Passion

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  When she could take it no longer, she grabbed his head and yanked it back. She looked down into his eyes. “If you don’t let me come, I will never speak to you again.” Drake grinned widely. He flicked his tongue against her clit again. Alicia moaned, pulled his head a little harder. “Open your mouth,” she ordered. He licked her clit slower but then he obeyed, parting his lips, offering her his tongue. She stood above him and began rocking her hips, grinding her pussy against his tongue, his face, the blunt shape of his chin. Drake worked a finger deep inside her ass, enjoyed the sensation of her body clenching around him. Alicia came in a furious blur, the whole of her shaking as a soft wave of desire wound all the way up her spine.

  Exhausted, Drake lay on his side, and Alicia stretched herself next to him. She grabbed his lower lip between her teeth, and then she surprised him. She kissed him softly, sweetly, tasting herself on his lips, and then she held her forehead against his for a long while, drawing lazy circles against the back of his neck with her fingernails.

  Just as she was about to fall asleep, he whispered, “I would love to spend the night.”

  Alicia shot up and quickly pulled her pajama pants back on. She twisted her hair into a loose bun and shook her head. “You have to go,” she said tightly.

  Drake rolled his eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she pointed to the door. “I’m very serious,” she said. She pressed her bare foot into his stomach. “Don’t stay past your welcome. It isn’t polite.”

  He stood up and shook his head. “You’re hardly one to give a lesson in manners.”

  She shrugged.

  Drake looked at his watch, then straightened his clothes. Alicia held the door open. He leaned in to kiss her one last time but she turned, offering him only her cheek. His lips brushed against her. Just as he stepped onto her front porch, she pulled Drake back and placed a soft kiss just below his left ear. She whispered, “Thanks…for the gin.”

  “You’re welcome,” Drake grumbled. He walked down the stairs toward his car.

  “See? I know how to be polite,” Alicia said.

  He threw a fist into the air. “I’m trying to force my way into your heart,” he said. “I’m a man of faith. I can make you believe.”

  After she closed the door, Alicia sank to the floor, still warm from where they had just lain. She traced the memory of Drake’s body next to her, her hand working in a lazy pattern over the wooden slats.

  Four years. That’s how long it took for Alicia to agree to marry Drake. Every time he proposed, she countered with arguments as to why the timing wasn’t right or why she couldn’t commit or why their relationship would be better if they didn’t try to fix something that wasn’t broken. Along the way she disagreed about whether or not they should move in together, where they should live, who should cook dinner, whose family to visit for the holidays, what to wear to a costume party, where to put the new living room couch, and every disagreement pulled Drake in deeper, made him want her more.

  He stands at the edge of their bed, his clothes in a wrinkled heap next to him. The room is lit by two candles on a nightstand and thin shafts of moonlight. “You look beautiful,” Drake says.

  “I do not,” Alicia murmurs.

  “Is there anything you won’t argue about?”

  She smiles, pats the empty space next to her. “Get over here.”

  He climbs onto the bed and crawls to meet her. Alicia keeps her knees twisted to the side, pressed together. Drake nuzzles his wife’s neck then kisses her shoulder. “You have perfect shoulders,” he says.

  Alicia caresses his face, pressing the palm of her hand against his chin. “I do not.”

  He kisses the hollow of her throat. “You have a perfect throat.”

  “I do not.” She holds her hand over his heart, feels the gentle thrum.

  Drake covers her lips with his, and the tips of their tongues meet. “You have perfect lips,” he says.

  The candles flicker, the light contracts, expands. “I do not.”

  He brings his lips to her nipples, tracing the dusty rose areolas. He can smell her perfume, lilacs again, and he falls in love once more. From one moment to the next, distance is not necessary to make his heart grow fonder. He nips at her nipple with his teeth and she moans, her voice deep and throaty. “You have perfect breasts,” he says.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Drake squeezes his wife’s breasts, enjoying the sensation of the soft flesh splaying through his fingers. She pulls her knees to the right until they’re pointing to the ceiling. His hands slide up her thighs then down her calves. Alicia stretches her legs out but keeps them closed. He slides his hands back up her thighs then stops. He whistles as he feels her freshly shaven mound, perfectly smooth, bare beneath his hands. “You are perfect,” he whispers hoarsely. Drake inches his way down her body, places a trail of kisses along her bikini line. He wedges his hand between her thighs, pressing his thumb against her clit, sneaks two fingers inside her where she is wet and tight and ready for him.

  “On this point, we cannot argue,” Drake says. He pulls his hands free and makes a happy sound as he sucks her sweet pussy juice from his fingers. He climbs atop her body, forcing her legs apart with his knees. His cock, thick and veined, juts forward, and Alicia feels it throbbing against her. “Everything, absolutely everything about you is perfect.”

  Alicia presses two fingers to Drake’s lips. “Shhh. Make love to me.”

  He holds his cock near her cunt, penetrates her with just the tip. She wraps her legs around his waist, urges him to fill her. Drake pushes her arms over her head, clasps her wrists with one hand and holds her thigh with the other. Inch by inch he fills Alicia’s cunt until he’s buried inside her. He pauses, allows her body to stretch and open to him. He brushes a strand of dark hair from her face. “We are perfect,” he says.

  She looks up at her husband, her adversary, her love and admires the intensity in his eyes. He thrusts forward, rears back, thrusts forward again. She raises her hips to meet him. He tries to remain in control, kisses her again, his lips rough against hers. She opens her mouth, accepts his tongue, feels the possessiveness in the communion, and she loves it. Alicia wrests her wrists free from his hold and wraps her arms around Drake’s broad shoulders. She digs her fingernails into his back and he hisses, starts fucking her harder. “We are perfect,” Drake says again. The room echoes with the sounds of their bodies coming together, pulling apart. Beads of sweat fall from Drake’s forehead onto Alicia’s lips and she savors the salt of him.

  Alicia buries her head in the damp spread of skin between Drake’s neck and shoulders. For once, she doesn’t argue. “Yes, we are,” she says breathlessly.

  THE SILVER BELT

  Lana Fox

  Maya pretended she wore the silver belt because her husband had given it to her. He thought it would accentuate her slender waist and the curving jut of her hips—these, after all, were the physical features he’d first fallen in love with. “You were wearing that red dress,” he always said. “I remember seeing the shape of you across the room.” As soon as he’d set eyes on her bottlelike smoothness, the rest of the party had faded away. But many years later, once he’d bought her the belt, a distance invaded; she found him too silent, and he found her too loud. She longed to dance, he longed to sleep, and the belt round her waist seemed to taunt her, a weight she couldn’t shake.

  But oh, how she loved that belt! It was the weight of the metal—the sensation of its density around her core, pulling down upon her hips, and the way the chain mail bit into her flesh—that turned her on the most. At night, she’d remove it in front of the bedroom mirror, a stand-alone glass with an elaborate bronze edging, and she’d run her fingers around the dents the belt had left on her skin and wonder why he never looked across the room. She’d press her fingers round the sleek, silk triangle that formed the edge of her ivory briefs and lean from her lace bra teasingly, kissing the air. The problem was that though she long
ed for sex, she didn’t want it with her husband; in fact, later she’d slide into bed silently, fearing if she woke him she’d rouse his cravings—his touch felt like a betrayal of the woman she’d become.

  Truth was, at thirty-five, Maya felt old. On her face, the first wrinkles had started to appear, gracefully slight, but obvious once you knew they were there. Plus, every day she’d get the rush-hour train to work and would feel the bodies of others pressing against her; part of her knew these heightened sensations were due to the belt, which she’d taken to wearing regularly. Its sweet restriction made her feel each sensation with deeper, hotter keenness. Her hips seemed to swing more easily, and the weight of it made her feel womanly. Even her boss at the clothing store had remarked on how it suited her. “Not only does it go with your dresses,” she’d told Maya, “but it complements your figure.” Customers had often asked to try it on; then, when she explained that she wasn’t allowed, they went to the boss and asked to have one ordered. But Maya’s husband had bought the belt when he was on business in Paris, and nobody could get hold of a similar design.

  One day, a black man with smooth, shining skin stopped at the clothing store to buy his sister a gift. As she led him across to the silk scarves, Maya felt his gaze heating her flesh beneath the dark dress she was wearing; she could sense his desire like a burn round her waist. When she pointed out the scarves that were arranged on the lattice, draped sensuously in reds, golds and browns, he stood behind her, breathing on her hair, his fingertips resting gently on her belt. She touched a silken, fire-colored scarf, and with him so close she could sense its fabric keenly, trickling through her fingers. In her ear, he whispered she was the kind of woman a man should eat. “This belt,” he said, “I have seen you in it often. You always wear it. It flatters your body. You’re a real woman, no skin and bones. Your flesh is heavy with knowledge.”

  Heavy. Yes. She felt that way.

  Like a mine that’s never been plumbed.

  He stepped closer, leaning down on the belt, and she gasped to feel its dig. “It’s as if someone is imprisoning you,” he said. “Me, I would take you, and my taking would free you.” And perhaps he would have screwed her, right there in the store, with customers milling and chattering together; she was so aroused, she’d have let him, if her boss hadn’t arrived and asked what the hell she was doing. Still, as Maya rang up the scarf he was buying for his sister, he leaned forward and whispered, “What time do you finish work?”

  “An hour, if I’m lucky.”

  “Are you married, Maya?”

  “Yes.” She lowered her eyes.

  “Your body does not say ‘married,’” he said, taking her hand. “Your body says ‘alone.’ Are you alone, Maya?” Their connection sent a light jolt through her arm, and it was this hot energy that made her tell him, “Yes.”

  Before she knew it, he’d stridden across to her boss and was passing her some ten-pound notes, talking in low tones. In less than a minute Maya was told she could leave early tonight. “Be careful,” her boss said, glancing in the man’s direction. “There’s a carnal look in those eyes.”

  The man hailed a taxi and took Maya to a backstreet restaurant: a Thai place with white tablecloths and flower heads floating in saucers of water. As she took her seat, he complimented her dress, a simple black design with buttons down the front. The belt gleamed about her waist, especially weighty right now, and even her blonde ponytail that swung down the length of her back seemed heavier than usual, as if the fruit of her had ripened. She knew she was about to be unfaithful to her husband, and it was as if this fact were entirely natural—for once, she felt authentic.

  Rather than sitting opposite, her date sat next to her on the seat that ran along the mirrored wall. With their thighs touching and his arm wrapped around her, he fed her shrimp crackers dipped in sweet chili sauce. She learned that his name was Art, that he’d worked in finance for years and now had earned the luxury to live an artist’s life. “What sort of art do you do, Art?” she asked, giving a playful smile.

  He laughed. He had incredible eyes, expressive and dark; when he spoke, his gaze seemed to pulse with his feelings, as if his words charged him. He placed a piece of chili-dipped cracker on her tongue. “I sketch,” he said, “and paint. Also, I’m a poet.”

  She said she wished she were a poet.

  He slid his fingers round her silver belt and with his free hand stroked gently down her jaw. Holding her gaze he told her, “You’re more poem than poet. There are depths in you.”

  Later, when the green curry came, he fed her from chopsticks, his fingers working expertly to deliver the food to her lips. Every so often, he’d set down the chopsticks and undo one of the buttons down the front of her frock. Soon her dress was almost entirely loose, and if not for the belt she’d be exposed. He swept his warm hand across her thigh, lingering round the tops of her stockings. “You are beautiful,” he told her. “I will rip off this dress and make love to you in your metal belt. You’ll come so hard the floorboards will break.”

  Already, she was wet.

  For dessert, they had fruit drizzled in sweet oil. He placed slim slices of strawberry on her tongue, cool and sweet like petals and dabbed the juice from the corners of her mouth. She writhed in the seat with her dress unbuttoned, the silver belt the only thing keeping her together, and beneath her skirt her silky briefs grew slippery, moistened by the thirst of her pussy. As he fed her, she let out little moans like a woman on the brink, and soon he was resting his hand between her thighs and she was moaning not because of the sweetness of the fruit, but because of the touch of his fingers and the closeness of his body and the smell of his cologne. “When did you last make love?” he asked, his fingers sliding upward, stroking the little clip that clasped her stocking-top. The sensation of his fingers was so perfect that she parted her thighs. She tried to remember when she’d last screwed her husband but couldn’t. So instead, she answered, “Right now, it’s like I’ve never been touched before.”

  He tipped his head and leaned right in, licking gently round the edge of her ear, before kissing her jaw, her neck. Beneath her skirt, his fingertips slid beneath the silk of her briefs, gliding against her sex. She arched back, her head falling against the mirrored wall and pressed the heels of her hands into the soft seat. At her ear, Art whispered what he’d do to her later, how he’d bind her wrists and fuck her in that belt so it clanked against her hips; how his huge sex would fill her, again and again; how he’d have no mercy; how her pussy would be dripping. And as he told her all this, his lips against her ear, he ran his fingertips up and down her slit so softly she started to quiver. Then he played her pussy perfectly, like the strings of a harp, whispering, “Yield to me, Maya. Give it to me.” Right then, he pressed the tip of a finger between the slippery lips of her sex and, in an instant, found the perfect spot. She let out a gasp, parting her thighs, feeling the burn as he stroked quicker, quicker. She grasped the seat, mumbled something crazy, her lips moist, her body damp, and, raising her hips, she let out a cry, dropping back her head. “I’m going to fuck you, Maya,” he told her, his voice a gentle growl, “but first, I want to watch.”

  She raised her hips. “Don’t stop.”

  He rubbed harder and quicker, his breathing growing raspy, and she could feel his breath at her ear. “Maya,” he moaned, “come for me, beauty.”

  As if obeying, she felt her hips buck, and as the burn took her over she was high, so high, coming on the seat, crying out her pleasure, her knees jerking upward so they thumped the table, making a wineglass fall, strawberries roll and the plates bounce and skid. Her belt clanked, jumping on her hips, and the weight of it was sublime. She came and came and came.

  It felt like soaring.

  As she slumped in the seat, dizzy and grateful, he took her in his arms and crushed his lips to hers. Kissing her in a tight embrace, he ran a hand up and down her stocking top before letting the tips of his fingers reach inside her dress, massaging her nipple through the sa
tiny bra. “Good,” he whispered, between their melding kisses. “Come home with me, Maya.”

  When at last they looked up, a waiter was towering over them, frowning coolly as he placed the bill on the table. Behind him, the diners were staring across, some smirking, while others sat in disdainful silence. “Time to leave, sir,” said the waiter. “Now, if you will.”

  Maya’s face flushed as she buttoned her dress, barely believing what she’d just given way to, but as Art placed the twenty-pound notes on the table, he told the waiter, “She’s perfect, don’t you think?”

  Art insisted they walk back to his place, his arm round her waist, the links of the belt clinking as she walked. They wandered through the bustling heart of Covent Garden, the lamplight from store windows licking across them, and Maya glanced at his dark skin and the heavy lashes framing his eyes. He told her that when she walked her hips rocked sensuously. “You walk like a beautiful whore. As if you are offering your sex.” As she moved, her high heels clacking on the sidewalk, she saw what he meant: the way her hips swung beneath the heavy belt, thrusting forward as her thighs brushed together, the satin of her nylons slinky and warm. He was right, it was sexy the way she moved—her body had been soliciting without her even knowing!

  In the busy London night, he pleasured her. Firstly, he pushed her against some iron railings, where he fell to his knees in the lamplight, sweeping aside the lace of her briefs and licking her so suddenly that the railings chimed when she clasped them and her belt clanked too when the small of her back hit the metal. His mouth against her sex was as yielding as a kiss, and his tongue made her tingle from the Thai food. A few minutes later, he led her into the doorway of a shop, one that sold furs and displayed them in the window curled about the shoulders of sleek black mannequins or pinned round their torsos, animal and plush. Here, he was gentle with her, kissing her on the mouth over and over, till their lips were utterly pliant. With a hand dipping inside the layers of coat and dress, he fondled her breasts through the silk of her bra, his fingertips grazing the lace round the edge, then glossing her nipples through the sheerness. He smelled of exotic cologne, and his breath at her ear was unsteady as he rubbed, massaged and pressed himself against her, yet when she reached for his sex he swept her wrist away and told her they must go. “Why?” she pleaded.