‘Bite me.’ Her leg moved closer, the soft whiteness of her inner thigh pressed against my face. ‘Hard.’
Salvia filled my mouth and I kissed the softness of her inner thigh, nipping gently at first. Rosalie sighed and pushed her leg harder at me. Heat greeted my hand when I rested it flat on her sex. The flesh under my lips quivered. Opening my mouth wide I pressed teeth onto her skin. My finger matched the pace, parting her slowly and pressing in. I bit harder and pressed my finger up into her. Rosalie’s legs twitched and her sex tightened.
‘Shit, girl,’ she muttered hoarsely, her hands in my hair. ‘So intense.’
I bit her again then let go, moving my mouth up her thigh until a soft fold greeted my lips. I sucked it softly and slowed my tempo making Rosalie relax a fraction. But I couldn’t hold back anymore. My finger retreated and I sucked hard. A quick nip made Rosalie buck. I let her go and watched my bite mark darkening.
‘Fucking wicked,’ Rosalie gasped, clenching my hair. ‘Don’t stop.’
Her scent affected me as much as taste. Some girls though it weird but I loved the scent of my lover aroused. ‘She Wolf’ I had been called once I began exploring my sexuality. I paused for a second, savouring Rosalie’s scent as it washed over my senses. Curled up with nails pressed into her thighs, Rosalie moaned but didn’t protest when I bit her. She wanted the pain, wanted to feel my strength on her flesh. It aroused her. It aroused me.
‘We can take photos later,’ Rosalie muttered as she pulled at my hair, feeding the building rush in me. ‘Bite. Suck. Finger. Anything you want, but do it now!’
A sweet heat with a salty edge greeted my mouth and Rosalie’s clit was firm under my tongue. She moaned, hands trembling in my hair. I wanted her to climax hard and fast. I wanted her to lose control. Gripping her clit between my teeth I squeezed, gliding two fingers into her, slowly, seeking her sweet spot. Rosalie’s legs clamped around my neck and her heels dug into my back. Inside I could feel her inner nub. It was small and offset but the tips of my fingers massaged hard.
Every sensation roared through me as her soft sweet flesh crushed onto my face.
‘Fuckin’ yeah!’ She bucked. ‘More Petra. Harder!’
Cocooned in her flesh I let her clit go and sucked hard. Her scent smothered me and every molecule fed the network of energy sparking down into my groin. I pressed up harder in her, lifting her hips off the bench, holding her up with two fingers that burned with her heat.
I glanced up at her face framed by two pert breasts, the little nipples rock hard. Her eyes were on me and chest heaved so they disappeared and reappeared like an old, flickering film. Each time I saw her lips they were moving silently, chanting one word over and over: Petra.
Rosalie tensed and her sex flared white hot under my mouth. Her back arched and her legs clamped tighter around my neck I rode her climax, relentlessly. I didn’t ease off even when her high-pitched cry filled the morgue. Her hands kept me pressed hard on her quim. She shook and I felt it. Another wave roared through her. I sucked, taking her all and riding with her.
My legs shook and sweat covered me. Another flash of sensation sparked in my sex. Loving Rosalie and holding her as she writhed in orgasm gave me what I’d craved from so many others. Sharing her pleasure made me feel complete. With each cry and spasm heat surged within me.
Pressure relaxed from her legs. Her hands unclenched and caressed. Cool air greeted my lips and wet fingers slipped free. The beauty of her flushed sex made me stop and kiss her folds gently. I pushed my tongue in deep for a second then retreated. Rosalie rewarded me with a wavering sigh, her fingers massaging my scalp.
‘You’re dangerous, Petra,’ she whispered between breaths. ‘That is how I want to die, like this. If a blood clot took me now, I wouldn’t care.’
Unable to resist I pushed my tongue deep into Rosalie, trailed up to her super-hot clit. I sucked one last time.
‘Shit, that’s hot.’ Her legs clamped tight for a moment then relaxed.
I had to stand. My legs tingled and my sex ached. Rosalie sat up, legs around my hips, hands clasped behind my neck. I couldn’t speak. I just wanted to kiss her.
The image of me kissing her flashed in my mind and Rosalie grinned.
‘Does that answer your question?’
‘Yeah.’
I leant over and Rosalie stretched up so we could kiss. Her hand cupped my breast. Rosalie pulled my hips against her. She broke away, licked her lips and sucked one of mine.
I shook. Every time she touched me my heart pounded.
‘So that’s what I taste like.’ She leaned back, fingers rolling my nipple. ‘That’s what you were worried about? Me being a newbie and not into the bodily fluid thing?’
‘Umm,’ I wasn’t used to such direct questions. ‘Yes, I guess I was.’
My face warmed. How did she do that? Make me blush after what we’d just shared?
‘You’re so cute when you blush.’ She leaned in and kissed a nipple, her lips so soft. Her tongue sent a spike of sensation spiralling down. Rosalie said looking up with a cheeky grin. ‘Love the colour of your nips, sweetie. I’ve always wanted to try this but… never found a girl that I liked enough. Until you.’
Her hand trailed down over my stomach and fiddled with my navel piercing.
‘Nice tatts,’ she whispered, trailing her fingers down to the top of my jeans. ‘It goes all the way down?’
She pulled at the jeans and peeked down.
‘Yep. Underneath this morgue uniform you are full of surprises.’
‘That worry you?’ I had to ask. If we were to be more, everything had to be out in the open.
‘Can you do more, like, other magic?’ Rosalie slipped her fingers into the top of my jeans, wriggling.
‘No, that’s it. And not always. Only works when-‘ I blushed again. Saying ‘I love you’ had never been easy.
Rosalie pushed her hand down the front of my jeans, under my underwear. A finger cautiously brushed the top of my sex.
‘Only when what?’ she asked. She didn’t look up, but leaned in and filled her mouth with my breast. Words struggled to come. Her touch was like wildfire on me. I wanted her hand to go further, to press up into me. But her fingers only caressed my folds.
‘It only works when I… love someone. Love makes it work, nothing else.’ Her mouth eased away from my breast, but her fingers didn’t stop.
‘You’re talking about the L word, living together, sharing our lives.’
‘Yes.’ I surprised myself and admitted it to her. I touched her face. ‘Is that what you want? To be with me and live as a couple?’
Rosalie went still. Her finger rested flat on my sex, the other circled my navel.
‘I don’t know. My illness… I’ve lived week to week for so long because of it. Loving someone seemed too big a risk. I could die again. You would get hurt.’
‘Ah, about that,’ I said brushing her lips with my thumb. ‘Whatever you thought would kill you… it’s gone. You’re healed. Completely.’
Her fingers withdrew. Tears moistened her eyes. Instinct kicked in and I hugged her tight. Rosalie shook, and then a sob escaped her. Her arms wrapped around me.
‘You can have a life with me if you want. And you can have more than hot sex in a morgue. A lot more.’
‘Petra,’ Rosalie whispered after a while. Her face was wet with tears. ‘I-‘
The door buzzer cut through the moment like an angry chainsaw. Rosalie flinched and clung to me. I twisted around to check the security monitor. Flashing lights and the back of a van greeted me. The dead wait for no one.
‘Do you a deal, Rosalie,’ I said, picking her up in my arms and headed for the crib room. ‘Stay with me for a while. Don’t vanish on me tonight and we’ll see how we go from there.’
She let go as I lowered her carefully onto the bunk bed in the corner. The door buzzer demanded my attention again.
‘Wait.’ Rosalie grabbed me and pulled me to the bunk. I ignored the buzzer and kiss
ed her.
‘If you leave tonight I, I don’t think I could survive that.’ I had to say it. All that I had endured in my life paled in the face of losing her.
‘Leave you? No way Petra,’ she whispered. ‘Go do your thing. I’ll be here, waiting for you.’
LATE BLOOMER
NM Harris
Justice Harcourt Winterbloom has a beautiful garden in the large grounds of his secluded Launceston home. He’s especially fond of the night garden as he feels an affinity for those shy and secret flowers.
At the start of the year, Winterbloom employed Jake Constance, gardener and landscaper, to create and nurture this special garden, with its evening primroses (Oenothera biennis) and fragrant blue four-o’clocks (Mirabilis jalapa), the Nottingham catchfly (Silene nutans) and Gladiolus Tristis.
Harcourt Winterbloom - or rather, Jake Constance - managed to get a Brahma Kamal, also called Saussurea obvallata, to grow in a cool hollow of the sheltered grotto. The flower hails from China, and blooms once a year in the night. Jake has a standing invitation to visit for that event.
Jake works on Justice Winterbloom’s large garden at odd times: first thing in the morning, late afternoon, early evening; once, at 2am. If anyone was to ask, which they haven’t, he’d tell them it was to see the short-lived glory of the moon flower, or Ipomoea, the petals of which open by moonlight.
The judge had asked his gardener to sit with him, since Jake had planted and tended the specimen, and because Harcourt wanted to share the moment with someone who would appreciate it.
And that night was when it began. When the judge placed a tentative hand on Jake Constance’s thigh, and the gardener had turned and cradled Harcourt’s face in his large, callused hands, and kissed him. But only after they’d witnessed the blooming of the moonflower in the secluded garden, of course; neither of them had wanted to miss that.
But afterwards, oh yes, afterwards, on that blanket under the stars, and despite the cold, they had kissed and touched and bared their skin to the night and made each other so very warm.
So Jake has a standing invitation to visit any time he likes, whether the judge is at home or not, to tend the garden or simply enjoy it. But Jake mostly visits when Harcourt is home; and he stays a few hours, and longer if he can, and then he leaves.
Jake is a busy man, and the judge is a very private one. So they keep their schedule unscheduled, which is as much to do with the erratic demands of their work as to keeping off the radar. Discretion matters to the judge, because it seems to matter so much to those who would wish him harm.
Justice Winterbloom, nearing fifty now, has a reputation in the Tasmanian court system: an incisive intellect; an unparalleled grasp of the nuances of the law; a strict man, but a fair one. Anyone wrestling for a relevant precedent can turn to him for advice and he will cite two or three useful references without recourse to a text; although he’ll refrain if he senses the slightest conflict of interest.
He’s scrupulous, and self-sufficient; intensely private and inclined to introspection. Many find him aloof, snobbish even. He’s respected, but not much liked.
Jake likes him, though. Jake likes that quiet, shy man, whose head is so full of words and facts, and whose heart beats with the great theatre of human weakness and tragedy, and of the hopes and sorrows of lives that play out in the courts. Winterbloom has a cool and sardonic exterior that keeps the world away, but Jake sees the humanity in him; here at his retreat, in this sanctuary.
Jake’s visits could be passed off as household business, relating to the design and upkeep of Winterbloom’s treasured garden - unless you squint and take a closer look. Fortunately, Harcourt trusts his small household staff, the housekeeper and a cook, but that’s partly because they don’t live at the house, so they don’t know everything.
He trusts them, but underestimates them.
Mrs Clifton, the housekeeper, and Miss Dalrymple, the cook, do squint and and they call it Household Business, this thing the judge has with the gardener. They’re fond of Harcourt. They’ve known him most of his life, since he was a small, lonely boy in this house; driven relentlessly to his books by an ambitious father, largely neglected by his vain and bored mother. Neither Clifton nor Dalrymple care a jot that Harcourt sleeps with another man. All they care is that for a while afterwards, their lonely man is happier; the weight of his cares vanishes.
Should anyone ask - whether they wish the judge good or ill - they’ll get only blank stares and a silence pretending ignorance. No-one’s going to rob Harcourt of whatever happiness he can find; one of the few happinesses he lets himself have. So the cook and the housekeeper squint and indulge, and keep his secrets.
At the start of it all, Jake teases Harcourt, calls him Mr Buttoned-Down. The teasing name has stuck, but he means it affectionately. Harcourt is always so controlled. It is Jake’s mission in life to coax Harcourt to relinquish that iron will, for a little while at least.
He has his work cut out for him.
In his waking hours, Harcourt always wears a suit, under his judge’s robes, in chambers, in the car, at breakfast and at dinner. Loosening his tie a fraction is as casual as he gets. It’s all about the discipline. His suits feel like safety. They keep people from asking questions, from criticising his slightly heavy physique, from prying. A man in a suit never looks lonely, only contained. Even his pyjamas are navy blue and button-up and tailored.
At the start of it all, Harcourt never laughs, except for that dry, rather meticulous laugh, so well known in the courtroom.
Harcourt thinks that since humans are frail and that they all leave him in the end, he must not reveal too much of himself. It’s as though he’s starting to say goodbye even though they are just getting started, because he thinks the loss is inevitable.
It makes him sad in advance, because Jake Constance is extraordinary. He is very practical, as a gardener must be, yet he has an artistic soul, another requirement to nourish a truly beautiful garden. His eyes are dark brown, the colour of the rich, loamy soil in which he works. His hair is brown too, and glossy, though there are threads of grey at his temple, as befits a man nearing forty. But Jake remains youthful, in body and spirit. His physique is toned from the work he does, his skin is sunkissed, in sharp contrast to Harcourt’s indoor-pale tone, and his smile is broad and happy and cheeky.
Harcourt doesn’t hold much with religion, but he thinks Jake has an angelic face. Jake’s smile, he thinks, is like sunlight through the clouds. His eyes are the kindest Harcourt has ever seen.
Harcourt fell in love with those eyes but knows one day those eyes will not smile at him. One day those eyes will look at him with disappointment or disdain or loathing. It’s what they do; what everyone does.
Harcourt even confesses this to Jake one day, in a moment of careless melancholy. Jake is obviously irritated. That makes Harcourt sad. Their days are numbered now, and he has precipitated the ending. He’s smart enough to realise that his subconscious did that to him, made him start letting go before he got too embedded, too used to having the man around. Harcourt wishes he could have just enjoyed the love while he had it. He wishes that his brain was not so practical, preparing for love’s absence in advance.
It’s just how he’s made. He’s resigned to that, now, and he has enough evidence to prove it true. The verdict is that Harcourt is difficult to love. Perhaps impossible. He knows it. After Father, after Mama, after Phillip at school and Raymond at university, after Ashley. He stopped trying after Ashley, and the lecture the senior partner gave him about propriety and expectations. It was a lot like the lecture his father and mother had delivered after earlier disappointments and betrayals and loss.
He would have ignored all the lectures, if he’d felt that something good might come and then stay. But love does not last. Not for him.
But it lingers, it seems. Ten days after that self-sabotaging admission and Jake still comes to work on the garden, to sit with Harcourt on a blanket in the grotto to watch the night flower
s bloom. To hold his hand and take him to the bedroom, and strip him bare and lay his hands and mouth and tongue and sun-honey skin on Harcourt’s paleness and make Harcourt’s precise and measured voice break and moan and cry out.
Harcourt doesn’t understand why his angel hasn’t gone yet, but he’s grateful, in his melancholy way, that love isn’t yet denied him.
But this afternoon, Jake is looking at him speculatively. He’s in bed, with the sheets pulled to his waist, his arms crossed behind his head, and Harcourt has already cleaned himself and is reaching for his suit. He will pull his armour back on and leave Jake to sleep or eat or go as he chooses, and Harcourt already wishes he had stayed in bed, although he never does. How much longer will he have, after all?
Harcourt is still naked, however, perched on the edge of the bed, crisp white shirt in one hand, about to put it on, when Jake leans over and kisses him between the shoulder blades.
Jake has never indulged in post-coital affection before. He speaks affectionately of course, but he usually gives Harcourt time to reassemble his clothing shield first.
But today he kisses between Harcourt’s shoulder blades, and lays his cheek on pale, freckled skin.
Harcourt freezes, a hyper-urbane rabbit in the spotlight, not knowing what to do. What’s expected? Jake slides his arms around Harcourt’s chest in… it’s too gentle to be properly called a hug. A… cuddle, then?
‘Don’t go, Harry. We have time. Civilisation isn’t collapsing without you just yet, is it?’
Jake is the only one who calls him Harry. He’s the only one who has ever thought to. Harcourt likes it. He treasures how his hard, old-fashioned name becomes a little common, a little warm, a little loved.
‘Not just yet.’ Harcourt smiles, a crooked smile, a little warmth heating its corners, so it’s not just the bland, polite smile he offers to everyone else. For his earthy angel, this smile is small but it’s real.
Jake scoots up behind him, arms wrapped around his chest, and just holds him, cradles him. It’s not even a sexual hold, a possessive hold. Jake just seems to like the feeling of Harcourt in his arms. Harcourt considers this, how unlikely this is, how improbable. Whatever this relationship offers the beautiful Jake… it’s so, so nice. Harcourt thought it was curiosity at first, and perhaps being drawn to power; and then perhaps a little affection.
Queermance Anthology, Volume 1 Page 7