The Oy of Sex

by Marcie Scheiner

  “Even though I don’t wear black?” she said, thrilling to the little nickname. “Even though I don’t know much about, um, sex?”

  He pushed back from her, his grin splitting his narrow face, his dark brows climbing his pale forehead. “I wouldn’t worry about that. You’re about to get a very enthusiastic teacher.”

  He kissed her in earnest then, and this kiss was even better than the one in his shop because she knew it wouldn’t end so quickly. He stroked her back and her body arched. When she buried her fingers in his hair, it was so much softer than she’d expected that she had to rake her nails back and forth.

  “Oh, yes,” he sighed between kisses. “Touch me, Vic. Touch me.”

  She didn’t start to shake until she undressed, and that was only because she’d never been naked in front of a man before. And not a whole lot of women, either.

  Pierce sat on his rumpled double bed and watched her through heavy-lidded eyes. Finally her body was bare, the body that persisted in staying round and soft no matter how often she ran. His gaze traveled over her. He rubbed the center of his nearly hairless chest. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”

  She laughed because it was such a corny thing to say

  “I mean it,” he said and tugged her onto the bed on top of him. As they kissed, he wriggled and twisted and then he was naked, too.

  She gasped as his burning length strafed her thigh, then pushed up on her arms to look at him. Oh, my, she thought. His cock was long and red and thicker in the middle than it was at either end. It rose from a tangled thatch as black as the roots of his hair. His penis wasn’t pierced, but he did sport a tattoo, a Chinese dragon whose head started at his prominent hip and whose tail tickled the base of his shaft. She traced its outline with her fingers, then cupped his balls. They were plump and round and compact enough to fit in one hand. Victoria loved the feel of them. She rippled her fingers over their swell. When she looked up, Pierce’s eyes were closed.

  “More?” she said.

  “Please,” he rasped.

  She straddled his body and stroked his cock in her loosely closed fist, not sure what to do but aware that she was pleasing him. He covered her bottom with his graceful hands and drew slow circles with his fingertips. The circles drew closer and closer to her sex. He touched one lip and slid inward on a trickle of cream.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He stopped and opened his eyes, his gaze focusing with an effort. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s something I want to do first.” She bent until her breath fanned his sharp, beringed nipple. “Tell me if this hurts.”

  She took him in her mouth, ring and nipple both. His back bowed upward.

  “Mm,” he said. “Yes, suck me.”

  She sucked him, slowly, wetly, adoring his textures: the smooth, firm nipple, the cold, hard ring. She used her tongue to catch the hoop, gently increasing the pressure. He shivered and clutched her hips.

  “Christ, I can feel that to my toes.”

  She switched sides and he groaned, his hips jerking sharply upward, his cock squashing her thigh. He rolled her beneath him while he fumbled in his night table drawer. His watch fell to the dusty floorboards.

  “I’m not rushing,” he said, ripping open one of the packets he d spilled onto the pillow. “I’m just preparing.”

  She ran her hands up and down his ribs. “I don’t mind. I’m ready.”

  His cock jumped at her words, dressed now in transparent blue latex. He rolled the condom’s hem over his base and squeezed himself in a way that delighted her. He shook his head. “Not yet, honey. You’re not quite ready yet.”

  He eased her onto the pillows and spread her legs, soothing her with strokes and kisses before he lowered his head. He opened her with his fingers and explored her, licking every nook and fold and rubbing his whole face over her sex as if he wanted to wallow in her scent. Then he suckled her clit.

  A low cry caught in her throat. Oh, my, she thought. Oh, my Now she knew what the Goths had been moaning about. His mouth pulled and rubbed and licked all at the same time. The combined sensation was so intense it was almost painful. With his hands, he kneaded her mound and inner thighs, pressing her flesh deep into the bone and finding spots she hadn’t known were sensitive. Her legs began to thrash. He had to hold them down with his elbows. He hummed as if he found her delicious. Oh, she thought, tears springing to her eyes. Oh, my God. She clasped his head, lightly, not wanting to jar him. Her finger found his line of earrings and ruffled them. A shiver rolled across his shoulders. She came and she came and finally had to push him away because she couldn’t bear any more.

  “Okay?” he panted, crawling up her body. He settled between her thighs, his cock hot and long across her thatch. “Are you okay?”

  She hugged him tight with arms and thighs and neck. “Yes, yes. Thank you.”

  He stroked her hip. “Can I come inside?”

  “Yes,” she said, and reached down to open herself for him.

  He stiffened when the head of his cock found her barrier. “Oh, Vic.” His eyes filled.

  “It’s all right. I want you to be the first.”

  “Vic. Honey.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. He didn’t move except to stroke her hair back from her brow. “I want you to know I broke up with Sharon tonight. I broke up with all of them.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  He blinked hard and hid his face in the pillow by her cheek. “Oh, God, Vic. Yes, I did.”

  She kissed his jaw. “I’m glad,” she whispered.

  He snorted a laugh and rose back on his elbows. A single wet streak marked his cheek. It awed her more than anything that had gone before. His hips nudged forward, stretching the fragile barrier. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded and bit her lower lip. He held her gaze and pushed. It only stung for a moment, and then there was nothing but the pleasure of his body gliding slowly, deeply into hers.

  “That is so nice,” she said when he was fully seated.

  He smiled and she wondered when his strange, bony face had grown so beautiful. She ruffled his earrings again and his cock quivered inside her.

  “Brat,” he said.

  “Yes. but I’m your brat.”

  That brought a different look to his eyes, a serious look. “Honey, if this is your walk on the wild side, I don’t want to know.”

  She kissed his chin. “It’s not.”

  He pulled back and rocked slowly forward. “I hope not.”

  “It isn’t.” She inhaled sharply because his movement was doing lovely things to her.

  “Like that?” he asked, doing it again from a slightly different angle. She moaned and clutched him. He rocked her like that, up on his elbows, watching every expression that crossed her face, repeating the motions he thought she liked, deepening them, quickening them.

  She gritted her teeth. “I’m not coming without you.”

  He laughed and nipped her earlobe.

  “I’m not.” She slid her hands down his spine and dug her fingers into his buttocks.

  “Geez,” he gasped, but she could tell he didn’t mind the pinching pain because his hips moved faster and his breath came harder. Still on his elbows, his hands curled over her chest to squeeze her breasts.

  I’m going to make him moan, she vowed. Just this once, he’ll moan. She leaned up and kissed his breastbone. His fingers tightened on her breasts. His torso twisted, placing one nipple before her mouth. She flicked the ring with her tongue and bounced it up and down.

  “Do it,” he said, and she sucked him in.

  He jerked and groaned. She laughed, the ring still caught in her teeth. Almost good enough. Almost loud enough. She reached between his legs to cup his swinging balls. She circled them the way she thought the harness might, two fingers and a thumb and a palm to roll the rest.

  This time his moan was all she could have wished for. He muffled it on her shoulder.

  “Vic,” he said, his hand squi
rming down her belly to find her clit. “Vic, hurry.”

  She let all her hunger free then, squeezing him, touching him, writhing like a wildcat on the sweaty sheets. This was Pierce in her arms. These were Pierce’s long, hard legs, Pierce’s arching spine, Pierce’s rough, sharp jaw. She wanted it all. She loved it all. She moaned his name. Her body clenched on his pumping cock, a long, shuddering embrace. What a sweet, sweet ache. Their mouths grappled in a sloppy, panting kiss. Her orgasm hit a second peak and then he, too, let the fury loose, silently, eyes screwed shut, gasping for air as he slung in hard and spasmed.

  “Geez,” he said, sinking down, his face nuzzling hers. “Geez. No. Don’t hug me yet. Wait a sec.” He held the base of the rubber as he withdrew from her, carefully, with a little sigh of reluctance at the final parting.

  “Let me,” she said and gingerly peeled off the sheath. Once she had it free, she held it to the light and let it swing back and forth. The milky pool of fluid fascinated her. This was Pierce’s semen. she’d made him shoot it.

  Laughing, he took the rubber and tossed it in the trash. They wriggled together with his arm around her back and her head on his chest. He pulled the sheet over them. They traded sighs.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I thought women were supposed to ask that.”

  He tweaked her nose. “You can ask me later. Now talk.”

  “I’m thinking this summer is going to be way too short.”

  “Ah,” he said, a pleased sound. He kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, honey. If it’s meant to be, it’ll work out, and if not, we’ll have the best summer of our lives.”

  She smiled and flipped his right nipple ring to face the other way. He didn’t press, but she knew he wanted her to stay as much as Henry did. Her brother would throw a fit when he found out they were sleeping together, but he did like Pierce, and he would come around. She hugged her new lover’s ribs. What an adventure this was. Anything might happen if she stayed. Who knew how Pierce would change her? How New York would change her? Oh, she was just so happy she’d fallen in love!

  “So, Pierce,” she said as she drew one finger down his belly. “What would you like to teach me next?”

  “No, no, no.” His eyes sparkled as he shook his head. “What would you like to teach me?”

  Out of Brooklyn

  Robin Bernstein

  “My cat,” she says. “Say hello to Tammy, Buttface.” Lonnie waves the cat’s paw at me. “Buttface is sixteen,” she says. “Same as me.”

  “And me.” We’re on our knees in her doorway, stroking the cat’s gold back. Then Lonnie scoops her up and closes the door behind us.

  The apartment faces east, but heavy drapes split the sun into spears.

  “My mom thinks light is bad for the furniture,” Lonnie explains, as she cranks the blinds open, “but I think she just likes to sit in the dark after those fluorescent lights at the hospital.”

  When the drapes part, what was warm and muted becomes sharp and splendid.

  “You want orange juice, maybe?”

  “Sure.”

  The kitchen is dusty yellow, and the table has only two chairs. Lonnie lifts a pile of newspapers off one of them So I can sit on it.

  “So, what’s new since yesterday?” she asks. “Any revelations?”

  “Well, I called Emma.”

  “And?”

  “And got my ear yakked off about that senior, the glorious Melissa Kellogg.”

  Lonnie whistles. “Your friend has some crush.”

  “Emma?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

  “Is Melissa straight?”

  “Oh, sure, she’s got some boyfriend in college.”

  “Anyone ever actually meet this boyfriend?”

  I laugh. “Oh, come on.”

  “I’m just assessing your friend’s chances.”

  “It wouldn’t make a difference. Emma is most emphatically straight.”

  “With a capital ‘Q.’ “

  Orange juice shoots out my nose.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, but the words send another whoosh of juice out my nose. I’m mopping and Lonnies laughing and blowing bubbles with her straw.

  “Relax. OJ is good for the formica.”

  “You’re so kind. My parents are neatniks. Although lately they’re away so much, they wouldn’t notice if I drove a dump truck through the den.”

  “Your parents are weird.”

  “Listen to this. Yesterday I tell my mother the springs are poking out of the couch. So she hands me her credit card and tells me to go pick out a new one and have it delivered. So I say, ‘Don’t you want to help me choose?’ And she says, ‘Nah, I trust your taste. Besides, you re the only one who really uses the living room.’ “

  “Bizarre. But at least they treat you like an adult.”

  “Your mom is okay on that.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. All right, we each get a B+ in parent selection. So, did you pick out a couch yet?” “No.”

  “How about today?”

  “You want to spend the day shopping?”

  “Sure, I never bought a couch before. It’ll be an adventure.

  “Hardly,” I say, but I let her talk me into it. Shopping is one of the things I hate most in the world, but anything is fun with Lonnie.

  They sell everything on Kings Highway, so that’s where we run. We’re charging down Coney Island Avenue, laughing and playing slalom through the strolling Chasidic families. When we get to Kings Highway, though, we realize that we can’t buy anything there on Saturday. All the best stores are closed, with big signs in Hebrew: “Shomer Shabbat.” Guard the Sabbath.

  “Nuts,” says Lonnie. “You wanna go to Manhattan? They’re all atheists there.”

  “You are corrupting me,” I say. “I’ve never had a need that Brooklyn couldn’t fill.”

  “That’s faintly pathetic.”

  We hop the subway to Macy’s. The car is half empty, and Lonnie amuses herself by swinging around the pole. I want her to sit with me, but she’s got ants in her pants. Suddenly I have this awful feeling she’s going to lead me, running, all over Manhattan. We’re going to engage in all sorts of sophisticated, fascinating activities at top speed, and never have time to really talk.

  “Hey Lonnie,” I say, “you’re not going to drag me into some cafe where you get a thimble of cappuccino for $3.50, are you?”

  “No.” She stops swinging. “Do I look like a yuppie?”

  She resumes swinging.

  In Macy’s, Lonnie hops from one couch to another, throwing herself into odd poses.

  “Eating potato chips,” she announces while lying on her back with an imaginary bowl on her stomach, feet flung over the sofa’s arm.

  “Watching Dracula.” She leaps onto another couch, curling herself as small as possible into the soft crook.

  I say, “Recovering from long day,” and droop myself over a couch’s back, tush in the air. Lonnie is darting all over the store. I’ve never seen her quite this hyper.

  Then I realize that in fact I’ve barely seen her at all, except for a few odd moments captured between classes: all our long conversations have been over the telephone.

  “Hey Lonnie,” I ask, “do you always run around like this? I mean, what do you do while we talk on the phone?”

  She climbs out of a paisley couch. “What?”

  I repeat myself.

  “Oh,” she says, reddening a bit. “Well, sometimes I pace a little. Or I pick at my toes, that sort of thing. What do you do?”

  “Just sit, mostly.

  “Oh.”

  “Let’s just choose a couch and go.” There s a price tag dangling next to my hand. I look at it. Three thousand dollars. I scream.

  “Lonnie, let’s get out of here.”

  Outside I lean into her ear and hiss, “I hate Manhattan.”

  “Shit!” Lonnie slams her face into her open palms. She stomps away from me, hugs herself, looks at the sky, then exhal
es. Finally she returns to my side.

  “I’m acting like your friend Emma,” she says, scrubbing her eye with her fist. “I’m running in a million directions, all of them away from you.”

  “No,” I say, but I realize it’s true: in the subway, in the store, I’d felt that familiar frustration. “It’s not so bad,” I say.

  “It’s easier over the phone, you know?” Lonnie says. “When we’re just talking, it’s one thing at a time.” I nod, knowing what she means: we can feel one thing at a time.

  “I’m sorry,” Lonnie says. “I’m nervous, that’s all.”

  “Me too.

  “Sometimes I can’t stand myself.”

  “Lonnie, you are marvelous.” I lean over and gather a piece of her straight black hair between my thumb and forefinger. “You have the most gorgeous hair I’ve ever seen on a white girl.”

  She sniffs and smiles a little. “My mother says it’s ’cause she read so much Eastern philosophy while she was pregnant.”

  “I believe it.”

  We hug, our breasts fitting together like gears. Then Lonnie pulls away, her eyes bright.

  “Can I show you one Manhattan marvel? Just one?”

  “Sure,” I laugh.

  “It’s called the Strand,” she says. “Twenty blocks downtown.”

  One hour and two knishes later, Lonnie ushers me into the largest bookstore I’ve ever seen. “Eight Miles of Books,” declares the sign.

  “Awestruck?” Lonnie asks.

  “Awestruck,” I admit.

  Lonnie snakes me through twelve-foot-high shelves. “Here’s the women’s studies section,” she says, after leading me to the rear of the store. “There’s a gay section behind us, but it’s mostly men.”

  You are truly marvelous, I think, but I don’t say it again. We both turn to the wall of books and become absorbed scanning. Suddenly I feel something on my hand, something small and warm. I look down. Lonnie is nesting her hand in mine.

  “Is this okay?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I say. We turn back to the wall, skimming titles. All I can take in, though, is the strong cable of our arms and our suspended, linked hands. From behind, we must look like the Brooklyn Bridge.