In my dreams, I was at my favourite coffee shop with a cappuccino and a molasses cookie. I was reading her most recent article when she came over and sat beside me. She spotted my sample case where I keep the jewellery I made, and she opened it.
Inside, she found a pair of my dangle earrings and held them up to my ears. Because of my thick tousled hair, she couldn’t see them so she brushed my hair off my shoulders. Her fingers lightly touched my skin. An electric sizzle passed between us.
Next came a choker. She leaned in close to fasten it around my neck, her breath on my ear. I felt like I was melting inside from the warmth of her mouth.
To go with the choker, she selected a pendant on a long chain. It joined the choker, but she couldn’t get the pendant to lie right on my shirt so she slid it inside my cleavage. The chain slithered down my skin. My breath caught short. The pendant nestled between my breasts. Slowly, she hooked a finger inside my shirt and peered inside to see her work. Her breathing changed. My bra felt tight. I was getting flushed all over.
I looked around us. No one was watching. She completely unbuttoned me. My bra was exposed for the world to see.
Gently, she unbuttoned my cuffs and with her hands under my shirt, she pushed my blouse off me.
More necklaces joined the pendant. She paused. A whole cluster of pendants were in my cleavage. She dipped a finger inside them, swirled them around. Then she unhooked my bra. It fell away. I was bare-breasted. She cupped my breasts in her hands, rolling my nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. They got painfully hard.
She took a sip of coffee and placed her steaming mouth on my nipple. I nearly fell off the chair with the pleasure of it. Coming up for air, I saw a twinkle in her eye as she took another sip of coffee and took a big bite of my molasses cookie. Crumbs fell into my lap. Like a lap dancer she slid in between my legs and started biting off the crumbs near my special place.
I awoke with a jolt. My body was sweated through and the sheets were in an awkward ball between my legs. There was a deep, troubling throbbing down there. I had to do something. I freed myself, went into the bathroom and put a cold washcloth on it. The shock made me cry out.
“Are you OK?” my roommate called out.
“I stubbed my toe,” I lied.
In the morning, Paula was having a cup of Chai Tea and a whole wheat bagel when I found her in the kitchen. She gave me a knowing look.
“I know that girls have needs,” Paula said, in her best friend voice that sounded very similar to a mother’s voice sometimes.
“It was nothing like that,” I lied again.
I paused.
“But since we’re talking about it,” I said, “sometimes I’m afraid of it. What’s inside me. Really letting go. I was with this guy once. He got me really excited. I said things.”
“What things?” she asked.
“I can’t say,” I said.
“Come on. You can tell me.”
I shook my head.
“Hey, I told you about the time I had sex with that guy and we couldn’t find the dildo after. It turned out it was still up my butt,” she said. “So you can tell me.”
“Fuck me like a dog,” I said.
She laughed.
“He said I was a freak and never called me again,” I said.
“Then he’s the freak,” she said.
I smiled. I liked Paula. She was the neatest girl I’d ever met, although she was a dead head, a Grateful Dead fan, and she loved hippy stuff. When we first met, she asked me to go with her to pick out some stickers for her car. I thought since she was a vegetarian like me, she wanted animal stickers, but she wanted Grateful Dead-type stuff. She asked my opinion between a skull with roses or a skull with dice for eyes. I told her I liked the roses. At least they were flowers.
We met when she was working upstairs at the tattoo parlour as a receptionist. She came downstairs to the bead shop, where I worked, asking for a ride home, because she had ridden her bicycle to work and it was raining. I always thought she was riding a bike because she was healthy, but it turned out her licence had been suspended for drunk driving.
Now we were roommates. With the tattoo parlour behind her, she worked at the Safe Sex Store, selling condoms.
I decided to tell her about my crush. I knew I had to do something about it. My career and my love life depended on it. By meeting the woman of my dreams, I could maybe get a mention in her art column. One year after graduating my jewellery career wasn’t going anywhere fast, but I needed a kick in the pants from Paula to do this. She was the best motivator I knew.
“Guess who I saw at the Laundromat?” I asked.
Paula raised an eyebrow at me.
“Melanie,” I said.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“She is a staff writer for the Metro Weekly.”
“Isn’t she the one whose column you read every week?”
“Yeah.”
I’d also read almost everything else she’d written from her first movie reviews to her restaurant reviews when she first came out. Now she wrote about gallery openings, art shows and artist profiles. I loved the personal tidbits interspersed throughout her articles. I would love for her to come racing into the bead shop to interview me, out of breath, holding a falafel sandwich and a diet coke, a little hole in her red canvas tennis shoes.
“What about it?” she asked.
“A write-up from her could do me a lot of good,” I said.
“So meet her.”
“There is a catch. I think she’s hot.”
“No, you don’t. You’re being trendy again.”
“I’m not.”
“Look what happened with Kit,” Paula said, getting up to make some more honey butter.
I squeezed my right arm, where my tattoo was. Kit was the tattoo artist from upstairs. She did the brown-eyed Susans on my arm. They were my favourite flowers in the fields behind our house when I was growing up, and I was tired of seeing the parade of roses and lilies coming out of Kit’s studio. I wanted something different.
She was the woman I had the experience with. It happened after hours. During the tattoo she kept telling me to breathe because I kept holding my breath. “You’ve got fantastic skin,” she said. “Yellow just loves you.”
When she was done with the tattoo I felt a little dizzy, but I was happy with what she’d done. She took me into her office and got me a soda.
“I feel high,” I said.
“That’s your endorphins,” she said.
She patted the sofa next to her. I joined her.
“You know what would be lovely on you?” she asked, and motioned me to stand. “Take off your pants.”
“I’m a little shy.”
“I see everything all the time. I’m like a doctor.”
I took them off. She started sketching more flowers on my thighs. In the quickest of moments, she pulled aside my panties and gave me a quick kiss on the clit.
“Did you mind that?”
I thought hard. It felt good, really, really good.
“No.”
Without any decorum she pulled me back onto the sofa, climbed on top and ate me out.
No kissing. No foreplay. She was at an all-you-can-eat buffet. And she was good.
I came so fast it almost hurt.
“Wow,” I cried.
She looked startled for a second, but then a sly triumphant look came over her face. “I need a diet cola.”
I got up and pulled my pants on.
“Your arm,” she said, all business now. “Use Noxzema.”
I let myself out and told Paula the next morning.
“You what? When?” she asked.
“After you left.”
“Where?”
“On the sofa.”
She screwed up her face. “I can never sit there again. You only did it to be trendy.”
“I did not.”
I waited for Kit to come and see me the next day. She didn’t. The whole incident sort
of went away. The next time I saw her, she acted as if nothing had happened.
Paula quit the tattoo shop a week later. I wasn’t sure if it was because of me or not. I looked at her now, spreading her freshly made honey butter on her bagel. She seemed much happier at the condom store.
“Are you really interested in Melanie?” Paula asked.
I nodded. “I don’t know why I find her attractive. Or why I’m intrigued by her.”
“Maybe it’s her self-confidence. What she projects, you sorely lack. What would you do with her if you got her?”
I paused. “Hang out.”
“Then go to the Laundromat. Wear something sexy and meet her. Hopefully she’ll like girls too.”
I went to the Laundromat the same time I had seen her the previous week. My heart leapt at the sight of her, but she was with a guy. She had a boyfriend, I decided. I wanted to turn around and leave, but it would look strange if I left with my laundry after just walking in. Still, I could get her to notice the jewellery I’m wearing and maybe spark some interest for a mention in her column.
Melanie was already at the dryers. I chose a washing machine close by, but not too close. As I stuffed in my clothes, I glanced over at her a few times. She had a sexy bratty look about her that I loved, like she used to be a quasi-popular cheerleader who loved to shock her friends with her exploits and frank language, while all the adults thought her so sweet and innocent. Her body was amazing, like she was a little girl and a nymph all rolled into one.
I checked out the clothes she already had on hangers. They were all very trendy and expensive. All her towels matched. Compared to her stuff, my stuff looked mangy.
“God, how I miss the fluff and fold,” she said. “Whoever said being on a budget was fun?”
“Being a responsible adult is never fun,” the guy said. “But the key word in that last sentence is adult.”
Wishing my washer wasn’t so loud on wash, I tried to hear what she was telling him now.
I caught bits and pieces about her frightful crush on a girl. I smiled. So she liked girls. I had a chance. But she wouldn’t even look my way. I took off my shirt to reveal the tank top beneath. Maybe my brown-eyed Susans might get her to look my way.
The guy looked my way, but not Melanie. He was nice looking, but he didn’t match with her at all. He looked like the type of guy who would work in a used record store. Maybe if you had one too many beers at the Half Moon Bar you might do him.
She said she had to go to the bathroom. Impulsively, I followed her, thinking I might bump into her in the hallway and start a conversation. At the bathroom door, I found it ajar. I heard her going. It sounded like a gentle rain. She flushed. I saw a flash of her ass. I gulped. Pulling up her jeans, she zipped them.
Before I knew it, the door swung open. I startled. She was in front of me, looking alarmed.
“I thought no one was in here,” I said.
“Well, knocking would be the polite thing to do,” she said abruptly and left.
I wanted to follow her, but how could I? She thought I needed to use the bathroom. I stepped inside and shut the door. Facing the mirror, I looked at the embarrassment on my cheeks. I had been almost caught spying on another girl in the bathroom. What a freak.
I glanced at the toilet seat. This was a weird thought, but her warm, heart-shaped butt had just been there.
When I came out, I found they had left. I put my clothes in the dryer she had just used, knowing this took me to another level of stalking, when I found a sweater. It was obviously hers – pink, with long sleeves and ribbon embroidery. The label was like something you would buy at Jacobson’s. Surprisingly, it looked like it had shrunk.
I debated on what to do. I could give it to the attendant, or she might come back for it and I could hand it to her. Unsure, I laid it on the counter as I finished drying and folding my clothes. I can’t say I did the right thing. My judgment was a little cloudy with lust. I took it home.
By the time I got there, Paula had already gone to bed. I went to my room and put away my clothes. Like a fifteen-year-old boy craving his first crush, I smelled her sweater. A summer afternoon filled my senses. It was her softener sheet, I realized.
I smoothed the sweater on the bed, imagining she was on her back. She caressed my face and slid her little finger inside my mouth. Her fingertip explored the tip of my tongue. She pulled it out. I ran my tongue alongside her finger and licked the inside of her finger cleavage. Aroused, she squirmed. Having me hold the cuff of her sweater, she pulled her arm free.
With my face pressed to the sweater, I played with my clit, lost in my fantasy, but reality started to interrupt. My finger was cramping, and I realized how silly I looked from my teddy bear’s point of view. I was practically humping this sweater. Fantasy Melanie dissolved. I liberated my finger and sighed, everything down there left wet, loose and lonely. I threw the sweater over my teddy bear’s head.
By the next week, I was so sexually frustrated that I knew I had to do something drastic. I decided to go to the Laundromat and wear the sweater. It was a small, while I was a medium, and it had shrunk, so it ended up being a midriff with three-quarter length sleeves, but my breasts did look good in it. My plan was that she would notice the sweater on me, question me about it, and I could casually say I found it. Thus starting a conversation that could only bring good things.
There was a major catch in my plans though. Melanie wasn’t there. Her guy friend was though, washing what looked like dozens of worn-out jeans. Disappointed, I slunk to a washer and stuffed in my clothes.
Bored, I looked around. He was the only other customer. I hadn’t thought to bring anything to read, and the ancient baby magazines by the soda machine didn’t look the least bit interesting.
I glanced at him. He was wearing the same worn-out coffee house T-shirt from last time. Was he looking in my direction as well?
“Isn’t that the place that fired staff for having piercings and tattoos?” I asked.
“Yup,” he said.
“Are you supporting them?”
He walked over to me.
“No. It’s a soft T-shirt. It feels good. Feel it.”
I did. It was soft.
“It takes months to get a T-shirt like this,” he said. “Now, it’s in that worn-in time frame.”
“Come again?”
“You know. Like you’ve got a blue jean jacket. You’ve worn it for years. It’s worn in some spots, maybe a couple of well placed holes. It looks real cool for a month or two like that, and then suddenly it looks like garbage.”
He paused and looked me over.
“Speaking about clothes. Isn’t that Melanie’s sweater?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.
“This?” I asked, feigning surprise. “I found it. Who’s Melanie?”
“The girl you were checking out last time. I don’t blame you. She’s hot.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You weren’t looking at me. That chick boner you had was all for her. Admit it.”
I blushed. A chick boner. I had never thought about it like that. A dryer light came on inside my head amongst the lint lust. Talking to him might be a good opportunity to pump him for some information about her.
“With you being her friend, what’s she like?”
“Pretentious. Spoiled. You’re not her type. Neither am I,” he said.
“Who is her type?”
“Tomboys. No make up. Slender bodies. Baseball shirts. Short hair. Nothing like you.”
“Hey, I’m not a miss priss,” I said.
“But every inch of you is a girl. From behind there is no mistaking what you are.”
I glanced at my ass. It didn’t look so great to me. And what was he doing looking at it?
“If she’s so spoiled, why are you friends?” I asked.
“Habit. Entertainment. Nothing better to do.”
“That’s awful.”
He shrugged.
“I was
her neighbour back when she had braces,” he said. “Before the nose job. And the dye job. And way before the ‘I’m a journalist’ stuff. Sometimes, I think she likes me because I liked her when she was just Melanie. Other times, I don’t think she likes me because I remind her of her past.”
“Really.”
“The only reason she got the Metro Weekly gig is because her aunt is the publisher. Don’t tell anyone. She doesn’t even write them per se.”
“What do you mean?”
“She gathers some and adds some opinions. I whip them into shape. Add some humour. Things about my daily life.”
“Those are your personal tidbits?” I asked, panicking.
It was his sense of humour I liked. Not hers.
There was a pause.
“She even told me what she likes to do to other girls, but it’s far too explicit to say out here,” he said.
How I wanted the details. “Where can we go?” I pressed.
“The store room.”
The attendant wasn’t watching. I followed him into the storeroom. I felt like I was in high school, stealing off for a cigarette. Inside, there was a metal desk, boxes of mini soap powders and an ancient gumball dispenser. He locked the door behind us.
“What does she like to do?” I asked.
“I know she likes to sit on their laps like lap dancers and squirm around.”
My breath caught short. Images of her lap dancing me filled my head.
“One time at a party,” he continued, “she had her top off with some chick and they got caught by the hostess.”
“No way,” I said.
“That gave me a boner for weeks thinking about it,” he confessed.
“What else?”
He paused, thinking. “She likes to eat out girls in weird places. Backs of cars, dressing rooms, restaurants.”
I sighed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea hearing all this. Now I was horny and, judging by the way he tugged at the front of his jeans, so was he. He stood by me.
“You smell like her,” he said.
“It’s her dryer sheet.”
“Could you strap on a dozen of them and pretend you’re her?” he asked.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3 Page 37