Lessons in Love

by Lessons in Love [Bold Strokes FF] (retail) (epub)

  When the frantic beating of both our hearts finally subsided, I brought her wrist once more to my lips, returning to the spot that began my journey. From her wrist I traced a light path following her pulse with the tip of my tongue. I kept moving over her shoulder and up the slender column of her throat until our lips touched and fused.

  *

  The sun is moments away from breaking the plane of the horizon, signaling the start of our Race. I turn to my Beloved and see the stiffness in her stance and the clench in her jaw. I reach out and touch her face ever so gently. This is her first race and she is anxious. I lean toward her and kiss the furrow in her brow. The muscle in her jaw relaxes infinitesimally. I won’t push her further. This is the tenth race I remember, and worry still sits in my gut like a stone.

  What if I lose and she doesn’t love me in my next life? What if I win and I can’t find her? Every lifetime is a first time for one of us.

  When the sun rises, she will take to the skies as a Phoenix and I to the sea as a Dragon. It will take us the day to circle the earth with the winner arriving back to this spot before sunset. Then the two of us will return to our home for one last night together. In the morning, the one who won the Pearl will remain and the other will be reborn somewhere in the valley below our home.

  As the arc of the sun edges above the horizon, I turn to her one last time and capture her eyes with mine. “I will find you,” I promise.

  I see the last of her tension melt away in the daybreak as her easy confidence returns. She smiles at me with a love I have treasured over every life for a thousand years and replies, “No, my love, I shall find you.”

  Fucking: A Vignette of the Midwest

  Lynne Jamneck

  Was it because she was leaning up against the red brick wall—was that why I noticed her? Navy cargo pants, Doc Martens that were probably fraying at the seams. Her hugger T, black and slight from age, showed that, despite her butch appearance, her breasts were nothing but womanly. Not small. A generous handful. And fucking perfect.

  That would only be the first time that particular word would come to mind where she was concerned.

  *

  I find it terribly amusing that my male friends are hard pressed to believe that I work in a lesbian strip club. That, in fact, such an establishment exists at all. Their favorite argument is that lesbians just aren’t that way. What way? They don’t enjoy having another woman’s tits shoved in their faces? Getting a lap dance from a chick with an ass you can bounce coins off? The only difference is a dyke can maybe hide her hard-on better. If she wants to. Well. In her pants. It always shows on her face.

  *

  It’s Saturday night. My favorite day of the week. Saturday nights the club is always full. At eleven p.m. they lock the doors and no one else gets in. It’s a sort of unofficial private party. The right people are in the know, you know? Things get real rowdy behind those locked doors.

  It’s early evening when I see her leaning back against the wall like that. She’s real lean and sleek. Short blond hair gelled back just like that.

  *

  Half past eleven and the crowd’s going insane. Fuelled with enough alcohol and free-floating pheromones, everyone’s intentions are set to overdrive.

  Dylan’s turning on libidos as she does her cowboy thang onstage to Sheryl Crow. “Maybe Angels.” Hell yeah!

  My set starts at twelve. I like that; on the cusp of the old and the new.

  I watch from behind the bar as Dylan struts. Her legs are strong and confident as she kicks them out in front of her in that brash swagger. She’s wearing Levi’s so worn they’ll probably dissolve beneath the first insistent caress. Scuffed cowboy boots and a Stetson round the picture off well. But it’s the brown leather chaps and that “come-on-over-here-darlin’” smirk of hers and the substantial bulge in her crotch that drive the girlies crazy. She works those beautiful boy-hips of hers, working the crowd into a frenzy until a sexy redhead bounds onto the stage amidst a howl of coercion and applause.

  The bouncers here don’t drag people off stage. It’s not necessary. And there seems to be an understanding amidst the spectators of who they can do it with. No one has ever invaded my space while I strip. They watch me. Somehow they never try and touch.

  Dylan’s John Deere T is on the stage. Her nipples are stiff beneath the overhead glow, her skin tanned. Dylan really works on a farm, see. Stud farm couple of miles out of town. The Midwest sure has its perks. Dyke cowboys are beautiful creatures.

  Dylan pulls the redhead against her, hand splayed on the small of the woman’s back. Their hips move together slowly.

  “Get a room!” a voice yells from a corner, laughing.

  Angels, yes. Not maybe. Definitely.

  Heather’s up after Dylan, right before me. She’s playful and teases the butches into clamping their beer bottles until their knuckles go white.

  Heather does her thing to Tori Amos’s “Sweet Dreams.” Every time Tori croons “Who’s your daddy?” several women volunteer with gusto. It helps that Heather mouths the words down to the crowd with her glossed, red cherry lips.

  I’m still behind the bar with Sinead, the bartender. My little ritual. I have one or two vodka straights before I go on. Fluids the limbs.

  I’m making a sexist joke with Sin when I look up from my drink and see her there. The lean and sleek girl. She looks a little mean, huddled within the shadows. All the lights are focused on the stage. “Who’s your daddy?” Tori croons again. Heather blows a kiss at one of her prospects and the leather madam sticks a collection of bills in the barely there elastic of her panties.

  Sin’s gone, relating to the needs of customers at the other end of the bar.

  “You’re one of the strippers.” Mean girl doesn’t ask. She states.

  “I’m up after Heather.” I lean in closer because I don’t want to have to shout. She smells of sandalwood. I notice her arms are really muscled. I feel a faint flutter between my legs at imagining the rest of her body. “I have to get ready. She’s almost finished. Let me buy you a drink. For while you’re watching.”

  She notices I’m flirting with her right away but she remains cool. I smile. She says a cold beer would be great. I practically order Sinead to give her the coldest motherfucking beer she can find in the fridge before dashing off backstage.

  While waiting in the wings for Heather to finish her set, I hear the unmistakable sounds of fucking from somewhere in the shadows. Then I see Donna, our stage manager, looking at me slyly from a nook in the wall, her hips pumping into the dark.

  Don’t forget my cue, I mouth as the applause outside starts to drift and Heather, naked, slips past me. A muted moan in the shadows is all I get for a reply.

  Heather smirks. Her body glows with sweat. “Donna’s fucking the hired help again, isn’t she?”

  Just then my cue sounds. I’m amazed at how Donna can make an announcement with such a steady voice while I know she’s doing what’s she’s doing back there.

  The song begins.

  *

  I’ve always loved the Boss. I wanted my girlfriends to be like him.

  As the strains of “I’m On Fire” start, the club abruptly goes still. The rumble of mixed voices falls in a hush. No one even clinks a glass. Sin stops serving drinks and I notice how she winks at me just as the house lights go down.

  The club is dark now. A subdued spotlight bleeds on me as I move to the song, tempting the need of the music into my legs, my back, shoulders, hips, arms.

  I’m barefoot. I can’t walk for shit on high heels.

  Part of my appeal, I know, is my androgyny. The butches and the studs come to see the vulnerability that hides behind my dark eyes and to appreciate the tone of my curves. The femmes come for the danger in me, my ability to play the switch. And the bois… They come because they see parts of themselves reflected in my angles.

  She’s sitting down, almost right at the back, watching me. Her legs apart and feet planted firmly on the ground, be
er bottle in one hand and smoldering cigarette in the other. Jesus, she looks hot.

  There is a hushed, burning appreciation as my clothes come off. What I wear isn’t fancy. It’s not lacy and it’s not silk. It’s gender functionality. Maybe if you walked past me in the street you wouldn’t look twice.

  That’s why the crowd gives me such reverence. I make the everyday untouchable.

  *

  “Where you from?” I ask her.

  “New Jersey.”

  “Yeah? You got that grit. It fits.”

  She smiles. “That there—that’s a great compliment.”

  We’re standing outside on the curb. It’s two o’clock in the morning. The chill in the air makes me shiver as she lights a cigarette for me.

  I inhale and blow smoke. “Listen, what the hell is your name?”

  She laughs. A comforting sound, low and easy. “Jake.”

  “Jake,” I repeat, rolling the name around my tongue. “What are you doing in Michigan?”

  She hitches her shoulders. “Guess I started driving one day and ended up here.”

  I watch the muscles in her arms flex.

  *

  She’s renting a room, but I take her to my flat. I’m not exactly sure why, but I don’t want to have sex with her in a motel.

  We both know that’s the deal. And that’s good, because it’s what we both want.

  I already saw it back at the club in the way she looked at me while I stripped. Those Docs of hers firmly on the ground. She was solid. Her intentions were clear in every move she made, whether blowing smoke out the car window or stroking her big square hand intently up and down the inside of my thigh. We don’t talk much in the car on our way to my flat.

  “Actually, I don’t usually go to strip clubs.” She says this and looks at me intently from the passenger seat. I can’t remember if I’d actually asked her about it.

  *

  We’re going to fuck the way I strip. I can feel it.

  I’ve just closed the heavily padlocked door behind me when I feel the touch of her hands. Her fingers trail down the sensitive skin of my hips…

  When I touch her it’s her back I feel, all muscled and coiled and hard. Our bodies aren’t touching yet. We’re just breathing. I take hold of her wrist and guide it up inside the front of my shirt. I neglected to put my bra back on after my set. Her fingers brush skin, making my nipples strain. My hands travel down and massage her ass through the coarse material of her navy cargos.

  “I’m not going to fuck you up against the wall or something trite like that.”

  “Umm…okay?”

  The corner of her mouth tilts as she looks at me. I want to kiss her real bad. She shakes her head. “Where’s your bed?”

  I lead her to it. It’s unmade, of course. It’s not like I was expecting company.

  Jake pushes me down. She stands at the edge of the bed, legs slightly apart, feet firmly on the ground.

  “Get over here.” I can’t believe I’m telling her what to do. Jake takes her shirt off, but the undressing goes no further. Her stomach is ripped. Fucking washboard flat. Chiseled. She crawls on top of me and we finally kiss.

  Her tongue is hot. I taste cigarettes and beer and smell sandalwood and the faint musk of aroused sweat. I pull her down on me and sigh into her throat at the weight bearing me down into the wasted mattress. I can’t move. She holds me down with no effort at all.

  Jake doesn’t stop my fingers from pulling at her button fly but I’m having a hard time because she’s heavy and her hips keep bearing down on me. Frustrated, I try to push against her stomach, push her away, just for a moment.

  Our kiss breaks wet and breathless. The morning air feels tight.

  “Want me to fuck you?” Jake asks.

  “Jesus, yes.” I’ve never had a butch show such respect, such restraint. The girls I sometimes pick up at the club usually can’t wait to get my clothes off. Sure it’s a kick; and a compliment.

  When they buy into the stripper fantasy.

  I feel Jake’s hand touch mine down between her legs. Our fingers tangle and I hear metal buttons pop. I force my hand inside her pants and feel the substantial cock she’s packing. Jake exhales loudly when I start fondling it leisurely.

  “Not so fast,” I say as she tries to push me away. Where is her restraint now? With my other hand I reach out without looking and fumble on the bedside table until I find half a tube of KY. I take my hand away from her only long enough to squirt a generous blob of the warming liquid into my palm and then return it back through the fly of her boxers and smear it slowly up and down the length of her cock.

  My hand moves slowly up and down. I’m all too aware of the effect it has on Jake as the base of her cock applies subtle pressure on her clit every time my hand disappears way down.

  “Fuck…” Jake growls. Her eyes are half closed, generous lips slightly parted. She looks as if she’s momentarily forgotten about me. My hand keeps up its pace, never faltering; steady and slow while Jake’s breathing becomes shallower and faster.

  I sit up until my mouth reaches her ear and say, “Let me jack you off.”

  Jake grunts as my hand inside her cargos suddenly becomes more insistent. “You’re going to make me come,” she hisses between clenched teeth.

  I don’t say anything, but my hand starts to stroke her cock faster. I’m surprised when Jake suddenly seems to gain her awareness again. With one strong arm she pushes against my chest, pushes me flat on my back. She suddenly remembers—she’s the one in control.

  She rips my hand away from her crotch and holds it down against the mattress so hard it hurts. With her mobility restricted, lying on top of me and holding me down, she nevertheless manages to free her cock. For a moment she struggles with it and I fight against her to even up the ante, but fuck me, she’s just too strong.

  Jake pushes herself into me with a sneer—the first sign of dominance I’ve seen in her all night.

  The breath catches in the back of my throat but I make no sound. Instead I hear the bed knock hard against the wall. There’s the sudden release, a whoosh of blood as Jake releases her grip on my wrist. Quickly—before she can restrain me again—I lace my hands behind her neck just as she starts fucking me.

  Her strokes are long, slow and deep. Her eyes don’t leave mine for a second. She starts to breathe hard and move harder too. I start to say things; even, I think, beg her to please, pleaseplease not ever stop.

  I feel like I am going to detonate. My head is spinning and I’m mumbling half-formed words. Jake pulls herself up to lean over me and starts fucking me really hard and fast, barreling me toward a swiftly approaching orgasm that on the one hand I want and on the other want to postpone, to chase away.

  Neither of us can stop ourselves.

  I shudder and buck beneath Jake and she keeps pushing, keeps riding me until she comes herself. I think she shouts some obscenity at the wall behind us. Either the wall or at me, I’m not sure. Both prospects are equally erotic.

  *

  I wake up early in the morning, thirsty as hell. Jake is sleeping, her broad, strong back toward me. I sneak out of bed and go to the kitchen.

  I’m swallowing mouthfuls of Fresca when I feel her behind me. Neither of us says anything. She pulls down my clean pair of panties

  and fucks me from behind against the cold kitchen sideboard. And rough. This time she lets her fingers do the talking, all the while whispering harshly just below my ear how goddamn beautiful I am.

  *

  Wouldn’t you want that? Such devotion and aggression in one perfect package. I’m drunk on her. I’m lucky that she’s fallen in love with the Midwest. Every night when I strip she’s at the back with her beer. Watching me. She sets me on fire.

  Mirror

  Eva Vandetuin

  She’s not afraid of me yet, but she wants to be.

  I’ve left her alone in the bedroom, told her to strip and put on the black leather cuffs I’ve left out for her. Now I’m wat
ching her through the keyhole. This rickety Victorian house allows old-school peeping, and I appreciate that. The room is just a little drafty, and I’ve left it cool, knowing body heat will warm it once we get started. In the meantime, she’s kneeling on the bed with an expression that’s both nervous and a bit sulky. There are goose bumps on her skin, and her nipples are taut with the chill. I’ve left her waiting long enough so that she’s gone through at least one cycle of tension and calm and back to tension again. She is, perhaps, just a little annoyed. My mouth twists in a half smile. The waiting is delicious. So is watching her while she doesn’t know she’s being watched. Her hands move restlessly on her thighs, the rings on the cuffs glinting in the light; she chafes her torso, arms, and breasts for warmth, and maybe for comfort.

  I choose that moment to open the door and she looks at me, faintly embarrassed to be caught touching herself, even in such an innocent way—and the embarrassment annoys her too, and puts a bit of defiance in her eyes. She stares at me coolly, like an ordeal is about to begin, as if we’re not both here because we want to be. My breathing quickens a little, pleasantly restricted by the corset I’m wearing; I feel armored next to her nakedness.

  Standing in front of her, I catch her hands in mine and hold her arms out away from her body to take a long, hard look. Her chin tips up a little, but she gazes at me steadily as I admire her: teardrop-shaped breasts with prominent blue veins, nipples clenched and flushed red, generous hips, a sparse triangle of dark hair below the graceful curve of her belly. I trace a finger down her breastbone and abdomen, teasing her cleft. “Show me,” I tell her, and still holding me with hard eyes, she spreads her legs to display a lovely smooth-petaled flower of a cunt, flushed deep pink with blood. I take my time, then look her in the face, smiling, letting the hunger show. She looks back at me unwavering, gray-green irises set under long, straight black lashes. She wants to be touched and she won’t say it. I’ll make her wait.