Lewis wasn’t demonstrative enough, and he knew it. They were lovers and he treated her with all the emotional tenderness of a distant cousin. He felt worlds of joy when she was at his side, and he hadn’t shown her even one of them. He’d never given her flowers. He’d never given her much of anything. He’d never said, “I love you.” Let’s face it, Lewis. Dating you is like dating a slab of cement, only with less feeling.
Even now, Lewis said nothing. “You’re losing me! Don’t you care?” May shouted. He had never heard her raise her voice before. He kept staring at his soup, too sad to even move. May left the table. She did not return.
The next two weeks felt like years.
Sometimes there was simply sadness. The strength of Lewis’ love for May became the strength of his grief. When he could bring himself to eat, the food tasted like he was chewing on a mouse pad. He had trouble sleeping. He moved slowly. His muscles ached. Lewis thought of what he had lost, and he became angry with himself. That he should be so careless, so cowardly! He was a worm. He hurled an endless stream of insults at the mirror. “May deserves so much better than you,” he snarled.
Then there was frustration. He sent her e-mail and left messages on her answering machine. His words were, alas, as lame as ever. “So, just wondering how you’re doing,” he’d say. He cringed even as the words came out of his mouth.
The frustration was replaced by a quiet despair, and Lewis took refuge in his work. There was always his work, where things made sense, where he knew what he was doing.
One day, a letter arrived. Well, it really wasn’t much of a letter. May was a woman of few words, and they were always straight and to the point. A small card read: “The guided tour. My place, Tuesday, 6 p.m. Come well-rested, well-read, and hungry for pussy. Love, May.” The room swam a bit, then lay on the beach panting. Lewis skimmed through the rest of the contents of the envelope: photocopies from books on sex and downloads from the Internet all about cunts and how to be friendly with them. Page after page of diagrams, techniques, and suggestions.
Lewis’ mind drifted to May. She wasn’t like the others. She knew he could be a bonehead, but instead of dropping him, she was willing to help. She was there for him. At his side. On top of him. Under him. A shiver ran down his spine. He held in his hands, he realized, the first draft of a map to pleasing May. The area would have to be visited, explored; details would have to be worked out. This could take some time.
He sat down and read the papers closely. He imagined undressing May and spreading her legs. His pants began to feel too small, and he undid them. He touched himself as he imagined touching her. It wasn’t the same; he was desperate to have her there, to see how she would react to this touch and to that. He stroked himself softly, slowly, then quickly and firmly. He closed his eyes and tried to see her face as he adjusted his caresses. She furrowed her brow and arched her back, or her hips moved with his fingers and she scarcely breathed. Her taste flooded into his mouth. They both moaned and cried out. His hand felt wet, and he opened his eyes and saw his semen on his fingers. He caressed himself as softly.
“I love you, May,” he whispered.
Lewis studied every night, but he was still nervous when he knocked on May’s door. I may have been an idiot in the past, and I may be an idiot in the future, but please, just this one night, let me be good to her! Let me be everything she wants – He was dizzy with love and already half-hard.
May opened the door. She wasn’t wearing anything special, just the usual white dress-shirt and khakis. She stood for a moment without moving, as if wondering whether to let him in or not. Lewis realized with horror that he hadn’t brought anything.
She reached out and enfolded him in her arms. He hugged her back. May shut the door. “You’re a good man, Mr Hoffman,” May said. “You just need a little guidance.”
She took Lewis by the hand to her bedroom. He had been there many times before, and yet he still would be unable to describe it had he been called upon to do so. One night at a bar, she suddenly asked him what color her bedroom was, and he honestly did not know. It had become a running joke between them. But the simple reason was that he could only see her when they were there.
A candle on the nightstand cast them in a kind, warm light. May released his hand to prop up some pillows against the headboard. He didn’t want to stop touching her, not for a second, and as soon as she let go of his hand he ran his hands down her back and settled them on her hips. She invited him to sit on the bed against the pillows. She kissed him, took off her pants, crawled onto the bed and sat between his legs facing away from him. Lewis grasped her breasts and nuzzled her neck. How he had missed the smell of her! His penis strained inside his pants against her ass. She spread her legs and leaned back against him.
May took Lewis’s hand in hers and moved it down to her pussy. At first he tried to move it himself, but she held it firmly until he surrendered control. “Mons pubis,” she whispered as his hand moved through a mound of dark hair. The rest of her cunt was shaved, making it feel all the more slick. She guided his fingers over it gently, getting them nice and wet. “Labia majora.” She ran them over the thick outer lips of her vagina. “Right, and left,” she said, taking his fingers from one side to the other. She took them down low to a firm piece of tissue. “Perineum.” A little higher, “This is what’s left of my hymen.” Lewis rested his head on her shoulder. He had been with her intimately, but still he knew so little. The topography, the history of her was awesome.
May spread her lips open with her other hand. “Labia minora.” These were a much different shape and far more delicate than her outer lips. “Right, left. Vagina.” She touched his fingertips to the wet gate and massaged herself. She arched her head back onto his shoulder and groaned lightly. They moved on. “This is the clitoris. Its only purpose is to give me pleasure.”
“So is mine,” Lewis whispered. May squeezed his hand and grinned, caught off guard, and sighed happily.
“This is the shaft, this is the hood, and this is the head. It’s very, very sensitive.” She moved his hand up and down her cunt until his fingers were dripping wet. “When I masturbate, I usually use two fingers, like this, on the hood.” May moved her fingers rhythmically up and down, sliding the hood over the shaft. She became wordless, lost in sensual concentration. Her breathing became quick and shallow. Lewis kissed her neck. His fingers left hers to their pleasure while he played over her juicy opening, ever so slowly probing and pressing, moving first just to the tip of one finger into her, then two, deeper and deeper. May rubbed herself at a fever pitch and Lewis could feel her tighten around his fingers. Then she relaxed and moved slowly.
Lewis pressed his cheek into her shoulder, squeezed her breast and thrust his fingers deep inside her. Cervix, he thought to himself. She was in his arms totally, a divine geography of endless delights.
May returned to her quick pace. She began to rock her hips and Lewis moved the full length of his fingers in and out of her pussy to match her. Her hot tender space grew tighter and tighter until May convulsed. Lewis felt the pulsations deep inside of her as she made small cries.
She rested. Her cunt felt even warmer and wetter than before. Lewis slowly withdrew his fingers. She turned around and lay over him like a blanket.
After some time, May sat up next to Lewis. He was taut with desire, eager for her to release him. But she made no move to touch him.
“I can give you guidance, Lewis, but in the end, you have to find your own way.”
“What if I get lost?”
“Maybe you’re already lost.”
She was right. He didn’t know where he was, and he had no map, no compass. He suddenly felt panicked.
“Don’t leave me,” he blurted out. “No one has ever shown me the patience that you have. I’m sorry I haven’t appreciated you as I should—” His throat tightened, and he couldn’t force one more word out.
May brushed her fingers against Lewis’ cheek. She left the bed and dressed. “Le
t’s go for a walk,” she said, holding her hand out to him.
They silently traced their usual route to the nearest park. May’s gaze was forever distant, and even when they at last came to rest on a bench, she looked not at Lewis but at the wooded horizon. “I think it’s time for me to move on,” she said.
“Take me with you.” Lewis was as surprised as May at his words. He wondered if the impulse was truly his, or if he was only borrowing it.
May shook her head. “Not this time. Maybe, someday, we’ll find each other again.” She looked about her, as if she was leaving a place she may or may not ever see again, and she got up and walked away, without looking back.
Lewis felt exhausted, as if he had just returned from a long journey. What could he have done differently this night? Why had he been abandoned? He had taken the tour and been left behind. No one had bothered to see him safely home.
But he no longer wished to be home. He watched May’s receding figure and felt pain and love and an electric anticipation for an unknown tomorrow. Lewis had reached his goal: he had been shocked out of his stagnation. No exotic locale could have done this. Only a woman.
Cracked Butterfly
Teresa Lamai
I’m glad the industrial district is always this deserted after six. I can’t stand human beings after a day in criminal court. The desolate November wind smells of burning garbage; I nearly fall every time it gusts out from between the buildings. I’m halfway home when a sideways, freezing rain lashes into me.
My breathing echoes in the dark hall of my apartment building. I want to push through my door, fall on the carpet in the dark, turn up music so loud it would vibrate my ribcage, rocking me into exhaustion.
Instead I see a streak of warm light under my door.
A moment later I’m in Tal’s arms. My apartment is filled with the smell of tortillas, with music, with Tal’s broad shoulders and lush, ringing voice. He squeezes my waist through the dank coat and I hold his temples between my palms. I refresh my eyelids in his glossy curls, press my cheek against his and inhale. He has just shaved.
“I thought you were still on tour. Oh my God, don’t move.” My voice squeaks. He laughs and kisses my forehead. His skin smells like cinnamon bread.
“I wanted to surprise you. You were going to eat caramel ice cream for dinner, weren’t you, Rosa? And you’re soaked.” His warm mouth finds mine and we stand motionless, kissing softly and drinking each other’s breath. One by one, my cells come back to life.
I’m still holding his face when he breaks the kiss and looks down at me. Tal’s eyes are almond-shaped, tilting towards his temples in gorgeous arabesques. Their darkness is almost inhumanly beautiful, absorbing rather than reflecting light. I do everything I can to make them glitter like jewels. His lashes flutter and I know he has a question for me, unspoken.
His hands, slender as a pianist’s, move over my hips. I squirm.
He unbuttons my coat and slides it off, letting it slump wetly on the floor. My suit jacket lands on the couch.
He lets me kiss his wide cheekbones and smiling lips as he busies himself with my blouse. I rip out the last three buttons and sigh when he pulls it off. The air is cool, but my bones feel warm for the first time in weeks.
“No bra? I thought you were in court today. Good lord, woman.” I’m tugging at his curls, trying to pull him to the darkening nipples.
He runs his tongue along my belly, leaving a damp line just under my navel. Kneeling, he smoothes his hands up under my wool skirt. I kick my shoes behind me. My knees buckle when he hooks his fingers into the waistband of the pantyhose and pulls. My skirt follows quickly.
He pauses and I look down. “When did you get a red thong?”
“It’s laundry day.”
“Damn. Let’s see. Goddamn.”
I close my eyes when he moves behind me. He fits one hand over my pubic bone and pushes my ass into his face, sinking his teeth into the cool mounds. His other hand is flat against my belly. My pussy swells; I sway side-to-side, letting the thick lips kiss. His hair tickles the small of my back. I shift my hips, tilting my silk-covered cunt towards his snaking tongue, panting “ah, ah,” to the dark ceiling.
He stands. I turn, winding my arms around him, lifting a leg to circle his waist. I run my tongue from his collar to just behind his ear, warming his neck. His hands grip my ass and he pulls the cheeks slowly apart, listening to the wet labia separate.
“There’s plenty of time, Rosa.” He covers my mouth again in a long, clinging kiss. “Mmm, that’s just how your cunt kisses me back.”
I don’t see his hand moving – I squeal when he pinches my nipples. He grabs my shoulders before I can step back. I laugh, but his eyes are distracted; he takes several short breaths before he speaks. “Rosa, I want you to let me use you like I did before. I haven’t been able to think of anything else while I’ve been away.”
So that’s the question. My breath catches.
Neither of us meant to go that far, the night before he left, but the need exploded in us the instant his hand closed over my wrist. I’ve melted each time I remembered being bound and bent over his desk, his right hand forcing my neck into the polished wood while his left hand held my vibrator. I came the way I’d always needed to, filling the house with long, braying screams like a woman giving birth.
I look down. “Okay, yes. Yes.” This compulsion is absurdly strong.
“Take off your panties. Come into the bathroom.”
I follow slowly. He has a pair of handcuffs dangling over the shower rod. I let out a snort. He turns and tells me a safeword. I toss my panties at his chest.
“Face the tub. Put your wrists in the handcuffs.”
I pause. He leans against the opposite wall. “In the bathroom?” I shove a nervous, simian smile toward him and he lets it fall, unacknowledged. I turn quickly, reaching for the cold metal. They click benignly around my wrists. I don’t quite believe they’ll hold. Tal is silent behind me.
“Um, okay—” I say after a few moments. I start to twist my head, looking for him.
The first slap, more on my hip than my ass, knocks me to the side. The cuffs cut into my wrists as I hang, feet splayed. The second slap burns, the third stings.
“Don’t speak. Don’t turn around.” Tal’s mouth is at my right ear, but his voice seems to come from every corner of the room. My nipples are tight, straining at empty air.
I struggle to my feet. “Ow,” I say pointedly.
He fits his left arm around the front of my pelvis and lifts me backwards, off my feet, spreading his legs to take the weight. He hits my ass with his right hand, swinging the weight of his back into five blows. Shock keeps me from yelling at first. Setting me down, he massages the shaking flesh gently, using both hands. It’s unbearably hot and I feel bruises forming.
He has never spoken to me so gently: “I have a large, uncomfortable gag, Rosa. It’ll stretch your mouth, press on your whole tongue. Most likely it’ll make you salivate all over your chin. The ties will get tangled in your hair. I’d rather see you control yourself. Can you?”
I lick my lips when I can catch my breath. I watch the goosebumps rise along my arms.
“Good.” He kisses the back of my neck.
I hear the scarf before I feel it. It’s one of mine, wide red silk. Tal fits it snug over my eyes.
I hear him move in front of me. A scraping in the tub, then his breath coming from down below. He’s moved my stool into the tub. Panic rises in me, stopping just at the top of my throat.
“I have the gag ready, sweetheart, and other things to hurt you with,” Tal whispers. Something cold and hard probes rudely at my anus, then leaves. He grips my pelvis in both hands, tilting it forward.
Water’s running. A warm cloth is on my belly.
I moan as softly as I can when his delicate hands reach my cunt. He lathers briefly and I feel one of my small razors working the hair off the mound. He tells me to put my right foot up on the side of the tub.
He spreads the outer labia and lets one of his fingers stray just close enough to be sucked in. I gasp and rock towards him, my body ready to break into a rhythm. My cunt coats his finger and he stops as the scent fills the space between us.
“Don’t move, Rosa. I’m serious.”
I feel a cold length of metal, flat against me. I freeze and bear down hard on my terrified stomach.
“A straight razor is the only way to get a close shave up in here.” He tickles me and I clench my teeth.
“You know the safeword. But then we’d only be half-finished.”
Moments later he tells me to switch legs. My thighs are trembling. I press my left foot hard against the cold porcelain. He finishes with a few efficient swipes, then sponges away the soap.
A long silence follows. The air tickles strangely.
I feel him whisper something just over my clit. His mouth closes slowly over the naked, slick labia. His kiss is thorough. I move in circles, impatient, trying to press my clit against him. My inner lips swell towards him, as if begging for his tongue. He stops. I hear him swallow.
“Tal, fuck me.” He must be ready to finish this game.
In answer, he stands. His hand slides under my hair and presses, soft and firm, against my cheekbone and under my skull. It holds my head still as his other hand lands loudly on my left cheek, just enough to make my eyes sting.
I hear him leave.
When he returns, he takes the blindfold off, sliding the knot tenderly from my hair. He is holding a key, and he unfastens the right cuff just long enough to turn me around. My wrist clicks back into place. His face is satiny with sweat. He is still dressed. His eyes are dazed and grateful.
He kisses my cheek. “I’m going to take you out, Rosa.”
My blue silk dress is hanging on the back of the bathroom door. His rucksack is on the floor, the contents spilling. I see the gags and he laughs softly.
“Oh, she’s mad? She thought I was kidding?” He kisses my mouth and runs his tongue over my neck where the veins are throbbing. He whispers into my hair, “I love you. Are you all right, really?”
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