by Violet Blue
“Ginger and brandy snap,” he muses. “Green basil. Strawberry and black pepper.”
“Sounds good,” says Trev. “Weird, mind; but good.”
“Do you want some? I think I owe you both an ice cream, for this lot.”
“You got double-choc-chip?” asks Matt, grinning.
“Brazilian chocolate and chili,” I counter, daring him.
“Go on then. I can’t resist a Brazilian.” He winks; I roll my eyes in mock despair. But just as I open the freezer Trev’s radio buzzes to life. I can’t make out the words barked over the airways, but he switches in a second from affable to decisive.
“Gotta go. Sorry, Matt.”
“No fair. I was hoping for a chocolate flake with that.”
They hurry off at a jog. Matt looks back and shouts at me, waving his arm: “You owe us an ice cream! Don’t forget!”
I wonder why I feel so warm and tingling inside, and why I was so disappointed when the call came through.
Sloe Gin: it’s real sloes and real gin, though it takes some extra prep to make sure the alcohol doesn’t make the ice cream slushy. Every winter when I reduce the syrup my kitchen fills with the scents of juniper and plum. I pick the sloes in autumn, cherishing each hard, steely purple fruit won from its barbed-wire twig. Then I prick them all over with a fork and bottle them in gin for months, until the liquor turns the color of rubies. I like gin, but too much makes me weepy; the sloes mitigate that. They are autumn’s wergeld for the dying year, for the loss of summer. They are the compensation that comes with sorrow.
I’m lucky: the sunshine doesn’t just win through, but rolls up the clouds and sends them packing. It turns into a lovely hot summer’s day and by late lunchtime I’m selling steadily. So I’m in a bright mood.
But it’s not just the sun and the trade; it’s how the day started. It’s ridiculous really, but Matt and Trev have really perked me up. Just the way they joked with me and looked at me, like it was more than a kindness they were doing and they were getting something out of my company; the spark in their eyes. Damn, but it’s a long time since anyone but chivalrous old men flirted with me. I’m not used to it from guys younger than I am, and it’s left me a little giddy. I have an extra smile for my customers today.
Oh, they were cute, both of them.
And, oh, I’m too old for this. They’re young enough to be… okay, not really young enough to be my kids, but certainly not even a decade older than Skye, and she’s still at university. I’m forty-two, for heaven’s sake. I’ve got crow’s-feet starting about my eyes, not to mention those horizontal creases across my throat that came out of nowhere, and my hands are starting to look lumpy around the knuckles of my skinny fingers. I’ve got a mortgage that is most of the way toward being paid off and my idea of a good evening is curling up in front of a CSI rerun on TV with a glass of port and a bag of low-sodium pretzels.
Yet when those two looked at me in my tie-dyed dress, they looked. I mean, with happy appreciation, like they were seeing right through the fabric. Or at least, I think they did. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe it’s the first sign of early menopause and I’m going batty.
Goddamn. It’s been so long since any bloke fancied me. I’m letting this go to my head.
So I smile and sell ice cream and try hard not to think about them too often, though when I hear a siren going off somewhere I can’t help wondering if they’re on their way to the county hospital with some emergency. Heatstroke probably, in this weather. It’s got to the point that I’m quite grateful to be working over the open freezer.
Then maybe an hour later, while I’m taking the opportunity during a lull to swig bottled water, I see an ambulance nosing through the crowd. The sirens are quiet this time. My stall is on the main avenue between the first aid point and the main arena, so I guess they are on their way down to do their demo. Matt is driving; I spot him through the windscreen as I wipe my lips with the back of my hand, and I feel a kick of shameful pleasure inside me. Suddenly the passenger door opens and Trev drops out, hustling through the crowd, heading straight for me. His dark eyes seize mine. Before I can think what to say, he snatches the big bottle of water from my hand and plants a hard peck on my cheek.
“Need this. Thanks, love,” he says, hurrying back to the ambulance.
My face burns.
Elderflower: nature’s champagne. It works well on the light, clean base of the sheep’s milk, I think, though sometimes I make elderflower sorbet too. The tiny white flowers have to be plucked from the stalks of the flower head with a fork, and they go everywhere. I always end up with them in my hair, like tiny stars against my burning red, hennaed locks. I love elder, this humble everyday shrubby little tree with its sudden extravagant gift of perfumed blossom. I keep a careful watch on the best of the elder trees in the hedgerow down the lane behind my house, and make sure I pick at the perfect time. Get the wrong tree and you end up with the reek of cat pee. Get it right and you’ve got a fragrant note like pure joy.
I don’t see the ambulance head back, but I might have missed it when I went off for my brief loo break, or I might just have been too busy with the queues. It’s a hugely successful day; every one of my tubs is down to empty by the time the fête winds down. Well, nearly—I make sure I save enough for a couple of cones. As we hit the official closing time I take down the signs and clear up, padlocking the cashbox inside one of the freezers, stripping off the last set of plastic gloves and then washing and moisturizing my hands. It’s the same routine as always, but this time I’m more on edge. I keep an eye out as I wipe down and pack up.
They don’t show.
I don’t let myself be disappointed; that would be an admission of something deeply foolish. Instead I make up two sugar cones with generous scoops of ice cream—one chocolate-and-chili, one honey-and-saffron—and I pop them in the plastic rack for holding cones and head up to the first aid point on foot. All around me stalls are being dismantled and vans loaded. I consider letting my hair down from its thick plait—I know my features are on the sharp side and loose hair softens them—but that’s one step too far toward undignified.
At the first aid post the volunteers from the St. John’s brigade are drinking tea and filling in forms. The ambulance is parked at the side of the tent, and I walk round it to the back. My mouth is dry; the potential for embarrassing myself here is immense.
There they are, at the back of the open vehicle, folding up the legs of a stretcher and loading it in.
“Still want those ice creams?” I ask brightly.
“Hey…Abbie!” The smiles seem genuine. Their interest in the ice cream certainly is: they both reach for the cones eagerly, bickering like boys over who gets the chocolate one. Trev volunteers for the honey, takes a big mouthful and then widens his eyes.
“Bloody Nora…this is good!”
“I know that.” I allow myself to feel smug. My visit is vindicated.
“Have a seat, love,” suggests Matt, indicating the back step of the ambulance. I sit myself down, and he instantly perches on my right. He’s so close that I automatically attempt to shift up, but Trev is already on my left side, settling himself comfortably, one arm sweeping round behind my back. Not touching me, but definitely in my personal space. My sunburned upper arms brush their shirts.
I put my hands on my knees and laugh, only it comes out as a giggle. God, I’m acting like a teenager—or an idiot. “That’s better. I’ve been on my feet all day.”
“How did it go?” asks Matt.
“I sold every last scoop.”
“So…what’s your favorite flavor?” Trev wonders.
“These two,” I answer honestly. “That’s why I brought both; I can’t choose between them.” Then I catch his lifted eyebrows and blush. Matt, chuckling, offers me the chocolate cone.
“Want a lick?”
I shrug one shoulder and nod, tipping my lips to the creamy chocolate his tongue has already swirled over. Goddamn, we’re flirting. How did this ha
ppen? What the hell do they see in me? I’m not ugly, okay—but I’m an artsy middle-aged lady who makes outrageous ice cream and wears clothes two decades old and her hair in a style and color that’s too young for her. I’m not like them; not the sort of person who can press into a drunken crowd or a freezing pond to rescue someone from certain death, not the sort of person who can address a total stranger as “love.” I haven’t even worked for a living until recently—I went straight from art college into marriage, and the divorce settlement and child maintenance were generous enough to keep me and Skye living comfortably. I’m a joke, by their standards.
The chili heat burns on my tongue. My cheeks are already flushed. Matt grins at me, an easy wickedness dancing in his hazel eyes, as I lick my lips. I’m not trying to be provocative, honestly: you have to lick your lips if you are eating ice cream. “That’s hot stuff,” he teases.
“This is better,” says Trev on my left. “Try some of this, Abbie.” It would be rude not to, so I turn to the golden ice cream he offers. This one is melting faster: it’s dribbling down the cone and threatening to slide off. I catch a big gobbet on my tongue, aware that they find my action vastly entertaining and still not quite believing it. “Bloody hell,” says Trev happily.
“You like the taste of his cream better than mine?” Matt complains and I giggle. Then a cold drip hits my skin, and I realize the honey ice cream is dribbling out of the tip of the cone and is marking the front of my dress.
“Ack!” I yelp, half laughing, looking down. “Call myself a professional, eh?’
There’s a drip on the inner curve of my left breast. I’m not wearing a bra—what would I need a bra for, after breast-feeding Skye flattened them so?—and this dress has a rather deep V-neck. The white trail winds down toward the cleft.
“Oh,” says Trev, looking too. “Oh…that’s…”
“Hold on,” orders Matt. He drops his own ice cream back into the rack and then swiftly kneels before me. His fingertips graze my thighs. “Keep still,” he commands. I feel Trev’s free hand settle on the small of my back and my spine arches, thrusting my cleavage out a little more. Delicately—and it surprises me that this hearty, vital man is so careful—Matt leans forward until his lips are brushing my upper breast. I feel his breath on my skin: my own stops in my throat. I feel the tip of his tongue as he gently licks me clean.
My heart is pounding. The world seems to lurch. I stare over his head, wild eyed. We’re tucked away here, shielded by the first aid tent. Sunlight glints on the dark leaves of the hedgerow and the discarded cans in the long grass. His lips are on my breast in a lingering kiss, causing my nipples to respond greedily, hardening to points. And Trev’s hand slides up and down my spine, slow and firm.
Then Matt sits back. “Trev’s right,” he says softly, his eyes narrowing with hidden laughter. “That’s bloody good.”
Despite the warmth of the day, my nipples are standing up hard against the soft cotton. My sex is full of melting honey.
“Let’s go inside, Abbie,” Trev murmurs in my ear. “Come on.”
Chocolate and Chili: oh, this is not the chocolate of childhood. This is a purely adult pleasure—bittersweet, dark and troubling. Heat lingering upon the lips and the breath. It is chocolate that makes the pupils dilate, the skin flush, the heart quicken. It is the taste of passion.
They take me into the ambulance and close the door on the outside world. I glance around—emergency equipment, foldout chairs, bright plastic drawers—but to be honest I’m not taking anything in. My brain has frozen. All I can think is that this is happening to me, and that I don’t understand how. Is it a joke they’re playing? Will they suddenly back off and start to laugh at me? Will they—?
They kiss me, both of them in turn, urging up against me with their big, hard bodies, sandwiching me between them as they press their caresses upon me. I taste chocolate and chili, honey and saffron. Their tongues are eager, their hands bold. Stubble scrapes my skin. Teeth tease my ears, my neck, my nipples. Trev has kept hold of his ice cream, though it is melting over his hand now: he encourages me to lick it, to suck his fingers, to pass the soft cream from my mouth to his. In the meantime Matt is pulling up my dress, working it over my shoulders, stripping me bare.
I tremble, anticipating their mockery.
Instead, the flash of Trev’s teeth signals pure appetite. He touches the melting ice cream to my right nipple, and as I flinch from the cold Matt catches me, holding me still. As Matt props himself against the stretcher bed and pulls me off balance against him, Trev paints my body with the cold cream: my freckled breastbone, my dark stiff nipples, my puckered stomach. All the way down to the juncture of my legs. He tugs down my panties and, discarding the cone, squashes the last handful of ice cream into my sex, slathering it over my labia, squashing it up into my hot core until it melts and runs down my thighs. It’s shudderingly cold and I squirm in Matt’s embrace, biting back the squeals. I’m half aware that the blond man is tugging at his own clothes, pulling his cock out, but I can’t see it—I just know it as a slab of burning heat thrust against my cold bottom.
Then Trev gets down and eats the ice cream off me, tits and belly and thighs, all the way. I must be salty from the day’s work but he doesn’t care. His mouth is both hungry and tender. It makes me fear, and it makes me need, and ultimately it makes me surrender, opening my legs to let him plunge his mouth and his hand between. His fingers go inside me, diving through the cream. His mouth devours my clit, sucking and nibbling and licking like I’m a gelato. I heave up against Matt’s torso, feeling his hands cup my breasts and tug at my sticky nipples. I’m helpless to resist. Trev’s hand is working me insistently, each thrust opening me more. His mouth has taken control of my whole body. Matt’s tongue is hot and wet in my ear; I’m being eaten by both men and I can’t stop it, I can’t help it, I’m coming now with breathy unmistakable squeals—and Matt growls “Yes—you give it all up now; that’s right,” in my ear as my world turns inside out.
Orgasm leaves me shaken and trembling. Trev stands and pulls me up against him, stroking the wet strands of hair back from my face, and I focus my eyes with some effort. He’s smiling, but his cock is straining impatiently against me. I can feel it through his green paramedic trousers. “What happens now?” I ask in a tiny voice.
“What do you want to happen, Abbie?” he murmurs, brushing my face with kisses, rubbing my palm against the swollen ridge in his pants.
“I want…” I reach behind me for Matt. He’s got his flies open and his cock is standing up hard under his stroking hand, and as he guides my fingers to grip that thick shaft I realize he’s already clad it in a skin of latex. Smooth operator.
“Want this?” Matt asks, voice full of chocolate.
“I want both of you,” I confess.
Trev’s eyebrows arch. “Together?’
What am I thinking of, at my age? This is crazy. “Yes,” I gasp.
Trev nods, and hands me back to Matt like a gift. He pulls me into his lap, tipping me forward from the hips to get the right angle. I spread my thighs, groaning involuntarily as I feel his blunt cockhead press home into the wild sweet slather of my pussy. I tip farther down, looking up, and I glimpse his ruddy, golden-furred balls bouncing between my thighs as he works his way inside me with little jiggling thrusts. It feels wonderful—and my long-unused muscles are responding to his girth as if to a miracle. I’m turning from solid to liquid. But I’m so off balance I’m going to fall, and I reach out and grab Trev’s thighs to steady myself.
He’s unbuttoning his shirt and unbuckling his belt. He reveals a flat stomach furred with dark hair and a long stiff cock that’s already slick at the tip. Taking my head by my braided hair, he feeds that member between my lips. His cock and balls taste salty, sweaty and sexual—it would make a terrible flavor for an ice cream, and I’m so hungry for it.
The ambulance is cramped, our positions lacking all grace. I’m glad I don’t have to do much except hold on in there. Matt
thrusts into my pussy and Trev fucks my throat. I give him a swirling lick with my tongue on each backstroke but my concentration is already slipping elsewhere; as I reach down to my own clit, feeling the tendons tighten in my legs, I know I’m going to hit orgasm again, this time with both men inside me, my throat and pussy both full of cock and semen and ice cream.
“I’m coming,” gasps Trev.
Honey and Saffron: I make my own blend of honeys, not too sharp and not so mild that it’s dulled by the cold. There has to be a fragrance that hits with every mouthful. But it’s the saffron that makes it addictive: warm, sumptuous, tantalizing saffron. Tasting like sunlight on summer hay, it is the most expensive spice in the world, and the balm for every hurting heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
VALERIE ALEXANDER is a freelance writer and novelist living in Arizona. Her work has been published in Best of Best Women’s Erotica and Best Lesbian Erotica.
JACQUELINE APPLEBEE (writing-in-shadows.co.uk) is a black, bisexual British woman who breaks down barriers with smut. Jacqueline’s stories have appeared in anthologies including Best Women’s Erotica, Best of Best Women’s Erotica 2, and Best Lesbian Erotica. Jacqueline has penned Erotic Brits, a sexy tour around the United Kingdom and Ireland.
JANINE ASHBLESS (janineashbless.blogspot.com) is the author of five books of paranormal and fantasy erotica published by Black Lace and blogs about minotaurs, Victorian art and writing dirty. Her short stories for Cleis have been published in anthologies including Best Women’s Erotica 2009, Sweet Love and Fairy Tale Lust.
Located somewhere in the wilds of the Delmarva Peninsula, CHRISSIE BENTLEY is the author of seven erotic novels and collections, and myriad short stories, published online and in print. An avid collector of vintage erotic film and photographs, she has three cats and a sense of humor.