My stomach is knotted. I feel destroyed, inside and out.
I have no clue what will happen, or how things will go. This could be a disaster. It probably will be. Memories clash with my present, trying to flip and send me to Richard.
I drive the rest of the way feeling like I’ll vomit. I swallow bile, knowing what I must do. When I’m finished, I’ll finally call Richard.
And he will be proud of me.
I swallow hard as I make the final turn, remembering the many times I had made that turn before. I walk calmly to Zoe’s front door, heart pounding, still wanting to vomit.
Zoe didn’t care for surprises. I couldn’t imagine one bigger than this. Before I can knock, the door flies open.
Zoe says, “What took you so long?” and empties the breath from my lungs.
Hard and Soft Together
I watch Zoe as she crosses the room from bar to sofa.
She has a glass of white wine in each hand. She looks stunning. I could be happy here. Perhaps not as happy as I would be with Richard, but happier than most people can ever hope to be.
Zoe hands me the wine, and we do more of what we’ve been doing for a while: lean against the couch, her arm draping my shoulder as I flip through photos to show Zoe the life I’ve been living without her.
She’s as fascinated by my life as I am by hers. We’ve each been watching the other from a distance. Zoe is so in tune with who I am, and who Richard must be, she expected me to visit. She was watching Facebook. I announced my engagement with a four-sentence post, then followed it the next morning with a cryptic, “Be back soon.” Then silence. Zoe said she didn’t know how she knew, only that she did. I was visiting my past. That meant her. She never doubted I’d come, and never moved her eyes too far from the door.
We made love just seconds after my arrival. I crashed through the doorway and down onto the thick bed of blankets and pillows Zoe had arranged for my inevitable arrival. We hungrily swam into each other, pawing clothes, skin, and flesh, making passionate love with our mouths.
She looks at the photos of Cooper and laughs, remembering stories from before, and comparing them to the older, wiser Cooper I speak of now. She laughs, pointing. “Oh my God, his dick really is tan!”
I smile. “I told you.”
She takes the phone and starts scrolling through pictures herself. I lean against the couch and pull her into the crook of my arm. Zoe looks like an angel: my perfect woman. I love the softness of her skin as I wrap my arm around her. My fingers brush her lace-covered breasts. I looked down at her, smiling as I sweep her hair, knowing enough time has passed to put us both in a simmer.
We’ve shared a large bowl of berries, a bottle of wine — we’re now on our second — and more than a few stories. I’m dressed in white socks and a sweater I left behind three years before. Zoe is in white, like I’ve always loved, and like Richard loves on me.
Zoe knows what I want, so she eases back between my legs and starts rubbing herself lightly against my pussy, hand slithering past her yoga pants waistband, down toward her honey-sweet hole.
I lift the bottom of her top. Her nipple is hard and bright pink. I turn it harder and pinker by squeezing her breast from beneath.
Zoe’s hand disappears into her pants. I can tell her fingers are moving between her lips, because her body starts to hum.
I’m getting wetter from her whimpers. I want to smell and taste her. “Take off your panties,” I say.
Zoe laughs. “Shouldn’t I start with my pants?”
I say, “No, I’ll take care of those,” then crawl to her front, and gently lower Zoe’s pants down her body and past her ankles. She lifts her legs, and I pull them the rest of the way. I throw them over my shoulder and return to her side. She moans as I brush her body with my hair, lips, and the tips of my fingers. Her skin is prickles under my touch. I want to go fast, but love the control like my Richard, and taking things slow.
Zoe presses her fingers harder between her folds, swishing lengthwise. She’s so wet, the volume of her sloshing is making me wetter. I part the sweater from my breast, shrug from the fabric, grab my tit, and knead the skin under my palm.
I finish squeezing and push my body to Zoe’s, tilting her face between my breasts, nudging toward her as she leans into me, extending her tongue and dragging it over my nipple.
I moan louder, wanting more of Zoe but needing control.
I look at her beautiful tits. I reach down, squeeze one then the other, yelp, and arch my back as her flicking tongue covers my breast.
“Lie down,” I say. “Please.”
She lies on the rug, scooting back and pressing her head to the pillows. I crawl over and lower my breast into her open, waiting mouth.
I look down, wanting to lick her puffy nipples.
Zoe teases my nipple harder with her tongue and pushes three fingers hard against my pussy. I’m softly moaning, begging for more. She changes breasts. I feel a momentary chill as my licked nipple kisses cool air, then a gust of warmth as her mouth hits my other one.
I moan louder, push my body to Zoe, and mash my breast into her mouth.
I breathe, “So, are you ready?”
Zoe nods toward the giant, white vibrator with the large, pink head she showed me about an hour before. I pick it up and hold the vibrator up like a trophy, laughing. I turn it on, and Zoe closes her eyes. She licks her lip, tipping her head back as I nudge the pleasure maker in between her legs, pushing it against her pussy until she’s moaning in time with its hum.
I lean down in between Zoe’s legs, near the vibrator, and stir in wide circles with my right hand, pushing it down on her stomach with my left. She buries her hand in my hair as I stir her in steady circles, each just slightly faster than the one before it.
She cries out, “Fuck yeah, Liza! That’s amazing!” as she convulses on the floor. I push the massager harder against her pussy. She cums all over it.
Eyes flutter. Zoe grinds her tiny teeth. She whispers, “Thank you,” then cums again. I pinch her nipples and push the vibrator harder to her clit, before dragging it along her lower lips.
I want my turn, and can feel my pussy flexing and flaring. Every second makes me wetter, watching Zoe squeezing her tits as she juices the vibrator’s soft, pink head. I want to bury my face between her legs, feel her juices on my skin.
I make Zoe cum harder, first biting her right nipple, harder than she expects, as I stir her pussy faster. She rattles up from the blankets and pillows, unable to manage her body.
My mouth hovers an inch above her. I let her capture my lips, just one taste before pulling away, then I return to her breast, running my tongue in circles around her nipple as I turn off the vibrator and her body calms.
Zoe shifts on the floor and rolls toward me.
“I want you,” she says. “It’s your turn.”
I rise to my knees and look down at Zoe, waiting. She plants several kisses along my body’s length, then positions me onto the blankets and pillows like I had arranged her before. I moan, lifting my ass from the carpet.
Zoe is on her knees, taking turns with my tits, kissing one then the other, starting with tightly pursed lips at my nipple, gently sucking, then sliding down to pull as much as she can into her mouth. My head falls back. I close my eyes.
Zoe’s face is between my legs. I throttle instinct, wanting to squeeze my thighs to trap her face at my pussy. She gently spreads my lips, pushing her tongue into my folds. I squirm because she’s taking too long, teasing too much.
“Please, Zoe, I need more.”
She looks up from between my legs, meeting my eyes.
“You need more of what?”
“I need more of your mouth on my pussy!”
“But that’s where I am,” she says, then lowers her lips to my hole.
“Please, Zoe, you know what I mean,” I’m panting. “Stop making me wait!”
She licks me hard and fills me with chills. I shake, pushing my pussy against her face. She
pulls back again, looks up. “You don’t want to wait?”
“No!”
“But you made me wait, Liza. For three years.”
“Not now,” I whimper, “please. Later. I promise. We. Can. Talk. About whatever you want. I promise.”
Words are painful. Zoe is torture.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve come home, Zoe. I should’ve called you. Facebook is stupid. Please, just put your mouth back on my cunt!”
Giggling, Zoe starts lapping at my pussy: in, out, and all around my soaking lips. While sucking hard at the top, she dips two fingers inside me, curling up so they’re sloping down. Then she starts plunging over and over. She goes from sucking my clit to flicking it with her tongue, and hurls me into another orgasm.
I want to scream and tell Zoe I love her. I want to tell her I’d do anything for her, and that the only reason I was ever with Richard was so I could better appreciate her. But the world pounds until it falls silent.
Zoe holds up the vibrator, then turns it on. The hum thrills me. While sucking my right breast, Zoe pushes the bulb to my pussy. My hand is pressed to her back, pushing her harder down onto my breast. I grab half of the vibrator and help her hold it against me.
The next orgasm finds me immediately.
I scream out, throw my head back, and rock my body against her.
Zoe does more of everything to keep me shaking. Her mouth clamps tighter on my breast, her tongue darts more fiercely at my nipples. The vibrator is pressed harder against my pussy.
I spill juice from inside me. Zoe grips the handle and mashes it against my cunt, hard enough that it might hurt if I wasn’t so soaking.
Zoe stares down at her stirring, pleased with herself, leaning low so her still-exposed breast is pressed to my waist.
“How do you like that?” She whispers and purrs. “Do you like cumming over and over? Do you like cumming all over my face? Do you like cumming all over my vibrator? Do you like coming all over my rug? And my pillows?”
Yes, I love it all, and never want it to end.
Orgasms are exploding inside me. Zoe pushes me further, filling my body with more intensity than anyone other than Richard. Her words and movement are too much. I want to beg her, please stop.
Instead, I grab the vibrator’s hilt, grip it tightly, and push it harder against me, feeling it pleasantly mash my lips and wedge into the flaps.
I scream loud as Zoe stirs.
My final orgasm is hard and soft together. Like us. Our dainty bodies, tangled, hands sharing the hilt, mine over hers as we stir me into something deeper.
I think: This is what it feels like outside of the dream.
Outside of the Dream
Sometimes, dreams give you distance.
In the middle of what isn’t true, or what you thought couldn’t be, you see the world with a fresh perspective. Everything shifts. Maybe one thing, more often many. Enough to change things, and give you new realizations. Sometimes what you thought was wonderful wasn’t. Your memory is tarnished, reality dulled.
Not so with Zoe.
She was as beautiful beside me as she was in my dreams. Prettier even than the girl I described to Richard. Even he said, “Surely you’re stretching the truth,” until I showed him a picture.
Zoe has a pixie’s nose like I do, though hers doesn’t have a tiny diamond inside it. Her body is so delicate that she reminds me of origami.
Between our interludes — seven since my arrival the day before — we dipped deeper into our truths. I told her more about Richard, and my new life. I told her about Europe and my years of roaming. I told her about Sasha and Hope.
She told me about Anthony, Jake, Sam, Logan, then Kristie after that — the first and only girl since me.
Zoe has been alone for a while. As long as I’ve been with Richard.
She said she missed me, and that she was devastated after I left. She almost hated me, and would have if we hadn’t shared so many wonderful memories. Zoe could never turn her back on those. Instead, she fought to save them, preserved in pockets of her soul to draw in happier times.
When she finally found those happier times, and wanted to call me, my number was dead. After six months I moved on, wanting to hack the past from my present like a dead limb. She wasn’t going to ping me on Facebook.
Zoe thought I was cold for leaving, an ice queen who cared more about herself than anything or anyone else. She couldn’t see that maybe — as much as it killed both of us — I might’ve been right. Three years later, she’s glad. The pain of what happened became an anchor snaking her ankle, holding her in place long enough to realize she was happy where she was and didn’t need, or want, New York.
But I was in Europe, away from her reach.
“As much as it hurt, I’m glad you left,” Zoe whispers, blowing hot breath in my ear. “I love my life, like it is now. It wouldn’t be this way without you.”
A backward compliment, but I know what she means, and feel the same way.
I run my fingers along Zoe’s arm. We’ve been like this for hours. I wonder if she knows what I do, and if she can feel the truth between us.
It’s time. I need to get home to Richard. I’ve proven what I knew: I need and want him. Being away is absurd.
“You’re leaving,” Zoe says, reading my mind. Her words are half question, half statement.
“Yes.” I say lean on her shoulder.
She brushes the hair from my head, and twirls a strand around her finger. “To him? To Richard?”
“Yes. It’s time.”
“So, that’s it? You’ll go home, then get married?”
“Looks that way.”
“You’re not ready,” Zoe says, with a sweet finality that suggests I can’t argue.
“Of course, I am.”
“I don’t think you have what you left to find.”
“How do you know that?” I say, not sure if I should feel insulted. “I’m here. I think Richard wanted me to come here, to see if I liked women more than men.”
“That’s absurd,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t imagine Richard’s that dim, even if you are.” Zoe laughs to prove she’s kidding. You’re not more attracted to men than women, Liza. And it’s not the other way around, either. You’re like me, and that’s one of the reasons I love you. You don’t see people as black or white, man or woman. You love sex, and don’t care who it’s with as long as it feels good, and right. Why do you think it has to be one way or the other?”
“I don’t.” I sift through thoughts, searching for the right arrangement of words. “I don’t think it has to be one or the other, but I think we have natural tendencies, and it makes sense that a person would naturally lean one way. Right?”
“Wrong,” Zoe says. “I think for most people, sure, they’re wired to follow biology, and that means making babies. But for people like you and me, people listening to something inside them that’s more spiritual than biological, I don’t think that matters a bit. If you’re listening for a soul, gender means nothing.”
I lean down, plant my lips to Zoe’s, and softly kiss her.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you, too,” she laughs. “Even though you’re leaving.”
“I have to.”
“I know.”
“What about Europe, and your dirty, little model girls? You’re giving up on them? You’re not planning a visit?”
“I called Sasha. They’ll both be in London in a week, but I’m not going.”
“Why not?” Zoe’s tiny face seems largely surprised. “Aren’t the dirty models a significant part of your sexual journey into yesteryear? Isn’t that how it goes: Cooper, Leigh, Me, Europe, Richard? Wouldn’t they finish your run?”
“Yes, I suppose it would, but not in the way that you’re thinking.”
“Meaning?”
“I have no desire. Not for Europe, Sasha, or Hope. I want to go home.”
“Fair enough,” Z
oe says. “You don’t think you’ll have regrets for not going?”
“None,” I say. “I don’t think Sasha’s in a good place. Same with Hope and some of the other girls. Their e-mails seem off. Their Twitter and Facebook updates are almost scary. I think they’re into bad shit, and I want nothing to do with it. Like I said, I’m ready to go home.”
“And you want to get married?”
“Yes. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“It just … doesn’t seem like you. It’s not the Liza who wouldn’t move with me to New York; the Liza who didn’t want to ‘plan everything out.’”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry about that. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe my friend Ellie really should have married Dean, even though I told her not to. People change. It’s not fair to punish evolution. That’s what all this is about. Richard wanted me to see how far I’ve grown, and visit the people from my past who have grown away from me. I saw everyone who mattered. I saw how life has changed them, and their perception of me.”
“So, how are things different?” Zoe smiles. “Cooper first.”
“Well … ” I lean back “ … Cooper’s a great time. Always was, and our familiar chemistry felt wonderful. I love the boy inside him. He makes me want to play. The opposite of Richard, who makes me want to play house. I expected to feel playful with Cooper because I always had, but I also felt more emotions than I anticipated. They surprised me, almost overwhelmed me until I figured them out. Those feelings were strong, but not nearly enough to hold me. I am glad I went to him after Leigh, or I might have fallen deeper, mistaking things for what they weren’t.”
“And what did you learn from Leigh? Was she just nostalgia, too?”
Zoe tries not to sound jealous, like she always did when speaking of Leigh. She’s pure of heart, but can’t pretend to feel no sting from my first girl.
“Leigh was a schoolgirl crush. She’s beautiful and sweet. I love how it feels when our souls connect. But she’s dessert without protein.” I laugh. “I can only eat that for so long.”
“How about her girlfriend, Jenny?”
Engaged (The ABCs of Erotica) Page 9