Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Ben introduced me to Raven, a beautiful girl with delicate features and, appropriately, jet-black hair. She smiled and introduced me to her boyfriend, Antonio, a somewhat ragged and striking young man with penetrating eyes and full lips.

  Over time, people returned to the room, and Ben introduced me to each: Derek, Riley, Kyla, Keaton, Brittney. They responded to me normally, not like I was a middle-aged woman in their midst. Ben and I settled back onto the tiny sofa. I sipped my beer while he fiddled with a woven coaster.

  “Why do you guys even have coasters?” I laughed. Between the steamer trunk and the mismatched thrift-store end tables, I couldn’t imagine what needed protecting in this room.

  “I think they were a gift from James’s parents’ friends.”

  “A bottle opener would have made a better gift,” I joked.

  “Fer real. We didn’t have one for like the first month we were here. It became this running joke to find new ways to open bottles. It was pretty ridic.”

  “I bet James loved that.”

  “He did. He was always outdoing me. Sometimes he still won’t use an opener, even though we have one now.” He put down the coaster and looked at the beads on my shirt. “This is a cool shirt.” He twiddled the beads on its hem. I watched as he weighed them in his hands and then patted them up into the air so that they bounced against his fingertips. Ben and I had always been relaxed with each other, so it didn’t seem strange for him to be playing with my shirt. But as the beads moved up and down, they brushed my belly and gave me a tingly rush.

  There was a clatter, and I looked up to see Derek dramatically clearing everything from the trunk and plunking an empty bottle onto its side in the center. He gave the bottle a spin, and as it whirled, stood up, looked around and said, “Who’s up for a game of spin the bottle?”

  Everyone gathered around, and I realized that most of them were pretty buzzed, having an hour’s head start on me. This was the sort of development I had been afraid of when I’d initially refused the boys’ invitation. By now, everyone at the party was in the living room, so it was either play, leave, or go sit outside by myself. I hadn’t been there long, so leaving would have been rude. And I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t think I could get away with just watching. As everyone moved toward the trunk-cum-coffee table with the spinning bottle atop, James came in carrying two drinks.

  “I thought you might be ready for this—Gina,” he teased.

  My beer was empty, so if I wasn’t leaving, it was, indeed, time for another drink. As I took the glass from James, I saw salt on the rim, and in unison, we said, “Margaritas.”

  “I love margaritas.” I took a sip, licking the salt from the rim as I did. “Mmm. It’s good. Thanks.”

  Ben had stopped playing with the beads on my shirt, and Derek squeezed himself onto the love seat next to us. Ben’s thigh pressed against mine, warm. Derek explained the rules.

  “When you spin, you have to kiss the person it lands on— on the lips. Same-sex kissing is optional; both participants must agree. If you get someone of the same sex and don’t want to kiss them—or they don’t want to kiss you—you can either kiss the person next to them or spin again. When the kisser is done kissing the kissee, the kissee has to spin. Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” Keaton shouted a little too loudly, “what about tongues?”

  “Tongues are optional. Just go with it,” he said.

  I looked at Ben, questioning with my eyebrows and a small bob of my head whether he wanted to go outside. He shrugged. I couldn’t tell if he was being lazy or if he wanted to play. James had taken a chair across the table from us. I was relieved to feel a buzz coming on, now that I had a game of spin the bottle to get through. While my mind kept telling me to leave, I felt drawn to the mystery and electricity inherent in the game and the buzz already palpable in the room around me.

  Derek spun. It landed on Raven. He looked at Antonio sitting next to her. Antonio was difficult to read, but I thought he might be unhappy that his girlfriend was getting the first kiss of the game from someone other than himself. Derek must have thought so too; he gave her a perfunctory peck. The bottle spun again, and Raven kissed Riley. I felt my heart pounding as I drank more of my margarita, awaiting the inevitable.

  Before long, it was James’s turn to spin. It landed on me. He leaned across the table, smiling. I moved toward him, and we kissed once, lightly, lips slightly parted. His tenderness was an instant turn-on. We lingered a bit before sitting back down. It had been simple, but sensual. A tease. I felt tingly and a little wet. James smiled at me across the table. I looked at Ben and saw him catch James’s eye. Some unspoken message was being exchanged, but I couldn’t decode it.

  It was my turn. I spun, and it rested on Raven. I had never kissed a woman before, and I couldn’t see wasting this opportunity, especially given how beautiful she was. The beer and margarita had gone to my head—with my short stature and tiny frame I’d always been a cheap date. I looked at her, asking her consent with my eyebrows. She nodded, and in her expression I detected attraction. I leaned toward her and felt soft lips meet my own. Before I could pull away, she kissed me a second time, her tongue entering my mouth. An ascending howl went up in the room, increasing steadily in both volume and pitch. The second kiss had lasted longer than any kiss of the game so far. We sat back in our seats, and Raven smiled at me. I had to admit I was enjoying myself.

  James and Ben were leaning forward, perched on the edges of their seats. I looked across at Antonio, whose eyes were burning. Raven spun and gave a guy named Jonah a perfunctory peck, then Jonah kissed me unceremoniously, and then I spun, and it landed on Antonio. Before I could move toward him, he was across the table, kissing me full on. It was a deep, long, passionate kiss. I thought I heard a gasp go up in the room, but I couldn’t be sure; it might have been me who was gasping. I felt as if I were being kissed by a movie star, and it knocked the wind out of me. As he pulled away, Antonio turned to Raven and kissed her, harder and longer than he had kissed me. Seeing his girlfriend kiss another woman had gotten him going, I guessed, and it seemed all control was being abandoned.

  “No freebies!” Derek called out as he got up and left the room. “No spin, no kiss!”

  It was Antonio’s turn to spin, but he had Raven down on the floor, and they were fully entwined. It was decided that I should spin again. As it whirled, Antonio and Raven got up off the floor and left. Things were heating up.

  I became aware of Ben next to me; he looked a bit sullen, perhaps because he hadn’t been kissed yet. He was bouncing his knee impatiently so that the sofa trembled. The bottle stopped. It pointed to Kyla, who was seated on the floor to Ben’s left. I caught her eye, and she shook her head no. Derek’s seat was empty. I turned to Ben and smiled with my eyes. My heart quickened.

  He held my gaze as I brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen into his face. His lips were warm and comforting. His soft beard brushed my cheek. I kissed him a second time, opening my mouth and inviting his tongue into mine. He felt familiar, like we’d been kissing all our lives and knew every crevice, every soft tongue caress. But the pulse traveling through my body said the opposite: this was a kiss we’d waited years for. The pulse traveled through us from one body to the other. His hand moved to my thigh, sending shooting currents between my legs. I felt I could kiss him all night. There was a murmur around us, as people’s reactions evolved from stunned to impatient.

  James’s voice broke the quiet. “Anyone want quiche?” I heard him walk toward the kitchen, and I realized I could smell the quiche in the oven.

  Someone picked up the bottle and resumed the game, and Ben and I pulled away from each other. He took my hand, got up and led me down the hall to his bedroom. Before we entered the room, I saw him exchange a glance with James, who was bringing the quiche out of the kitchen.

  Ben shut the door as he pressed me to the wall, kissing me again. I pulled his shirt over his head. In a glint of moonlight through the window I was abl
e to see his chest. I remembered the day near the end of Ben’s senior year of high school when I had taken a group of students to the beach for outdoor explorations. All of the student cars had been full, so Ben had ridden in the cab of my pickup. On the long drive back, he’d dozed, and I’d tried to keep my eyes on the road, stealing glances at his bare upper body and imagining pulling over to the side of the road and waking him with my hands on his pecs.

  Here I was, not quite four years later, running my hands across his chest and shoulders. “You have a beautiful body,” I told him before I kissed his neck and ran my fingers through his shaggy hair.

  “Thanks,” Ben whispered. He grasped the beaded hem of my shirt and lifted it over my head. As it moved, the dangling beads tickled my bare breasts, and his knuckles softly brushed my ribs, making me wetter. As we moved toward the bed, I heard the door open and shut quietly behind us, and then there were arms around my waist from behind—James.

  He kissed my neck, and I turned my head and felt his mouth on mine for the second time that evening. This time, he didn’t hold back, kissing me with such intensity I lost all sense of time and place. He unbuttoned my pants from behind and slipped his hand inside, stroking my pussy through the damp, satiny fabric of my bikinis while he kissed my neck and ears. Ben kissed me again on the mouth before moving to my nipple. He licked it gently, teasing, as James pulled my jeans off and slipped two long, slender fingers between my labia, stroking as he licked the curve of my lower spine. Ben was still teasing my nipples, and I was heating up. James was stroking my clit, harder now. My pussy was on fire. I teetered and came, standing, my body briefly rigid, then trembling. James allowed me to finish, then stood and kissed my mouth again as his hands stroked my ass. Ben now had his hand on my pussy and was gripping it, his thumb on top of my mound, right above the clit, his fingers below, not quite inside me. I could barely keep track of who was where doing what. I only knew every nerve in my body was buzzing.

  Ben slipped two fingers inside me. “You’re so wet,” he whispered into my ear. My eyes were closed, and I moaned and swayed on my feet, leaning back against James, who had removed his jeans. His hard cock pressed against my ass. He stroked my breasts as Ben fucked me with his fingers, and I came again, this time in a rush of wetness.

  The two must have been communicating without speaking, because together, they laid me on the bed on my side, Ben lying down beside me facing me and James lying behind me. James stroked my ass and then slipped his finger between my buttcheeks, teasing my anus with his finger. I wiggled my butt toward him and felt his cock press against my ass as he began working his finger into me.

  Ben’s fingers were back inside my pussy. He kissed me on the mouth as James kissed my hair, my neck, my back, both of them fucking me at once from opposite ends. I felt like a massive fountain was exploding inside me.

  “This…is…too—” I gasped, giving up on words as I came.

  A moment later, their fingers moved out of me, and they guided me onto my back. James went down on me first.

  He licked my pussy in slow strokes, from above my anus up onto my clit, bringing me to climax quickly. “Mmmm,” he hummed, “I like the way your pussy smells.”

  “Don’t you want me to…go down…on you?” I gasped.

  Ben whispered in my ear, “This night is for you.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but before I could ponder, Ben had taken James’s place and was devouring my pussy with his entire mouth, gently biting me all over. My pelvis rose to meet him as I came on his face. I tugged on his shoulders to let him know I was ready to have him inside me. I reached for his cock as he mounted me. It was hot to the touch. I stroked it and enjoyed the feeling of it hardening in my hand before guiding him into me.

  While he fucked me, James kissed and caressed my hair, licked my ears, and nibbled my neck before moving off to watch.

  I moved my hips against Ben’s, angling myself so that I could feel his cock charge my clit with each thrust. Together, we were a hurricane of intensity; the bed was heaving and creaking underneath us. I shivered and came again. And again. And then he was coming inside me, and for a long moment our bodies shivered together, and then he collapsed on top of me, both of us panting.

  After a moment, Ben kissed me and moved off, and I opened my eyes to see James’s face looking into mine.

  “Hey, ecstasy woman,” he said, “got anything left for me?” He smiled.

  I laughed. “For you? Yeah, I think I can muster it, but only because you’re so damn pretty.”

  He climbed on top, and I was amazed to discover he was hard. Youth, I thought. All he has to do is watch, and he’s good to go. I was still wet, and he entered me easily. I had never fucked two men in a row, so it was interesting to notice how different they felt inside me. Ben was a tighter fit, his hardness filling me, but James had a fluid, rotating motion that enabled all kinds of contact between his cock and every part of my pussy. Where Ben was a force of nature, James was slow and measured, bringing me just to the brink but not over it, teasing me to the point of delicious madness.

  Ben lay on his side, watching my face as James moved inside me. For a second, I turned my head and caught his eye, and his gaze was so loving it took me by surprise. He smiled.

  James’s swiveling intensified and brought my gaze back to his face above me. He sat upright and leaned back, his long hair flowing across his shoulders. Where Ben had been all sweat and panting, James was the picture of ecstatic ease. With his eyes closed and his head thrown back, he looked like an angel communing with the divine, and in fact, I felt like I was being fucked by an angel. When he opened his eyes and caressed my face, his touch sent a shiver through me, and I grabbed his arm as I came. He smiled and pushed deeper into me, and I felt his cock pulse as he came.

  The three of us lay naked and spent, one of them on either side of me, their extremities intertwined with mine, and I thanked them.

  “Don’t mention it,” Ben said, smiling.

  “We owe it to you,” James whispered.

  “What do you mean?” I turned from one to the other, puzzled. Then together, as if on cue, they said, “Teacher appreciation.”

  ON THE CALENDAR

  Kate Sebastian

  It was the eve of Ana’s birthday, and she felt like ants were swarming her insides. All week long, her friends had been teasing her about turning thirty-two and never having had a boyfriend. “Wala ka na sa kalendaryo,” they joked, a local expression meaning she now had more years than any month had days. She’d laughed along with them, laughed the loudest, in fact, pretending to have accepted that “not on the calendar” seemed to be the story of her life—or her love life, she supposed.

  Not that never having had a boyfriend had kept her from living life to the fullest. She’d backpacked through Europe, explored temples in Mexico and Siem Reap, danced to Bollywood and the Lambada in the countries of their origin. But she’d never been kissed, and no hands but her own had ever roamed her body, and today she decided it was time to have an altogether different type of adventure, try a new kind of dance. She’d even chosen a partner, though he didn’t know it. Although “chosen” might not have been the right word for it; she hadn’t bothered to make a list of names because his would’ve been the only one on it.

  So when her friends asked her what she was doing on Saturday night, the night before her big day, she’d said coyly, “Secret!” She’d batted her eyes and done her best Marilyn Monroe impression. They’d laughed and shaken their heads, never imagining that Miss Cargo-Pants-and-Tees had planned for an intimate dinner for two and bought a little black dress—emphasis on “little”—for the occasion.

  She was dressed and staring at herself in the mirror when her phone rang. She’d been so surprised despite herself at how much of her skin—normally a warm sepia but recently turned bronze during a trip to the beach—was on display that she almost dropped the phone when it began to vibrate.

  “Are you sure about this restaurant?” Rico
, her best friend of fifteen years and the object of her secret affections for almost as long, asked when she answered. “I hear it’s pretty fancy. It’s not usually our style.”

  “I wanted something different,” she said. He would never know what it cost her to keep her voice light. “And I’m dressed for fancy, so get on over here. I have a reservation for us for eight thirty.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  It took a moment for her to put on her shoes, black pumps spiked with silver, sporting four-inch heels she’d practiced walking in all week. Another moment, and she’d scooped up her clutch, similarly spiked, and so small it would only carry a few essentials: phone, cards and cash, lipstick, keys, condom. She tried not to think about whether that last item was protection or prayer. Three minutes later, she emerged from the elevator and strode across the lobby, only to find that he’d already pulled his car up in front of the doors and was leaning on the passenger side. He was wearing a suit, no tie, with the top button undone like a model from the cover of her favorite pocketbook romance series.

  The widening of his eyes and the way his jaw slackened paid the cost of her ensemble twice over. His mouth, which was as generous in form as it was with smiles, fell open as she approached, and she thought he would say something, but he just closed it again.

  “Hi,” she said as she stopped in front of him. “That was fast.”

  “Wow—hi,” he said, his eyes still wide. “You look—wow.” Then he straightened and gave her a rueful grin that made her stomach hurt. “I sound like an idiot. Happy birthday. I meant to start with that, but I forgot.”