by Violet Blue
I went into the bathroom and turned on the cold tap. The edge of the claw-foot tub made an uncomfortable seat. I set the highball glass in the soap dish and dropped the thick terry robe to the white tiled floor.
While the bath filled, I pulled back my hair in a severe ponytail high on my head, revealing every line on my face to the unflattering light at the makeup table in the boudoir.
First, I did my nails, hands, and feet. Light purple traced a thin line near my cuticles. Pale blue made a half-moon at the base of each nail. Blue-tinged varnish sealed it. For the last time, every single thing had to be just perfect. That way, if I felt myself sliding back, wanting it, I’d be able to remind myself that for once everything was right and exactly the way it should have been, and I could never hope to duplicate such perfection again.
No one I knew would recognize the brand of makeup in my bag. I used a thick, oily base, a shade paler than my natural coloring, and spread it thickly so that it left an obvious line under my chin and by my temples. Every wrinkle around my mouth and eyes showed like sidewalk crack. Blue lipstick made my mouth looked bruised. I drew another set of lips, slightly smaller, in dark pink on top of that, so that the edges of blue showed. Cherry rouge started as circles on my cheeks and then faded in a slight upstroke.
The first step into the tub was always hardest, like swimming in a mountain lake at camp. My foot ached and I wanted to pull it out, but I stepped in with the other foot, gritted my teeth, and sank into the deep, frigid water.
My skin pulled tight on my arms. Gooseflesh made every hair stand on end. I bent my knees. Gasping, I got my shoulders under the surface. My poor nipples hardened and ached. Fighting the shock, my heart pumped hot blood under my skin. My teeth chattered, uncontrollable. I reached for my highball glass.
My cunt tightened, refusing to take the ice cubes, but I pushed four in anyway. I felt my heat flee to my core. My toes and fingers throbbed and then burned.
“I hate this.” My voice echoed off the bathroom tiles. I hate this, and I’m never going to do it again. If I’m tempted, this will be the part I’ll make myself remember. The part I hate.
Cold. I was so fucking cold. My pussy longed to push out the cubes tucked into it, but every time one floated to the surface of the water, I pushed it back in, deep, until my knuckles pressed against my clit.
The shuddering came next. It exhausted me as no workout with my personal trainer ever had. I clamped down, refusing to let my muscles create more heat. The ice that worked out of me melted to such small slivers that I couldn’t find them in the water. My fingertips were leaden as they clumsily tested my internal temperature. There was heat, but only deep inside. My clit was tight. It hurt to touch.
I should leave now. I should drain this freezing water away and pour scalding water over my skin until the burn hurts as much as the cold, until my skin is mottled pink. I should pick up the phone and tell them I’ve changed my mind, that I want a different fantasy this time, something red and violent, a fuck that will leave my pussy raw. Something normal.
I tipped back my head and let it rest on the folded towel on the back of the tub. The walls of the bathroom had a bluish cast, like icebergs. White seemed a final color, but like black, it had shades, tones, subtleties. When I stared at it long enough, flecks of green, red, and blue danced in the center of my vision.
A drop fell from the silver faucet into the bath, a hollow, metallic sound followed by a rich plop. Ripples pushed across the surface of the water. The water lapped at the underside of my chin.
Ah, well. What was done, was done. I was there. It was in motion. I picked up the highball glass and let the last cube clink from side to side, sweeping out time. Then I plucked it out and shoved it inside me as I exhaled.
I rose from the water, letting it drip, before carefully blotting it away with the thick towels. It took several conversations to convince the house staff that I didn’t want heated towels waiting.
When I was dry, I dropped the towels on the floor and opened the other door. Air conditioning rushed against my skin. My nipples puckered to hard, erect rouge nubs. Perfect.
Unlike the bedroom, the other room was stark. Three of the walls were painted glossy white. Large stainless-steel drawers seemed to line the back wall from floor to ceiling, but I knew from exploration that they didn’t open. Fantasy only went so far.
In the center of the room was one stainless-steel table. A single, thin white sheet sat folded at the foot. On top of it was a tag. I knew that underneath the table, there were stirrups. The one drawer on the side of the table held enema nozzles. With few alterations, any medical scene could be played out. I hated to think of anyone else using my sterile room, but I doubted the spa kept it just for me.
The floor tiles were cold against the bottom of my feet. The table was a chilled slab and my fingerprints made brief appearances on the brushed surface before disappearing like ghosts. I climbed awkwardly onto it.
I took the tag and placed the loop over my big toe before lying down with my legs spread wide so that Devon’s legs wouldn’t touch mine when he knelt between my thighs. The overhead mirror was unkind, so I only looked in glances at my pale skin, my carefully positioned body, my death mask. Then I unfurled the crisp sheet and pulled it over my body until it covered my face.
I could see the four bulbs of the overhead light fixture through the sheet. I closed my eyes tight and hoped he’d hurry. We didn’t have much time. Every detail was perfection. It would never be this good again. Never.
At the soft click of the door, I opened my eyes again. Every breath was smooth, shallow, measured. I willed myself to relax, to give up control.
Devon was well trained. Although I stared at the ceiling, I knew that he gave my face only a glance as he folded the sheet down to the swell of my breasts. The bare warmth of the sheet escaped as he lifted the sheet from my feet and folded it above my waist, exposing the spider’s veins on my calves, the cottage cheese texture of my outer thighs, the fluff of pubic hair carefully confined by waxing to a strip on my outer lips. Only then did he pull on examination gloves.
He put his gloved hand on the table.
Would he jump if I moved?
Devon climbed on the table. I stared past the overhead mirror, but I saw he was dressed in white scrubs. He lowered the waistband and freed his cock. Carefully balancing so that no part of his body touched mine, he pumped generous lube into the palm of his gloved hand.
My nipples ached in the cold air and my toes throbbed. So cold. I wanted to shiver. My skin pulled tight against my bones.
So many shades of white, like textures, all of them different.
I heard the wet slide of his fist over his cock.
Shame rose in a warm glow in my cheeks. It wouldn’t show through the thick base, but it was there. Heat.
It wasn’t healthy, this thing, this need. I’d go for months without it, and then I’d be on the phone with a client, or at dinner with friends, and I’d yearn for the cold. Thinking about it would make my breasts ache. I’d cross and uncross my legs, and fidget in my chair. Sometimes, I’d take an ice cube from my drink, put in into my mouth, and excuse myself to the ladies room, where I’d rub the cube against my clit until I came. Then I’d smooth down my clothes and take my seat, and no one would ever guess. But it was never a really good orgasm. It was a shadow, a knockoff, a little something to see me through.
When I first came to the spa, the entire staff was displayed for me. One by one, the nude men entered the room and showed me their bodies, their hard-ons, their secret tattoos. My purse sat in my lap and my hand rested on top of it until the last man joined the lineup, discreetly waiting for approval. In their own way, each one was perfection. Cute, handsome, pretty, pouty, tough, nasty, clean-cut, muscled, slim, slight, towering, hairy, smooth—they were all ideal.
“Which ones take direction well?”
“All of our—”
With a simple movement of my hand, I cut off the flow of words. “I don�
��t want a sexual submissive, or a man who pretends to be one. I want someone who can correctly follow very detailed instructions. Intelligence is a plus.” I turned my head. “And he must consistently shoot a big load.”
Devon was not the best-endowed member on staff, his looks didn’t excite me, and he was not the one I would have picked for recreational fucking, but he met my requirements.
He was quiet while he jerked off. A few gasps, the slap of his hand, and the squishy sound of the lube was all I heard. I should have told him that it was okay to make noise. Or maybe all men were that silent while stroking themselves to climax.
Don’t blink.
A trickle of water from the melting ice cube streamed out of my pussy and pooled under my butt cheek.
My eyeballs were dry. Halos from the light fixture to the side of the overhead mirror seemed permanently seared into my retinas.
The air conditioner kicked on again, fighting the heat given off by the friction of Devon’s hand on his cock. Chill air rasped against my skin. I fought the need to shudder.
Yes, remember this. Remember how much you hate what it takes to get the details right. Next time you’re tempted to pick up the phone and make an appointment, remember that it hurts to have ice cubes in your cunt. Think of the pain in your feet and hands. Think about never being warm again.
In the overhead mirror, if I allowed myself to focus, I could see his black curls bobbing and the dip of his shoulder with every stroke. I’d see the purplish head of his dick strangled by his gloved hand, the slide of the foreskin until he was so hard that it wouldn’t pass his glans. He’d bowed his head to the task and I was tempted to sneak a glance at his face, to see the concentration, to love him for the utter selfishness, but I refused to look. Everything had to be just right this last time.
He groaned. The table shook as he worked his cock. He knew not to waste time. With his free hand, Devon spread my labial lips. Warmth bled through the gloves to my skin.
Devon whispered something, maybe a prayer, and grunted. He hissed through clenched teeth.
Hot, thick cum splattered against my clit. I bit my tongue to hold back my moan. He came buckets, my Devon did, covering my cunt like boiling water splashed on snow. Another shot, so warm, so full of life, pulsed onto my chilled skin. It slid from the hard nub of my clit down toward my pussy. My clit tingled under it, loving the perfection of the moment, soaking in the heated gift from his body. A third, weaker shot, but oh, so hot from his body, dripped onto the hood of my clit.
Fuck. I loved the way it felt on my skin. That was what I lived for, the perfect contrast of my frigid clit and his hot cum. Blood raced through me. I could hear it pounding in my ears, and my heart, shocked into service, beat against my ribs. I was already throbbing inside.
Devon immediately climbed off the table. He pulled the bottom sheet down to my ankles. Hurrying, he stood by my head. Something he’d never done before, he bent down and placed a reverent kiss on my lips. I could smell his sweat on his neck. Then he gently pushed my eyelids closed, and I felt the sheet cover my face.
Immersed in darkness, electric halos slid across my vision. I didn’t move. Everything was so perfect that I didn’t dare breathe.
The door discreetly clicked shut.
I flung back the sheet and spread my slit to see the cum oozing there. My hand immediately moved to smear it across my clit in large circles. I furiously rubbed my sex back to life. The slick load clung in thick globs to my pubes.
So warm. Warmth is life.
Everything was perfect. Perfect, that time. Better than fantasies.
A spasm shot down my legs. I drew my knees up and spread my legs wide. Pinching and pulling, I overloaded my clit with sensation—hot cum, cold fingers. My hands made tighter circles.
Yes. Yes.
In the overhead mirror, I watched the cum trickle down to my hole, felt the slow, pendulous drop spread. Blood engorged my clit. The muscle hardened under my fingertips.
Fuck.
My lips pulsed.
My hand was almost a blur. Hard peaks hit short plateaus but built. My shoulders lifted off the table. Inside, my pussy clenched tight.
Perfect.
A furious orgasm more intense than any other shot though me.
God or the devil, it was fucking perfect.
I collapsed back onto the table. The headache started almost immediately. I rolled on my side, gathered the sheet around me, and eased off the table.
My legs ached with every step. A cramp threatened my toes. Feeling years older, I opened the door to the bathroom.
By the time I hobbled down to the foyer, static vision made my left eye useless. Two fingers of whiskey, neat, and Vicodin only took the edge off. I wrapped my scarf tight around my throat.
Devon hailed a taxi for me, stepping out bravely into the onrush of night traffic while I waited under the awning. He opened the door and smiled at me as if I were simply a lady, and he, a gentleman. When I stepped off the curb, his hand was immediately at my elbow, but I stepped into a pothole of slush that splashed inside my black pumps anyway. Before he closed the door, I slipped the neatly folded bills into his hand.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
It was a hundred more than my usual tip, but he deserved it.
Christ, I was sore. Once the chill got into my muscles, it seemed to take days to coax warmth back into them.
I told the cabbie my address on Lakeshore Drive.
The headlights of oncoming traffic were like daggers in my brain, so I closed my eyes and tipped back my head. I exhaled.
Perfect.
No need to ever do it again.
I could go home and crawl in bed and shut out all the lights, sounds, feelings, and immerse myself in darkness. The pain would go away. My thick blankets would be so warm, and my sheets would be like silk on my skin. I could sleep sound, knowing that I had touched perfection.
The cold trickle of slush inside my shoe slid under my toes.
Except that he kissed me.
I rubbed my forehead, as if that could bring relief. The static in my vision slid to my right eye. I didn’t want to vomit in the cab, but I felt the nausea rise. All I wanted was perfect black, without shade, without texture, without noise. I wanted the world on the other side of that darkness, far away, and warmth coating me like cum hot from a man’s body.
Except that I felt the warmth of Devon’s hands through his gloves. It would have been so much better if the only warmth I ever felt was his cum. That would be truly perfect.
I opened my eyes. Every streetlamp sent a prick of pain through my skull. My legs ached.
Heavier gloves. Maybe if he didn’t touch me at all. Or maybe I could get him to chill his hand too. Of course I could. I paid for it, didn’t I?
I pulled my coat around my neck and stared out at the black expanse of the lake as the cab traveled north. We drove and drove, but never seemed to get any closer to it.
THIS FLESH HAS CHANGED MEANING
Jennifer Cross
It’s forever since we had sex. Okay, a couple months. Still, even that feels like an eternity for a couple who were regularly getting it on even right up through my last month of pregnancy: My clit, labia and breasts got so sensitive that I can hardly believe either of us got any work done. As soon as you walked in the door at night, I was all over you, pulling you into the bedroom or living room for further explorations of this unfathomably changed thing that was my body. And you—you couldn’t get enough of me, hands wrapped constantly around the bulbous swelling that was the evidence of our soon-to-be son. Some women, they talk about working right up to birth, no bed rest. There was no bed rest for me, either. I was too busy getting busy. You kept me up all night, inhabiting my inhabited body.
Of course, though he caused a very few hiccups in our sex life while still in the womb, now our routine is all shot to hell: If I’m not nursing, one of us is struggling to soothe or ease back into sleep our colicky child. My body feels like emptied baggage—
a utensil that’s served its purpose and been discarded. You soothe me, nights, with hands doused in arnica or geranium oil, and if we’re blessed with a handful of minutes of silence, then we make use of it by sleeping rather than getting frisky.
When I met you, you came into my heart and body like an unfurled dream, and revealed all your passion and honest desire slowly, over time, as you figured I could stand it. And it turned out I could. I was intrigued with your idea of children and family—you, this big butch dyke who never considered giving birth yet wanted the fact of it, the work of home and hearth, the experience of delivering to a child what you never had for yourself. And over our own time, something lodged itself in my flesh: a desire, not unlike hunger, not unlike lust, to hold children—yours/mine/ours—in my body.
And now, what else could our bodies possibly mean? Our hearts pound in service of another. My breasts aren’t for my pleasure alone anymore; they serve a purpose even I think of as greater (and I’ve been in the business of deifying every taboo in the pursuit of erotic joy)—the delivery of sustenance to a child. It feels almost unsafe to contemplate fucking: not bodily, really—all my birth wounds are healed. And today, again, I get the go-ahead from my doctor. Not just the go-ahead but the straight-out urging. “Get back into bed,” she instructs me, desperately trying to get me fucking—that is, get me moving back toward my old routine. She thinks it would be good for my mental health and my mothering. But suddenly, or not so suddenly, really, everything’s been destabilized. My sense of myself has gone through a revolutionary transformation, and it all feels too fragile to fuck with, so to speak: Now I’m a mother. Do mothers even do the kinds of things I did with you before this child was born of my body—things I was doing practically at the onset of labor?
After the ob/gyn appointment, I was out for another half hour, trying to write. But all I could do was stare at the people having conversations about something other than poop consistency and the pros and cons of booster shots.
When I get home, the baby is asleep, and you have your eyes closed, head laid back on the couch, with unfolded laundry—onesies and spit-up napkins and diapers—spread across your lap, on the couch, on the floor at your feet. It’s late afternoon, and the evening light has begun to cast a yellow shadow across the room, heating everything up. The light feels thick, tangible, somehow slowed. I just want to sit and watch you for a while, share this quiet space, the sunset, the peace. But the laundry needs to get put away, and anyway there’s dinner to make and lord knows the baby won’t sleep long—he’ll be hungry, too.