by Vivian Lux
"That's right," she said, but I could hear her resolve weakening.
"I get it." I repeated, softer now. "You don't like to be touched." I deliberately clasped my fingers behind my back. She watched me with wary eyes. "But you're alive, aren't you?" I asked. "So I have to ask you, do you ever touch yourself?"
She looked up at me with those eyes again, blazing fiercely, her lips slightly parted. She licked her lips and they shone like a beacon and as hard as I tried to keep my hands away from her it was nearly impossible. I backed up and sank into a chair that stood against the wall, and placed my hands on my knees. "You're alive, so you have to touch yourself. At least a little." I leaned forward. "And maybe you touch yourself when you think of me?"
She made a sound halfway between an aggrieved gasp and a moan.
Emboldened I went on, "Maybe you touch yourself, and you think of my hands on your body? And you think of how you'd like it so much if I touched you in just that way. What is that way, Piper?" I asked eagerly, my voice catching in my throat. "Show me. Show me how I should touch you."
She stepped back and for the millionth time, I thought I had lost her. But she closed her eyes. "This," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"How?" I groaned. "How am I touching you?" I put my hands deliberately on my knees and waited.
Her eyelids fluttered. She was checking making sure that I was staying back, staying away. Letting her have her moment. She drew her finger upward, tracing the line between her breasts, traveling up to her lips. She pressed against that lush, pouty bottom lip with her thumb, dragging it to the side. "You kiss me," she whispered.
"I do," I groaned.
She inhaled sharply. "You kiss me here," she murmured, brushing her thumb along her lower lip again. "And then you pinch my lip, like this, between your teeth..."
"I do," I whispered urgently. "I bite down just enough. Just until you feel it."
"I feel it," she echoed, eyes still closed. "And then you keep kissing me here." She brushed her thumb upward, along her jaw. "And here, and here." Her finger was under her ear now. I closed my eyes, imagining the soft skin in that secret place under my lips.
"And then," her voice was getting higher, more breathless. "You kiss my neck, here." She pointed to the angle where her neck met her shoulder. "Because I really like the way it feels when you touch me here, but it's not just a kiss it's..." Her eyelids fluttered. "You don't just kiss, you suck a little," she rolled the word around in her mouth like she could taste it. "And it hurts, but only a little, it hurts in a good way and then you kiss it and the pain goes away and..."
I had never been harder in my life, sitting here with my hands clenched against my thighs, my knuckles white. I couldn't touch her, but I could feel her, feel the way that her breath came faster. I could feel the waves of desire as they rose off her body. I was ready to explode... and I hadn't even touched her.
"And then," she said, her breath hitching a little. "You..." Her words seem to catch in her throat and her eyelids fluttered again nearly breaking the spell. I leaned forward and she opened her eyes.
"And then you take off my pants," she said slowly and very deliberately.
I nodded and groaned. "I do."
Now she was looking at me, and her voice was lower. No longer filled with desperate yearning, but with a command. She took a step forward. "You pick me up," she said. "And you walk over to the bed, and you lay me down and spread my legs..."
"Yes," I hissed...
She held up her hand. "And then you look."
"Look?"
She nodded. "You look. And you don't touch. But you tell me that I'm beautiful. I'm more beautiful than you'd ever realized."
"My God, you are. You are."
She nodded. "That's how you touch me."
"Yes."
Her fingers hooked in the loops of her tight black jeans. "That's what you do," she repeated.
All at once I realized it was no longer a fantasy. I stood up, ready. She looked up at me, and her eyes were shining, whether from excitement or desire, I couldn't tell. I knelt down and slid her hands away, and I took those belt loops and pulled down, inch by inch revealing the creamy white skin that had been hidden from me for so long. My heart stopped when I saw the rise of her pubic bone, and when it started up again it felt like it was too big for my chest. She was lush. This gorgeous, creamy peach skin had been hidden away from sunlight, from eyesight, for so long. I felt like it was secret. She was perfect. I wanted to touch her, kiss her, stroke her, lick her. I wanted to lie on top of her, to move inside of her...
But that wasn't what we were doing.
Right now, she was only ready for me to look. So I stood back up again and ran my hands under to cup the flesh of her ass cheeks. She held my neck as I lifted her, and she wrapped those legs around my waist, pulling herself close. I could feel the heat of her against my stomach and was acutely aware of there only being a scrap of T-shirt between us right now. Every cell in my body screamed at me to hurry, hurry, but I walked slowly, deliberately over to the bed and gently lowered her down.
"Do you see? You see it?" she asked.
I glanced between her legs and inhaled sharply. "My God, yes I do."
She closed her eyes. "I haven't looked at myself there... Ever. Are you looking?"
"I am."
"What do you see?"
"I see you."
"You do?"
"I do." I knelt and let my eyes wander up her thighs to the glistening pink between them. "You're more beautiful than I ever could have imagined."
Chapter Nineteen
Piper
"You see me," I said again. I didn't seem to be able to stop saying it. It was like I needed reassurance that I was here, that he was here, that this was really happening.
"I see you," he said, his voice breathless, worshipful.
"What do you do now?"
"What do I do?" It was not just to repeat my question, he was actually asking me what he should do.
"I told you," I said, slowly. "How you should touch me, how I like it."
"Yes."
"So now you..." I was breathless, squirming. I felt like if I didn't grab ahold of the bedsheets, I would fly away. "I don't know what comes next," I confessed. "I haven't done this..." Shame closed my lips, but I forced the truth from them. "I haven't done this yet. I've never... So I don't know." I blinked and opened my eyes to look at him. Ask him. Plead with him to understand. "Tell me what you'll do."
I felt the bed dip down and squinted my eyes shut again, heart fluttering like a butterfly in my chest. But he didn't move closer to me. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting there on the edge of the bed, holding himself rigid, tight, every muscle in his body straining so as not to reach for me. His eyes were like a storm.
"I kiss you," he growled. "I kiss you first, because you're afraid, and I never ever want you to be afraid of me."
I closed my eyes and arched my head upward, straining with my lips for the invisible kiss.
"And then I move my hand down," he whispered.
I choked a little. "Down?"
"Yes."
My hand moved off the bed sheet and in between my thighs. "Like this?" I whispered back.
He nodded with a hiss of indrawn breath. "Just like that. Except with my fingers I feel how wet you are, and how much you want me, and I know how good I want to make this, so I take it slow. So slow. I take just the barest brush of my thumb, yes, like that, over the top of your clit, and you can arch into me and let me know how much pressure you want, yes, like that, and then when I know exactly what feels good for you, I put my mouth on you..."
I inhaled sharply, feeling the heat coiling down low in my chest. This was as far as I had ever gotten when I explored myself on my own. The intensity, the swelling feeling inside of me had always been too much. I was always afraid that I'd explode, and shatter, breaking into a million pieces that could never be put back together again.
But True, he wasn't done yet. "I p
ut my mouth, right there on that beautiful little pink pearl, and I take it between my lips yes, pinch it just like that, you can feel me tasting you with my tongue, it's slower slower than that, slow down we're going to make this so good for you. I move my tongue in circles, yes around and around just the barest hint of pressure at first and then deeper. Faster."
I let out a low groan as my fingers mimicked him, following his direction precisely.
"And then my hand comes back. I'm not done, my mouth hasn't moved, I'm still teasing you, bringing you closer, and then I take my hand, yes bring your hand over just like that, one finger, that's all you need, Piper. You don't need more, I can tell you're right at the edge and just one finger slipping inside of you, it's going to be enough."
As my fingers did as he directed, I felt the white-hot heat that had frightened me for so long flare upwards, my breath caught and with a cry of surprise I arched upward, my whole body seemed like it was being pulled by invisible strings, up and over and then down, down, down crashing down. "Oh my god!" I cried, as everything overloaded at once. "My god!" I panted, and my eyes snapped open to look at him sitting right there, watching everything that just happened.
He nodded once. "It'll be like that," he said. There was only a slight tremor in his voice that betrayed how very close to the edge he was. "It will be like that, and it will be so much more." He leaned over and kissed the tip of my nose, and then the flush of my cheeks. When he pulled back and licked his lips, I knew he was tasting the tears that were falling, but I wasn't sad. I was feeling. "When you're ready," he said, drawing himself along the length of my body and pulling me in close. "I'm here."
Chapter Twenty
True
It was quiet in this house. Deep quiet. Rich quiet.
I'd never known such quiet.
There had always been sound in my life. The neighbor's car door slamming, the sound of a late-night party a few trailers back. Music and muted laughter, the clattering of the window AC unit. The buzz-click of the oscillating fan on nights when we were too broke to use the AC. The hum of streetlights and dogs barking while left out all night long. I'd been falling asleep to the lullaby of the trailer park for seven long years. Or, more accurately, I'd slept in fits and starts and exhausted, dreamless comas.
Here it was peaceful and silent. I should have fallen blissfully to sleep.
But instead I lay awake all night long and listened to the sound of Piper breathing.
I didn't want to miss a single one of her sounds.
The sound she had made when the orgasm took her played over and over in my head. The way her eyes snapped open and she'd looked at me in complete amazement.
I understood. I was amazed too.
The intimate way we'd come together using only words was something I couldn't stop reliving in my memories. It was completely and utterly new. This was uncharted territory for a guy like me. I'd been having variations of sex since I lost my virginity to Mindy Bruns at fourteen years old. I'd had good sex. Bad sex. I'd had a lot of mediocre sex, where you're both just pushing through as a means to an end. Regular, run-of-the-mill sex.
With Piper, I'd stayed fully-clothed the whole time. But it had been the most bare and naked experience of my life. My soul was naked. My heart was naked.
Last night I hadn't even touched her, but it was the first time I could ever say I was making love.
The realization made my eyes snap wide open and my stomach splashed down into my innards. I'd been married to Lizzy for seven years, but I'd never once had I experienced the shattering intimacy of making love.
I'd never even known what I was missing.
All the lessons I'd learned on how to be a man, I'd learned by watching my father. That's how I learned the lessons on what not to do. A man doesn't cut and run from his mistakes. A man puts his head down, his nose to the grindstone, his shoulder to the wheel, all those platitudes.
A man doesn't abandon his child, before or after it's born.
When I got Lizzy pregnant, we were already on our way out as a couple. We were nearly broken up when she came to me, tears streaking down her red blotched cheeks, and told me it was mine.
I manned up. I hung up the guitar and I grabbed the mechanic's wrench and I set about providing for my new family. I wasn't going to be my father. I was going to be a Dad.
At first it almost seemed like a lark. A way to rebuild my own sorry childhood from the ground up. This baby, my baby, wasn't going to want for the things I now knew I'd missed out on. That was my promise to Lizzy and my vow to myself. As her belly grew like it was being inflated, I swore the little nugget inside was going to have braces and proper haircuts and play whatever team sport his or her heart desired. There'd be money for ice cream on Saturdays and toys that weren't already broken down from some other kids' abuse. I swore all this to Lizzy as I ran my hand over her belly and she'd cry a little and I thought I was seeing her dream along with me.
It felt good to make these promises.
I didn't love her, but really, when had that mattered in a marriage? My father couldn't have loved my mother, how could a man treat someone he loved like the shit he scraped off his shoe? I was a better man than my dad, so I told myself I loved Lizzy and our baby too. It was easy back then. Lizzy was sweet enough, and she didn't talk too much like some of the other girls that had caught my eye. She knew enough to keep quiet when I went quiet, and she liked to bring me little treats she baked. That seemed like enough. Cookies and brownies and the occasional cake were all laid out in front of me, like she was taking the old adage "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" as her personal gospel, and maybe I believed it too. Her baking sure tasted enough like love.
So I figured I could learn to love her after a while.
I married Elizabeth Carter the second she turned eighteen. Which was about two weeks before Aurora Truman came roaring into the world. I wasn't there to see her come into the world, something I'd probably spend the rest of my life regretting, because I was busy moving all our stuff into the trailer. No one bothered to call me to tell me Rory was coming, including my brand-new wife. And of course Rory was three weeks early. Impatient to get on with it as always.
At our wedding, Lizzy's feet were so swollen that she could barely make it down the aisle of the fire hall. She lifted and swung her legs like they were dead weights, like they weighed more than she could ever hope to drag around. Conway whispered something about balls and chains into my ear, but I was too thick to listen to the implied warning.
Lizzy moved so slowly towards me she almost seemed to go backwards. And all these years later, I kept thinking that I'd be doing us both a favor if I took that time, that ample head start, and just ran out of there.
It would have saved us all some pain.
But a man doesn't run from pain. He drowns it in a bottle, he fights it with his fists.
But no matter what, he doesn't run.
In the end, that's what redeemed me in my own eyes. I could look myself in the mirror, I could look my mother in the eye. I could tell that truth and not be shamed by it. Maybe I had failed as a husband. Maybe as a father too.
But when everything came down to it, Lizzy was the one who left.
Not me.
Piper made a small whimpering sound and rolled towards me. Without thinking, I folded her into my arms and kissed her forehead. "Shhh," I whispered, just like I did when Rory had a bad dream. "I'm right here."
She relaxed a little, murmuring something unintelligible, and then sighed back to sleep in my arms. I smiled a little, kissed her again, and closed my eyes as well.
The last thought I had, before sleep took me, was she's letting me touch her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Piper
I sat in my therapist's waiting room, alternating between embarrassment and pride.
Last night I'd let someone watch, I'd let him direct me, as I touched myself.
He'd watched as I had the first orgasm of my life.
; I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. But I also wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
There were exactly two people in the world who could fully understand how important this moment was. And given that I'd rather die than talk to Lowell about these sorts of things, I was pretty fucking relieved to be able to grab an appointment with Dr. Roslin today.
Every time I sat in her private waiting room, something irked me. Not the waiting itself -- I'd long since grown used to letting her run the previous client's session over time, since she unfailingly went over with my time as well -- but the actual room itself.
I couldn't figure out what was so odd about her waiting area until about my fourth visit.
And that's when I realized there wasn't a right angle in the entire place.
Everything was swoops and curves and arcs. Even the wallpaper undulated with waves. I'm sure it was supposed to be calming, and soothing, but I found it jarring, artificial and fake.
Just like Dr. Roslin herself. She was the kind of woman who reveled in artifice. Fake boobs, fake lips, fake eyelashes, she took her star clients seriously. Too seriously. If I needed my ego stroked, I only needed to read the press. I came to her because she was available. Weekends, holidays, moments I had in between touring and recording, she was always able to fit me in. And as much as I hated talking, sometimes the things I left unsaid got knotted up inside of me, twisting around inside my guts and making me feel like shit. Coming to therapy let me vomit all the unsaid words back up out of me. A necessary purge.
Plus I liked to shock her. The Botox made her face completely blank and expressionless, but if I messed with her head enough, her ears would get this funny little dead-fish twitch and then I knew I had her.
"Piper," she said smoothly, opening her door. Her other client had exited out of the back entrance, just like I would when my session was over. She understood discretion and that was another plus, just like the ear-twitch.
I made my way inside and plopped right down on the perfectly white sofa. The whole room was done in white, as if I'd died and gone to heaven.