with my hand, give or take a few mechanical rebound fucks with Dylan’s old friend from his college days who “alwa
ys had a thing for me.” Just to prove I could still do it.

  I was surprised at how much I missed the sensation of cock in my mouth.

  That boy chef had served me up another very sweet surprise this evening. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to thank him properly.

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, I half expected to see Joseph’s face on the pillow beside me. No such luck, but I did find myself with a new and very welcome companion: a burst of desire to do something.

  After a quick breakfast—a peek through the kitchen door revealed the morning cook was not Joseph—I decided to use my last day of vacation to take advantage of the “twenty miles of beautiful hiking trails” around the resort.

  With a sunny August sky cut by a cooling breeze, the weather was so perfect I could have ordered it off a menu. Thanks to the pudding and the fantasy blow job, all of my senses were heightened. I reveled in the shape of each leaf growing along the path, the sound of the birdsong, the clean scent of baked earth and oxygen-rich air. And of course, all the time I was thinking of Joseph. What was he doing now? What experience in his brief life made him wary of sharing his recipes? He was a cook who clearly enjoyed eating. Would his cock be as solid and sturdy as the rest of his body? And most intriguing of all—could his semen really taste like vanilla cream pudding?

  Thirty years ago, I would have called these obsessive musings a crush, but I was wise enough now to know it had nothing to do with Joseph himself. It was all about me. I was a woman who could feel and want and enjoy life’s sensual pleasures. My desire made me more interesting to myself.

  I must have been walking for over an hour in a daze of lust when I wandered into a clearing to find the very object of my dreams standing before me. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating, but a few blinks reassured me that it was in fact the real Joseph, looking especially fetching in his off-duty jeans.

  When he saw me, he seemed equally flustered.