These Curious Pleasures

by Sloane Britain

  "What's that?"

  "Let me try and illustrate it this way: if you hadn't been able to eat for three days, what would you say" was wrong with you?"

  Allison looked at me as if she were afraid that I had finally flipped out so far I'd never come back. "I'd say that I was hungry."

  "That's what I thought. And that's one of the reasons I love you."

  "Because I get hungry? Girl, I've heard of being weird, but this beats all."

  "Really? You should read Stekel. However," I explained, "that is far from being my hangup. No, the point I'm trying to make is that you can get hungry without calling yourself oral-retentive. That's one of the reasons for my loving you. I've known too many of the other kind. People who can't enjoy eating an artichoke without thinking they're oral-regressive."

  "I know the type. Sounds like some of the friends I made when I first came to the city. They bored me stiff."

  "Yeah. You know, I've gotten revoltingly sober in the last hour. What about you?"

  "Me too. I thought this drink would get me back where I was before but it hasn't. We're almost out of Scotch too."

  "I could go down and buy some more," I suggested.

  "Hey, I just got a better idea. Ever had a Sidecar?"

  "No."

  "You've been missing something. It's my favorite cocktail but I seldom drink it because after three of them I've been known to start thinking I was Madame Butterfly."

  "That must be quite a scene," Allison said.

  "You shouldn't know from it. Once, at a party, I lost count of how many I drank. All I know is that at one point I came out of the john with the end of a roll of toilet paper in my hands. I unwound it all the way into the living room where I proceeded to announce that I was that Butterfly cat. All the time I was tearing the tissue into little pieces and tossing them about like they were flower petals."

  "You're making it up."

  "So help me Giacomo Puccini, I'm telling the truth. At least that's what I'm told I did. I don't remember that night too clearly," I protested. "Anyway, I have a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and some Cointreau somewhere around the place. A smidgeon of lemon juice and we've got a Sidecar. How about it? Should I mix up a batch?"

  "On top of Scotch? Oh, what the hell, let's try it anyway. But please," Allison requested, "no Madame Butterfly tonight."

  "Don't worry, I passed the Puccini stage long ago. It'll be Der Rosencavalier, at least."

  "H-m-m-m. As I remember, the opening scene holds some interesting possibilities."

  "Hold it. We better take this topic up again after I've made the drinks or we'll never get around to them."

  I had never mixed a Sidecar before. I guess it takes practice. Anyway, mine were palatable... but just barely. We had three each. I was seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses... someone else's prescription.

  We were sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch. I felt safer down there. Allison had her head on my shoulder and my arm was around her.

  Suddenly I became aware that she had her tongue in my ear. No, that couldn't be right. She wouldn't just start out that way. She'd build up to something like that. Guess I had been drinking up such a storm I hadn't known that she had been kissing my neck.

  When she withdrew her lips I turned and gathered her to me. "Well, hello there, pretty girl. Where did you come from?" I teased as I took liberties with her clothing.

  "Glad you're back. For a while there I thought you were more interested in your drink than you were in me."

  "Baby, you know I'm weak for you. Wait a minute and I'll prove it," I said, standing up and unfastening what appeared to be a million zippers.

  "You should have music." Allison got up and put a stack of records on the phonograph. She turned the volume control way up. She had selected some jazz records of the Kansas City and Chicago barrelhouse and blues styles. Old stuff like they used to play in the speakeasies and brothels. It came swinging out of the speaker real raunchy and low-down. So right for the occasion. It was very definitely not the time for Italian opera.

  "O.k., you've got your accompaniment. Now do your bit," Allison said.

  I didn't get what she meant at first but then I dug it and I goofed. I mean, like brother, I flipped. That wasn't my bit.

  Allison was still standing by the phonograph. "Come on, I'm waiting. The curtain's up. The music's playing. What are you waiting for? A fan?"

  "Allison, I couldn't. I'd be too embarrassed."

  "Nothing to it. Just make like you're in bed. Let the music reach your hips. Like this." She came toward me slowly, giving it back to a frantic bass fiddle with bumps and grinds that would do credit to a shake dancer twenty years in the business.

  By the time she reached me she had me in a sweat. I grabbed her and ripped off what few clothes she still had on. She let me but when I tried to kiss her she backed away and began moving around again.

  They hadn't taught her that in her ballet classes. But the training had helped make her graceful. There wasn't much room for her to show her stuff but she didn't need much.

  She mostly stood in one spot and made her body go places while her feet stood still.

  Man, I was kicked right out of my mind. But I really cracked up when she pulled a bit I had seen once at a strip joint on Third Street in the Village. When I watched that professional stripper do it I had been a little embarrassed but mostly as bored as the dancer had been. When the woman I loved did the same thing the effect, to understate to the point of absurdity, was different.

  Allison extended her tongue out as far as it would go. She brought her hands up and licked the palms of each. Then, arching her body back from the waist so that her gorgeous breasts swelled out full and inviting toward me, she brought her hands down and cupped her breasts, like she was offering them to me. Then, she placed her palms flat against the pink tips and caressed them, her body swaying longingly, an expression of languid sensual delight on her face, her eyes open and staring at me with defiance and excitement.

  With an involuntary moan, I fell to my knees before her, clasping her legs tightly and burying my lips in the silken pliancy of her thighs. Allison swayed sinuously in my arms.

  Ardent pulsations coursed through the writhing body in my arms. My legs had lost their power. I couldn't rise. My body stretched upwards, stretching, straining for fulfillment. Up, up, my body pressed against the muscular hardness of her legs, my lips and tongue seeking, needing. Allison was shivering, small meaningless sounds coming from the depths of her throat.

  Allison tossed limply, leaning against me for the support her trembling legs could no longer give her. A thin high-pitched scream and long shudders wracking through the length of her body and then my name repeated and repeated over and over again.

  * * *

  We were lying on the floor, the rayon rug prickling my bare skin. I was too relaxed to bother moving.

  Allison was lying with her face cradled on my bosom. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. I could tell that she wasn't sleeping, though, by the rhythm of her breathing and by the small grasping motions she made at me every time I shifted my position slightly.

  She stiffened one arm against the floor and propped herself up to a near sitting position. Her face was almost white, drained, exhausted. I noticed that the arm she was using to support herself was trembling as if too spent to expend any effort.

  She stared at me long and hard without speaking. Then, a voice that was heavy with desperation said, "I love you much. Too much. I'll have to pay for this, Sloane. It must be sinful to get so much pleasure from one person. Somehow I feel that there must be something evil in my wanting to have you be the center and meaning of my life. Sloane, I want that so very much. God help me, I adore you!"

  "Darling, you shouldn't look at it that way. That way of thinking's merely a carry-over from the medieval..." I never got to finish my statement. A look of longing had come over Allison's face. Feverish desire set her eyes aflame. She cut me off in mid-sentence with
an insistent kiss.

  Her lips, which I had always known to be soft and gentle, bore down on me inflexibly. I was taken aback and put off by the punishing fierceness of her kiss.

  It was Allison who was kissing me, however. Allison who was roughly fondling me. The woman I loved whose body was crowding mine. As the initial surprise passed away, I began to respond. I could feel my taut muscles relaxing. My lips parted and I invited more sensual kisses.

  Allison reacted by lessening the whiplash ferocity of her lovemaking. She became tender and adoring.

  Briefly, she raised herself a few inches, to tell me, "Every time we touch, I feel as if a miracle were happening." Then she came back to my lips. But in the brief moment when she had her eyes open I had seen passionate desire that bordered on desperation.

  I wriggled free and stood up. "I got up because I can't really believe that you want to make love again. Not so soon. I think you're doing it for some other reason. I don't know what it is but I'm highly suspicious of its being something other than sexual."

  "Wrong, my love. I want you because I love you. If you think I should be some sort of limp lily now, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Sloane, I want you. I'm aroused again, honest. Maybe I'm turning nympho in my old age."

  "Sure?"

  "Dammit, what do you want? A signed affidavit? Let me put it this way, if you don't stop questioning me this instant and get back here in my arms where I can say whatever I have to say in sign language, I'll make you stop."

  "Oh? You're also getting pretty cocky in your old age," I said. "What makes you so sure you can stop me?"

  Allison smiled. Now I know what they mean by that Cheshire cat bit. She looked as if swallowing the canary were her hourly habit. "The records are still stacked. All I have to do is put them back on the changer and start the music playing. I don't think you'd keep giving me such a hard time if I were to start dancing again."

  "Aah, I've seen that act already. Your performance would suffer from repetition. It just wouldn't have the same effect," I lied. "You know, like a mystery story. Once you know the ending, there's not much point in re-reading the story again."

  Allison stretched luxuriously, emphasizing the slim voluptuousness of her figure. Then she put her hands on her sleekly rounded hips and gently kneaded the supple flesh. "You only saw the first act. There are two more and an encore. Shall I begin?" she cooed.

  "D-don't bother. Any more of that and I'd be a candidate for a nut hatch." I meant it. I was so steamed up it was killing me to keep up the teasing and not just fall to it. Another performance of Allison's and I'd be locked up for loving her to death.

  "There's only one way to keep me from dancing again. Come over here, darling," Allison cooed.

  "Do we have to use the floor again? My back already feels like the bottom of a birdcage. If you want me, come after me." I turned and ran into the kitchen.

  Allison ran after me, laughing. We were both giggling so much we could hardly keep running. Guess we were both cracked up by the same thing, an image of how we would look to an observer, running around the apartment naked.

  I barely escaped her grasp as I headed out of the kitchen, through the living room, to the foyer. It was a long narrow hall with the bedroom at one end and the door to the outside at the other.

  I ran until I collided with unyielding wood. The outside door. In my excitement I had run in the wrong direction.

  Allison had me trapped. There was only room for one person to walk down the hall at a time. She surged up against me, not able to break the momentum she had built up while running. The impact crushed me to the door. The wood protested loudly and the thud of my impact gathered volume in the empty halls and stairwell. Oh Christ, and with the landlord living right in the building! I was sure there would be an eviction notice for me the next day. You understand, I didn't know exactly what time it was but it had to be some time after midnight.

  The unexpected noise flipped us both. We thought it was funny. We goofed it up laughing and making guesses about what the other tenants had done when they heard the sound. Like what they had been doing when it happened and how they might have interpreted it. We were breaking each other up.

  Allison stopped laughing first. There was nothing humorous about the way her fingers were probing my body. What there is to do with hands in order to achieve certain effects, she was doing. Anything else, there isn't.

  My laugh went to a grin to something quite other than hilarity. Allison had her hand behind my head, tugging a handful of my hair until my head was inclined backward. She bent over me and brought her mouth to mine. Instead of kissing me, she kept her lips a fraction of an inch away and traced the outlines of my mouth with the tip of her tongue. Playing with the contours of my parted lips.

  She was using her hands and fingers to fondle me like a bibliophile examining the Gutenberg Bible. A delicious languor spread through me. My heart was beating frantically, blood spurting lustily through me, throbbing inside me that blocked out sight and sound, present and future. Only Allison and the exquisite sensations of her touch were real.

  "No, no, Allison. Please, not here. Not so close to the door. The neighbors... they'll hear us." Some part of my mind that I wasn't in touch with was being rational. I heard myself speaking but wasn't aware that I was articulating, nor had any idea where the .logical, coherent thoughts came from.

  "They can't hear me making love to you, baby. That's just between us," Allison said. She followed her words with a probing kiss and then her mouth was roving my body, just the tip of her tongue extended.

  Her mouth was on my breast, the wet pink wonder teasing the tips. I was sinking further and further into ardent urgency. My body had gone slack with need and it was only the pressure of Allison's body propping me against the door that kept me upright. I was falling limply. Allison started easing me down to the floor, not stopping her stroking.

  "No. Please," I said weakly. "I don't want to here. Not on the floor. Not in front of the door."

  Allison's voice was tight and husky. She had to take a deep breath before speaking. "I guess you're right. That might wake someone." She swayed against me and buried her head in my shoulder. "Oh, dearest, it's so wonderful when you finish. I love the way you go out of your mind and become so free and wild and unrestrained. My baby, it's so good to see you when you're like that. You're a different person, primitive, uninhibited and so completely mine. And the things you say at that time! Like they came from deep inside you where your sincerest feelings are. You say such lovely things to me then, Sloane precious. As if you had no control over what you were saying, sometimes you whisper so that I can hardly hear you, other times there are no words, just rapturous sounds, and sometimes you just let go and proclaim your ecstasy. Those times you usually call out my name. Like it was something of great beauty. Or loudly, as if you wanted to tell the world that I was the one you love." She picked her head up. "Yes, I guess you have a point. We had better get away from the door."

  Allison helped me get up. Every bone and muscle in my body had turned to jelly. She propped-me up in front of her as we went down the hall to the bedroom. Allison kicked the bedroom door shut behind us with the heel of her foot.

  I was on the bed. Allison was standing next to the bed staring down at me. Then Allison was embracing me, the slippery velvet of her perspired body pulsating against me. Mouth on my mouth. Silken lips against mine. Hands and fingers stroking, clasping, fondling. Lips touching, brushing, sliding over my body. Agonizingly exquisite tongue seeking, caressing. I in the torturous ache of ecstasy, in the rapture of transport, then, quickly, knotted up with tension... release and flowing out and, "Allison, Allison, Allison, I love you. My precious darling. Allison, Allison, Allison, Allison..."

  * * *

  What was probably much later, I realized that sunlight was coming in the room from around the edges of the drapes. There was a clock on the bedside table. I twisted myself up and to the side in order to read its face which was turned away from me. I
was very careful not to awaken Allison who was sleeping in the embrace of my left arm. I picked up the clock and brought it close to my eyes. Myopia and a hangover made me tempted to use braille. Finally, I was able to make out the time.

  "Is it very late?" a sleepy voice inquired from the other side of the bed.

  "We must have fallen asleep. It's 9:15 already. I'm going to have to hustle to get to the office in time."

  "Damn! I've got an appointment with a photographer for this morning. I'm due there already and I don't even know where the hell I left my clothes around this voyeur's dream. And I have to go back to my place to pick up my stage make-up. Oh, I hope he waits for me. I don't care if he kills me for being so late, just so long as he's there. He's one of the best cameramen in the business and I've waited months to get this appointment with him. I need a lot of new stills for distribution on the Coast. They're going to know Allison Millay is in town if I have to send them pictures and bios every day for a year."

  "You better have some breakfast. Posing under those hot fights will knock you out if you don't. Remember, you've had hardly any sleep. Couple that with not eating and holding poses in the glare of those hot spotlights and they'll have to carry you out frothing at the mouth."

  "You're right. I'll grab something to eat while I'm in the taxi. I won't have time to sit down to breakfast."

  I let Allison have the bathroom first because she was so late. I'd never make it to the office on time but, if Judy or Happy had anything to say about it they'd be sorry. I was in no mood to put up with their nonsense that day. I would only be half to three-quarters of an hour late. They had no right to make a big deal out of that. Every human being is a little late for work once in a while. Once in a while? Face it, Sloane, I told myself, you've been late so often in the six months you've worked there that the elevator operators probably think you're due at work sometime around eleven. So what? Just let one of them say anything today and I'll make them wish that they had stayed in bed. With my voice, I can make almost any line sound like an impeachment proclamation if I'm careful of my delivery.