by M. O'Keefe
ANNIE
There was a circus that came to the county when Annie was a little girl. All the cars in a used-car dealership parking lot had been parked to the side so the tents could be set up. There had been rides—the Zipper, she remembered, and a little baby sort of roller coaster. A midway with glow-in-the-dark posters and stuffed Bart Simpsons for prizes.
But at night there was a proper circus show.
Annie and her mom went, and it was amazing to her how that parking lot was transformed under the big red-and-yellow-striped tent. There was nothing mundane or familiar beneath that circus tent.
There were high-wire acts and jugglers. Clowns. A woman riding on an elephant.
But the thing she remembered best was one year there was an act with a woman in red sequins, a man with a whip, and a tiger. The woman went into the tiger’s cage and lay down with him. Used her own hands to open up that tiger’s mouth and then rested her head against his teeth.
It was shocking, that trust. The entire crowd gasped. Annie remembered not breathing for a full minute.
The next day in the papers there were articles about how dangerous it was. How other women in different red sequins in other parts of the world every year got mauled by tigers.
Annie convinced her mom to take them the second night and she watched the same show, her heart in her throat, but this time she noticed that before the woman stepped into the black metal cage, for just a split second, her smile dropped from her face and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She’s scared, Annie remembered thinking. She hadn’t noticed it the first time, blinded by the shabby glamour of the parking lot circus.
Despite her fear, or maybe because of it, it was hard to know how someone got into that kind of situation, yet the woman went in anyway.
And that made it so much more exciting.
Annie didn’t know what the word was for that, being trusting and scared all at once. But that was exactly how she felt right now.
She waited in her dark bedroom, having hung up the phone and then unlocked her door. She debated taking off her clothes. Turning on a light. But in the end, she just lay there and waited for him.
Trust.
Excitement.
Love.
Her door opened and her eyelids shut. Her entire body was shaking. Trembling.
Fear.
But not the bad kind. Not the sour despair, the bright, hot light of terror.
This was anticipation. Gleeful and giddy.
She opened her eyes and there he was in her doorway, wearing his familiar jeans and tee shirt. His silky hair and half his face illuminated in the white moonlight coming in through the windows.
He took a deep breath, his wide chest rising and falling, like he was the one about to crawl inside the tiger’s cage.
Yes. She liked that much better. Let him be nervous. Or worried. Let him waste time wondering if this was the right thing to do.
She knew what she wanted.
“Take off your clothes,” she said, taking her fear in hand.
He smiled and it was part seduction, part boyish happiness, and she felt so much the same way. This darkness and light that would not be separated.
He tossed something down on the corner of her bed and then reached up behind his head to pull his tee shirt off. He undid his belt and pushed his pants down to his feet, stepping out of his boots and his jeans and his underwear at the same time. And then he stood there, naked and sliced to pieces by moonlight.
“You,” he said, and she didn’t hesitate to shimmy out of her clothes, dropping them beside the bed.
He put a knee on the bed and crawled up toward her, his erection bobbing as he went. He was braced on his hands and knees over her and she luxuriated in his attention. In that glowing heat in his eyes. She would preen if she knew how.
She reached up and cupped his face, the smooth ridges of the burns familiar now. Simply a part of him.
“Do you want to be here?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“Then no regrets, Dylan. I don’t plan on having any.”
“Me neither,” he said.
“Lie back,” she said, and he protested, not moving, but she pressed against his shoulder, pushing him until he had no choice but to fall onto his back.
She climbed over him, sitting, not on his cock, but against it. She could feel him, hard and warm, caught between her body and his stomach. She shifted a little, gliding over it. Making it wet.
“Fuck, Annie,” he groaned, reaching for her legs.
She loved the sight of those rough, dark hands against the pale skin of her thighs. Looking at them made her hotter. Wetter.
She ground down against him a little harder.
“You like my hands on you?” he asked, and she nodded. He slipped one down between her legs where she could see the head of his cock. He cupped himself, his knuckles pressing up into her pussy. One slipping slightly inside of her, the other notching against her clit.
It was rough.
It was perfect.
“Harder,” she breathed. And he fisted his cock, all of his knuckles against her now, and she rode them. Up and then down, feeling each one against her clit and then down against the entrance of her body. Each one hard and sharp, nearly too much, but somehow not at all enough.
“Come here,” he growled, wrapping a hand around her waist and pulling her toward his head.
“What?” she breathed, not wanting to leave this promise of pleasure with his rough fingers and hard knuckles.
“Come here, baby. I want to taste you.”
“Taste—”
Carefully, she crawled up his body. Her pussy hit the tough stubble of his chin and he nuzzled it into her. She flinched and shuddered.
“Annie?”
“More.”
He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
He positioned her over his mouth and she had to look away—the sight of him…and her…it was too much. Too raw. Something out of a movie she never got to see. The old stifling modesty came out of nowhere and she pushed it away.
Bullshit, she thought.
There were people every day in all sorts of places having sex like this. Why should she be embarrassed?
She braced her hand against the wall and looked down, arching forward a little so she could see better.
He sucked her into his mouth, licking against her clit. Holding it still with the hard edges of his teeth. She worried about whether or not he could breathe with his face up against her like that, but then his hands pulled her harder onto him and she realized she was bracing herself away from him.
And he didn’t want that.
She settled more of her weight down and he groaned, opening his mouth wider, sucking on her harder. His chin was there with that delicious stubble and she shifted herself against it. Circling her hips against him, until she found what she liked.
Both hands plastered against the wall, she let him eat her until it felt like the whole world was in her body. Everything was in her body. Everything good and sharp and sweet and hot. It was her. It was in her. Her body coiled and curled and she closed her eyes feeling as much of him with as much of herself as she could.
Yes. She slapped the wall, felt the trailer shake. The earth move.
Yes. His hands squeezed her ass, her legs, slipped up over her back, pulling her down against him.
Yes. Again. More. More and more. Until suddenly it was enough and she came, jerking hard against him, finding the right pressure to make the orgasm last and last. It unspooled inside of her, around her.
She unspooled. Endlessly. Perfectly.
Finally, she let go of his hair and slumped backward and he sat up, practically throwing her back onto the bed and then crawling up over her. His face was shiny, his eyes were…oh, they were focused and intense. On her. With her.
Despite that orgasm she was breathlessly suspended by pleasure again. The pleasure she’d had. The pleasure she was about to have.
Anything he wanted.
“Look at you,” he sighed.
She arched up against him, a tiger, purring.
“More?” he asked.
“Everything you have,” she said.
He kissed her and she tasted her come on his lips. His tongue. Sweet and tangy. Salty and bitter. His damp face made her face damp.
She wrapped her hands around his cock where it lay, hot and hard against her hip. He shifted, his legs on either side of her body. No longer crouched over her, he was up on his knees. Calmly he reached behind him and slipped his fingers back between her legs. She jerked, flinched, really, she was so sensitive. But he did not stop. He slipped one finger inside of her and then another.
She spread her legs, letting him in. Letting him have whatever he wanted.
Slowly, she wrapped her hands back around his cock, jacking him slowly, and then she shifted down, he shifted up, and she slipped him into her mouth. The position was awkward, but his eyes said he liked it. Liked what he saw. He braced one hand against the wall and thrust down into her mouth, until she felt him at the back of her throat. She relaxed, breathing through her nose, covered her teeth with her lip, and pushed up when he pushed down again.
“Oh, look at you, baby,” he breathed. “Look at you take it. You fucking love it, don’t you? You love my cock in your mouth.”
She couldn’t move or talk, pinned as she was by his body, so she simply…acquiesced. Total surrender. She felt the shudder run through his body and still he kept stroking into her, pulling back so she could get a breath, spit trailing from him to her mouth. She pressed against his ass, pushing him back into her mouth.
Over and over again, he filled her. Choking her. The edge between pleasure and pain beyond blurred.
He pressed into her until her nose was buried in the skin of his belly, until for a moment she could not breathe, and she trusted him totally to pull away when she needed him to. And he did. All the way out and she gasped for air, brushing the tears from her eyes with one hand and reaching for him with the other.
He stopped, though, and pulled her up into his arms, holding her tight and close. Not kissing her. Just hugging.
“Dylan?” she asked.
“I’m just…fuck. I’m just so glad you answered that damn phone.”
“Me, too,” she whispered against his ear. “But…you still owe me a dare.”
He leaned back, his eyes blazing. His cheeks bright. “You sure?”
In answer she kissed him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him with every ounce of yes she had in her body.
He shifted them, rolling them so she was on her back and he was over her. He pulled away briefly and grabbed what he’d thrown on the bottom corner of the bed.
“Your friend Joan had a lot of stuff in her trailer,” he said. “I hope she won’t mind I grabbed this.”
It was a bottle of lube and more condoms.
“She won’t mind,” Annie said, breathless and strung tight beneath him.
“Roll over,” he said, and she didn’t hesitate.
She felt him over her, his hands rough and warm against her back, her ass, her thighs. “Lift up a little,” he murmured, lifting her hips up and shoving a few pillows beneath her. He spread her legs wider and she realized he was looking at her.
But the embarrassment was all gone.
“We can stop if it hurts,” he said.
“I know.”
“Just say—”
“Babe.” She smiled back at him. Meeting his eyes over her ass. “I know.”
He flipped open the lid of the lube and spread some over his fingers. She looked away, putting her forehead down on her hands. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but his erection slipping inside her pussy wasn’t quite it.
Not that she was complaining.
He groaned and leaned forward against her back, a living blanket of heat. “You feel so good like this,” he told her, stroking out of her and then back in as deep and as hard as he could go, making her gasp and then pant.
She pushed against him and felt the slippery pressure of his finger against her asshole. They both applied the slightest thrust against each other and his finger slid right in. She cried out, shuddering against him.
They stayed that way, nearly frozen but for their rasping breaths and shaking limbs. Slowly she adjusted to his invasion. She realized her legs were locked, all the muscles in her back tight, and one by one she relaxed them, until she was melted back into the bed.
“Good girl,” he breathed. “So good. So beautiful. I need to get you ready.”
“I’m…not?”
“Not yet, baby. I’m big and I don’t want to hurt you.”
There was a slight sting, a burning feeling, and a slow steady pressure as he added another finger.
It was…oh God. It was so much. So much of him.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she panted. She didn’t move anymore; she felt pinned and full. Breathing felt like too much. Talking was nearly impossible. She could only lie there. Lie there and feel. And accept. And want.
“You want more?”
She nodded. And pushed her head against her hands and he slipped a third finger inside of her. His hand came down near her face as he braced himself. Pushing himself slowly inside of her.
“We can stop—”
“No!” she cried out, grabbing his wrist, digging in her nails. The edge of pain was like a promise, somehow, that there was going to be more. That there was something bigger and wilder than she’d ever dreamed that her body was capable of.
Dylan kissed her shoulder. Over and over again, and she was shaking and sweating. He shook off her hand and shifted, his knees spreading wider to hold his weight. He slipped his hand beneath her and she knew what he was doing.
“Yes!” she cried before he even touched her. And then his fingers brushed her clit, barely touching it, and she shattered.
His fingers left her asshole and she cried out, arching back to find him again.
And then he slipped out of her pussy and she felt him there. The blunt edge of his cock against the taut skin of her asshole.
“Deep breath.” He sighed and slowly, with excruciating tenderness, he pushed himself into her. It was more than his fingers. Fuller and sharper and brighter, and she felt her body shaking again.
“Touch yourself, baby,” he told her, and she shoved both hands between her legs. Stunned by how wet she was. The sheets were soaked under her. A quick, hard touch against her clit and she was flying again.
He cried out, slipping deeper inside of her. And she pushed herself back and forward, fucking herself against him.
“Oh, baby. God…you’re…”
He fell over her, his hands braced by her face. And she lifted one hand from between her legs to touch his fist. He opened his hand so she could lace her fingers with his, holding them so hard they were locked together. She pressed her lips against his fist and tasted his sweat, felt the edge of his control.
“I’m going to come,” he said, and all she could do was nod, wasted and spent.
His thrusts were gentle and slow and deep. He grabbed the blanket in his fist. His other hand was on her hip, holding her still, and she closed her eyes.
Total surrender.
Three more thrusts and he was bent over her, his head between her shoulder blades. His hands in fists near her face.
“Oh God, Annie. Annie,” he cried, and then he was shaking. And she was accepting him. All of him. Any of him.
It was the most giving and fulfilled moment of her life.
Slowly, gently, he pulled away from her, but she still flinched when he left her body. She felt him leave the bed but she could not move. There was a chance she would not be able to move ever again.
“Annie?” She felt the bed dip again as he crawled up onto it with her. He brushed some of the hair from her eyes and she barely, just barely, m
anaged to open them to look at him.
“You all right?” he asked. He was smiling at her, because he had to know just how all right she was.
“I’m so good,” she breathed through a dry and dusty throat. “You?”
“I’m so good,” he said and kissed her forehead.
He left again and brought back water and some Tylenol, which he made her take for the morning, just in case she was sore. And a washcloth, which he used to clean her up.
“Let me change the sheets,” he said. The wet spot beneath her body had only gotten bigger.
“Just get a towel,” she said, too tired to care. So he did and then, because he was a gentleman and the best lover a girl ever had, he lay down on the towel over the wet spot.
“Go to sleep,” he whispered against her ear, kissing her cheek. Her neck.
Tell me, she thought. Say it. I know you feel it.
She wasn’t naive enough to think that amazing sex equaled love, but what she and Dylan had, it was so much bigger than the sex. So much more than their bodies.
I love you, she thought. I love you so much.
He had to feel it, too. He just had to.
He curled up behind her, one heavy arm over her waist, and as she was slipping down, down, down into sleep she waited as long as she could. Clung to consciousness with both hands hoping…waiting, really, for words that didn’t come.
DYLAN
“You’re kidding,” Annie said as I put the plate of eggs in front of her. It wasn’t much, a cheesy omelet, but damn if it didn’t feel good to make it for her.
“Why would I kid about this?” I asked, stepping back to her little stove to make another for myself.
“Because it’s too perfect,” she said, laughing.
“Well, it was probably the best moment of my childhood. Totally the best Halloween, by a mile.”
“So, you were…who?”
“I was Michelangelo.”
“Which one was he?”
“The red one with the nunchakus. I was all about the nunchakus.”
“Okay.” Annie took a bite of the eggs. “And who was Max?”
Sunlight behind her highlighted the dust motes in the air and the white-blond ends of her hair. She looked like she was shooting out sparks. Glitter, maybe. The bruising was fading. She’d plucked out the remaining stitches in her lip this morning; half of them had fallen out overnight. Sitting there she was totally unadulterated; it was like getting a bright shot of summer after a long winter.