by Sacchi Green
“Rosa.” I forgot to shake your hand, too caught up in your smile to think about anything else. It was enough that I was able to find my voice, remember my name. Anything else was impossible. You reached down, took my hand in yours and shook it gently, gentlemanly.
“Rosa.” You said my name with much more care and consideration than your own. You caressed the letters, speaking so softly, so reverently, I was certain that my name, heretofore unknown to me, held the answers to all of life’s more difficult questions. I wanted to taste it the way you did, feel it with the same depth. It’d been mine all along, yet I had no idea it was a treasure until you showed me.
It’s in your eyes, in the way you wink and drape my hand over your arm, assigning yourself to be my old-fashioned charming escort of the evening. You covered my hand with yours and my reservations melted even further. Player? Maybe you were before that night, but the carefully collated collection of women was lost, left behind to never be revisited after you took my hand for the first time.
“Rosa?” Avi followed us through the party, concerned for my loss of reputation if you lived up to yours. Clearly, his tone said, I’d lost my mind and couldn’t be trusted alone. My clothes would fall off at any moment without him there to stand between me and a night of debauchery. He looked at you with clear disdain, untrusting, wary. His opinion of you has changed over the years, but that night he worked hard to keep us apart. “Shouldn’t we be going? You have that early test tomorrow.”
It was a lie, a prearranged signal between friends designed to keep us both safe from the predators that trolled campus parties. We’d used it so many times before and each time I’d been overwhelmed with gratitude at his clear insight, his ability to see danger where it wasn’t always obvious. He’d rescued me when a “nice” girl slipped her hand up my skirt without permission, when another slipped her not-so-nice drugs into my drink and when yet another pinned me to the wall, blocking others from seeing my struggle to escape. Those were the dangers of being small, of being cute, of being feminine. It was amazing we still went to parties, but for every bad encounter, there were ten other women who understood that a night out didn’t have to end in sex. Besides, with Avi at my side, why should I worry?
I blinked a few times, clearing my vision and tearing my gaze away from you. “No, Avi, I think you’re mistaken. I don’t have any tests until next week.”
That wouldn’t be enough to convince him to leave us alone completely, but at least it signaled that I was happy with the progression of things, that I had no desire to end the evening so quickly. Avi blustered, unsure where to go now that I’d changed course and left him without a map.
Instead of Avi, you responded, “Are you sure? I don’t want to be the reason you fail a test.”
The look of surprise on Avi’s face was worth all the sulking and scowling he’d done in the past thirty minutes since you’d arrived. You couldn’t be truly nice, his expression clearly said, you were only out for one thing. At that point, I didn’t care if you were. I’d willingly let you slip your hand as high up my skirt as you wanted.
“I’m positive. I’m all yours.”
It’s the way you walk, your swagger more pronounced, more evident when I’m with you than when you’re alone. You squared your shoulders, held your head high and simply owned that room, owned the world. That night was the first time Avi left a party before me, turning responsibility for my care, my safety over to you.
“Ro, I’m beat. I’m going to head back.” The party had been a bust for him, filled wall to wall with beautiful, butch bois for me to savor, but not a single gay boy in the mix for him to play with. I was surprised he lasted as long as he did.
You shook his hand and punched him in the arm. All the while, you kept your other arm wrapped tight around my waist, your fingers working a steady rhythm against the fabric of my dress, stretching, pulling, searching. The look on your face, so smug, yet unguarded and bewildered. I’d chosen to stay with you instead of retreating with Avi, the friend I’d arrived with, the friend who’d stayed with me despite your best efforts to ditch him. The swagger, after that, was more pronounced than ever, telecasting your victory with every step. I felt like a beautiful prize.
No more than ten minutes after Avi left, you guided me into the night. The temperature, drastically colder now that the sun had set, caught me off guard. Fall had firmly arrived, no more dance between seasons. You held me close, your arm a blanket around my shoulders, and walked faster. You didn’t ask which direction, and I didn’t argue when you passed my street and kept traveling south toward campus.
When we arrived at your door, a single dorm versus the two-bedroom apartment I shared with Avi off campus, you paused with your hand on the knob and asked, “Is this okay?”
It’s the way you touch my face, your fingers soft and gentle, yet so very eager. That night, you traced the surface of my skin, cataloguing the contours over and over, memorizing them until they replaced the faces of the other women you’d been with before that night. You were slow, careful, and I closed my eyes to feel the joy of “Yes, yes, yes.” The movement stopped, your fingers light against my lips.
“Rosa?” I opened my eyes, expecting to find the world changed, melted down and rebuilt from the inside to match the transformation I felt with every stroke of your fingers. My breath caught in my throat and I couldn’t find even the simplest words to respond.
You asked again, “Is this okay?”
I nodded, the movement slow to start, jerky, and then urgent, out of control. It was so much more than okay and everything inside me screamed at my mouth to work, at my tongue to form words. Nothing came except for the low, gut-deep moan as you took my mouth in a kiss.
It’s in your kiss, the way your lips explore, taking what you want and giving back liberally as your tongue slips inside, hot and demanding. “You’re mine,” it said as you stroked into me, tasting in a way that promised so much more than just a fleeting exchange in a darkened doorway. You clung to me, clutching my shoulders to pull me so close that your heaving chest forced the air from my lungs.
When we parted, with a gasp and whimper, the question of okay or not was gone from your face, replaced with a promise to own every last part of me. In the years since then, you’ve kissed me many times, each time taking my heart with every careful, demanding, heated brush of your mouth, every lick of your tongue as you prize my lips apart to climb inside and know me from the inside out. And every time, I open myself to you, pleading with you to take, take, take.
“Inside?” I sounded as desperate as I felt, my brain, my thoughts melted from the heat building inside me, swarming upward and threatening to engulf us both, threatening to burn down the building around us.
“God, yes.” And for the first time, you fumbled, your movements rushed, clumsy. The key slipped from your hand, hitting the carpet and bouncing a few feet. It came to a stop against the wall, slanted on its side. You looked despondent, your gaze flitting between the dropped key and my mouth, my lips parted in anticipation. “Fuck it.”
You abandoned the key, wrapping one hand around my head, twisting your fingers in my hair and pulling my face to yours. The kiss was open, sloppy, wet, and I couldn’t get close enough, clutching your lapels in my hands and holding tight enough to make my knuckles white. You wrapped your other arm around my waist, holding me to you, making me feel you everywhere as the heat of our bodies flowed like lava through me.
A sharp bang on the wall next to us, followed by drunken laughter and the loss of your lips from mine. I searched for you, chasing after you with a moan, too dazed to understand what happened.
“Take it inside.” A house of a man clapped you on the back, his friends laughing and cheering. He pushed his way between us, inserted the lost key into the lock, and twisted the knob. I should have thanked him for providing us with some privacy, but I was beyond caring. You could have done whatever you wanted to me, wherever you wanted to do it.
It’s in the drop of your
head, the embarrassed flush of your skin when you know you’ve been caught and can’t quite bring yourself to care. It’s happened too many times, you with your hands on me, your tongue inside me, and me too disoriented to be embarrassed. That first night, you shuffled your weight from foot to foot, your face tinged red with uncertainty, and the suave, seductive mystique shattered. Suddenly I could breathe again.
I laughed with your friends and your face turned even redder, but I couldn’t stop. The flow of breath, the release of tension, the giddy wave of hormones on top of the heavy flood of pheromones and I was drunk on the moment, reveling in the closeness of you and what it meant, what it might mean for the future. It was too soon, but I was hopeful, buoyed by the inexplicable, irrefutable, inextricable connection flowing between us. Even with your friends there, the darkness of our alcove exposed and vulnerable, you still sought me out, your arm working tighter around my waist with every moment, your fingers bunching the fabric of my dress, pulling and searching for me.
“Thanks, Carter.” You snatched the key from his outstretched fingers, squeezing it tight in your palm and not giving it a chance to fall from your grip again. The laughter continued as you guided me inside, your mouth so close to my ear your heavy want washed over my skin and shivered through my body with each exhale. You didn’t look at your friends again as you smoothly closed the door and pushed me against it, your body so tight, so hot against mine, I worried the flat wooden surface would give way with the heat.
The laughter, like steam released from a kettle, evaporated as you looked into my eyes. Yearning, deep and soulful, gripped me viscerally, twisting from you to me until my insides were knotted and the only thing that mattered in that moment was the promise of more. Perfect, inexplicable, and so fragile because we both knew it was once in a lifetime and our only options were to seize it, and each other, or to let it pass.
It’s in the curve of your arm, the strength in your tight, sinewy muscles as you hold me to you like I might evaporate before your eyes. I’ve never grown tired of the security I feel when you hold me, like I’m china, precious, rare and worthy of extreme care. That night, as I felt your arms around me for the first time, felt the strain as you battled between pulling me closer and holding back because you didn’t want to crush me, I knew I’d never find that kind of peace and clarity with anyone else.
“Do you feel it?” You rested your forehead against mine, your mouth so close I could feel your breath, feel your lips as you spoke, but too far away because I wanted to kiss you again, not talk. “You do, right? It’s not just me. I’m not imagining it.”
You were so vulnerable, so raw, all your swagger stripped away leaving you and your genuine show of emotion. I had no choice but to lay myself bare before you. Otherwise I would have been unworthy. I wouldn’t have deserved the feeling of being cherished that you were offering so freely.
I nodded, my gaze locked on yours, open and unguarded. In that moment I had no secrets, no hope of recovery if you decided to pull back, to protect your vulnerable heart. And it terrified me. Yet there you were, offering yourself. God, I wanted to partake.
“Yeah,” I whispered, “I feel it. Right here.”
I guided your hand to rest on my chest so you could feel the pounding of my heart, so hard and so fast I was afraid of what it meant. You flattened your palm, the outside edges of your thumb and pinkie cresting the sides of my breasts and giving me another reason for my heart to race. You closed your eyes and we stayed there, with you feeling me, feeling us, for several long moments, long enough for me to lose track of everything except for the feel of your arm holding me close and the burn of your palm against my chest.
It’s the way you cup my face, curving your palm around my jaw and brushing your thumb in an endless arc over my cheek. You kissed me again, slower this time, gentle, exploring, savoring. I tilted my head back, letting it rest against the door and opening myself fully to you. I didn’t fight for the power, overwhelmed and swept away by the tide of you rolling your tongue against mine. You caressed…massaged…owned, calling a moan from deep inside me, low and guttural and completely beyond my control.
Before I realized the loss of your hand on my face, I felt your fingers inching the fabric of my dress up until they could tickle against the over-sensitized flesh of my inner thigh. I gasped, shocked when you brushed high enough to feel the fabric of my panties, feel the heat and wet through the thin, inconsequential cotton.
I hadn’t dressed for sex, taking care with the outer layer, but not bothering with fancy undergarments. The front of my panties said “Saturday.” It was Thursday. Nothing about them said sexy.
My legs slid apart and I muttered, “Thank you.” To myself, to you, I didn’t know. I hadn’t willfully opened my legs, so the moment your fingers slipped beneath the elastic edge of my panties and slid through the moist heat of my sex was owing to complete divinity.
“God, you’re perfect,” you said huskily, your voice strained. Urgent. Needy.
You stayed there forever, just rolling your fingers through my folds, drawing my desire to a sharp point without ever pushing me over. My legs trembled, my heart thundered, and all I could do was beg. “Please. More. God.” Over and over in an unending circle as I clutched your shoulder hard enough to carve little moons into your flesh through your shirt.
You stared at me, rapt. I chased your hand, urging you to unfurl your fingers, to plunge them inside, to focus tight circles on my clit, something, anything. Yet you kept up the maddening buildup, drawing me out, extending my pleasure until I was wrung out, too weak, too shaky to hold myself up. You strengthened your hold on me, the flex and bulge of your bicep registering peripherally, serving to turn me on even more.
“I’ve got you.”
You dropped your mouth to my throat, licking, sucking, and I was lost in an exquisite haze, helpless and dependent upon you to guide me home, something that wouldn’t happen until you were ready.
“I want to be inside of you, I want to feel your walls clench and grab as I fuck you through orgasm after orgasm.” As you spoke, you slid one finger inside me and held it there. I gasped, whimpered and pleaded with you to finish me. You smiled into my neck, the curve of your mouth pulling at my flesh. “I want to pin you to the bed and watch as you take my cock. I want you facedown with me behind you. I want you on top of me, riding until we both pop. I want you on your knees with my cock in your mouth. I want all of you.”
Your words, dirty, salacious and so fucking sexy, worked deeper inside me than the one finger that was probing, but not stroking. I was at critical mass, ready to explode with the slightest breath, the barest twitch of your nail against my clit, and still you held me there.
“Tonight, however, all I want is you. Against this wall, with my hand in your panties, teasing until you overflow and drown me in come.”
It’s in your touch, the way that you know exactly what to do, exactly what to say. The way you can drag it out until I’m ready to throw myself from a cliff. Or you can drive me from unsuspecting to exploding orgasm before I’m fully aware that I’m on my back with you above me. That night, with your finger inside me, your breath on my skin and my heart meeting yours for the first time, you brought me to a place I’d never experienced before. A place where I was loved, cherished and completely, entirely desired.
“Do you want that?” you asked as you pulled your finger out in one long smooth stroke and I cried out. You had to give me more. You’d promised. I would die, slowly, painfully and excruciatingly turned on beyond return if you didn’t. “Do you?”
You nipped at my throat, the sting of teeth sharp and immediate, grounding me in the moment like nothing before. I’d been on the verge of floating away, and you pulled me back to you. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” I gasped out the answer, unable to stop at just one word. I needed you to hear me, to know how much I needed.
And then you gave me…everything. With your sure stroke against my clit, circling hard and fast and so certain, I came ap
art. I didn’t orgasm, not like every other experience I’d had with it, at least. This was complete, starting in my cunt and rolling out until my whole body was engulfed in a wave of clench and release, flying and destined to crash. No one can ride that high forever. You eased me, caressing me and bringing me down, setting my feet on solid ground and holding me up instead of letting me fall.
I slumped, weak and wholly spent, in your arms, and you guided me to your bed. That first night, I fell asleep in your arms, satisfied and rummy from sex in a way I’d never felt before. I’ve slept in your bed every night since, and you’ve kept every dirty promise you whispered to me as you brought me to orgasm against your dorm room door.
It’s in your smile, your eyes and the tight swagger of your hips.
It’s your touch on my face, your kiss on my mouth and the drop of your head that says you’re caught, but not sorry.
It’s the curve of your arm around my waist, and the way you cup my face.
It’s in your touch.
RESURRECTION
Victoria Villasenor
I sat at the table, the smell of coffee floating around me, quiet chatter and the clatter of plates and glasses drifting through the cafe. This was my favorite Sunday morning routine: sitting in front of a huge window, the sunlight streaming in and warming my back as I watched people heading down to the beach and the shopkeepers getting their stores ready for another day of sea air and tourists.
Today, though, I was restless. I needed something specific, but I didn’t feel like doing the bar crawl to find it. I wanted a sweet tongue to use all day and night, a warm back to drag my nails over. And I have these things at home, but a few times a year I want something other than the beautiful femme who warms my bed and heart. Today I wanted a boi, a cute one to make scream in the way only a butch can. I sighed and stared out the window, my clit aching and swollen. I squinted as a reflection appeared in the glass. Like something out of my dreams, a young butch strutted into the coffee house, her low-riding jeans hugging slim hips that showed the top of her Calvin Klein boxers. I turned in my seat to appraise her.