Dear Abby

by Barnett, Peggy

  Abby wiggles out of her nightdress and props a pillow behind her head. When Ixazaluoh comes back to the bed and finds her totally nude, she smiles. It is the more smile, the smile with something else underneath it, and it makes Abby's toes curl.

  "So eager," Ixazaluoh says. "Here."

  There is maybe two fingers worth of liquor in the glass she offers, and Abby raises herself on one elbow and opens her mouth instead of taking it. Ixazaluoh sets down the second glass and the bottle and swings herself back across Abby's waist. The lace between her legs scratches lightly against Abby's bellybutton and she resists the urge to giggle, ticklish. Ixazaluoh presses the rim of the glass to Abby's lower lip and tilts it up.

  It smells like honey. It tastes like burning.

  Abby chokes on her first mouthful, and Ixazaluoh throws her head back and laughs. When they've both caught their breath, Ixazaluoh drains off the whole glass and holds the second out to Abby. She takes it but doesn't sip, peering at the cloudy contents dubiously.

  "What the heck is it?"

  "Balché," Ixazaluoh says.

  "It's—" Abby coughs, the sting crashing against her sinuses. "Smooth?"

  Ixazaluoh laughs more. "It's old fashioned," she admits. "But necessary. The conquistadores added anise and rum to try to make it more palatable, after the Maya priests tricked them into thinking the people were dying when they banned it. But that's not proper. This is the way it's meant to be done. This is the recipe the gods provided."

  "What's in it?"

  "Honey, water, the roots and bark of the Balché tree. Lonchocarpis voilaceus, in the Latin. It ferments, like the Norse god's mead." She grins, and licks her lips, slow and luscious. They both sip again, back and forth until the second cup is empty. Then Ixazaluoh rolls them onto their sides, tucking Abby's head against her breasts like a child. "Gods like honey."

  "Oh?" Abby asks, curling in against Ixazaluoh, ankle over ankle over ankle.

  "Like catnip for deities," Ixazaluoh says. "Fills the head with bubbles and buzz."

  Abby pinches the side of Ixazaluoh's hip. "You're so full of shit."

  But she's also beautiful. Beautiful in a way that Abby isn't, because she means something. It has to mean something. Abby is desperate for it to mean something. Ixazaluoh wouldn't have come back if she didn't want it to mean something… right?

  Ixazaluoh lifts the bottle by the neck, wraps her lips around the head and takes a swig. She leans down and Abby opens her mouth, accepting the warmed liquor in a stinging kiss.

  "From my lips unto yours," Ixazaluoh whispers, first taking Abby's top lip between her own, and then her bottom one.

  "Teach me," Abby says back. "What you did to me, in the closet? Teach me how to do it. For you."

  Ixazaluoh slides over her, pressing her down into the duvet, ankles, knees, hips, breasts aligned, then hands pulling Abby's up, guiding them to the clasp of her bra. "No," Ixazaluoh says. "No, now is for me to worship you."

  "But I want—" Abby protests, unhooking the clasp.

  Ixazaluoh cuts her off by thrusting her tongue into Abby's mouth. She curls it along the back of Abby's teeth, mapping each one by touch and Abby groans, arching up off the bed. Ixazaluoh grabs both of her wrists, pinning her back against the mattress, sliding her strong thighs along the outside of Abby's and sitting on her pelvis. She kisses Abby fiercely, possessively, and all Abby can do is lay back and open her mouth and let her in. Let her have everything.

  Held down and worshipped, Abby thinks. Oh god.

  "Stay still," Ixazaluoh hisses, her tongue skittering across Abby's cheek. She nips at the lobe of Abby's ear, and then closes her mouth around the cord of muscle that stands out of Abby's throat when she turns her head to the side, offering, begging with actions because the words keep dying half-formed in the back of her mouth, emerging as misshapen moans.

  Abby rolls her hips, aiming for the scratch of lace, trying to get some pressure, friction, god, anything for that aching gap between her legs.

  "Still!" Ixazaluoh hisses and bites down hard.

  Abby jerks like someone has hooked every nerve ending she's got to an electrode. Ixazaluoh goes heavy and silent above her, like a statue suddenly reverted to its stone form. Abby takes a deep breath, every inch of her screaming for connection, and goes very, very still in response.

  She takes shallow breaths then, barely moving, chemicals swirling through her body like a maelstrom, urging her to taste and buck and grind. She closes her eyes and concentrates on the sensation of Ixazaluoh's nipples snugged into the valley between her own breasts, of smooth, hairless skin, of the comforting weight of another human being over her, on her, around her. She licks her lips and tastes honey and Ixazaluoh. She inhales through her nose and smells Ixazaluoh. Every sense, every pore, every part of her surrounded, safe; covered, enclosed, protected.

  Sweat prickles against Abby's hair line, evaporating. Sunlight pools on their feet and slides, slowly, gently up their legs like a glowing blanket. Warm and safe.

  Gently, slowly, Ixazaluoh takes her teeth out of Abby's skin. She kisses the hurt, licks, nibbles, sucks and Abby makes a sound high in her nose at the sheer fucking pleasure of it, but otherwise doesn't move.

  "Good girl," Ixazaluoh whispers when she leans back. "My good girl."

  She kisses Abby sweetly, softly. And Abby just lays still and lets her, too blissed out on endorphins and so goddamn close to her climax that all she can do is feel.

  "Did you enjoy that?" Ixazaluoh asks, and reaches back. She brushes Abby's slit with two small fingers and grins. "Oh, my goodness! You really did."

  Abby rolls her hips towards the transient touch. "More," she begs. "Please, please, please I'm so… so… close."

  Ixazaluoh shimmies out of her underwear, keeping as much of her skin in contact with Abby's as possible.

  "Abby, Abby, Abby," Ixazaluoh whispers, like a mantra, the puffs of cool breath wafting across Abby's neck. "Abigail what? Tell me."

  "Willams," Abby pants. "Abigail Irene Williams. How did you know my name to start with?"

  "Hotel registry."

  Abby thinks maybe if she didn't have someone's hand halfway up her she'd pursue the small ping of That doesn't seem true that forms in the back of her brain. But then Ixazaluoh twists her fingers and god fucking damn it that feels good, and it wipes away any and all coherent thought that is trying to accumulate in Abby's head.

  Ixazaluoh lets go of her wrists, but her eyes pin them in place all the same. Don't move, the gaze tells Abby.

  Abby shivers with want. She wants to run, to see if Ixazaluoh will chase her. Wants to wiggle out from under her and leap across the lawns naked, like a gazelle, and hear Ixazaluoh's footfalls behind her, know that she is outclassed and outdistanced, but run all the same for the sheer joy of being caught, and held down, held fast and forced to come, and come, and come.

  But she keeps her hands splayed beside her head because here, right now, she is already caught and she has nowhere to go. The thought makes all the muscles in her stomach flutter, a deep, warm heat pooling at the lips of her slit.

  "Up, up," Ixazaluoh urges, sliding one hand under Abby's ass, squeezing the generous curve, and urging her thigh upwards. She hooks Abby's ankle over her shoulder, kisses up and down her ticklish instep, licks the sweat from behind her knee, and Abby shivers and giggles at the probing, wet little thing.

  At first she thinks Ixazaluoh is going to dip her head and eat her out again, for as much as she can think at all like this, but then her not-goddess slides her pussy up Abby's other thigh, leaving a trail of warm moisture in her wake that causes goose bumps to spring up on Abby's skin, and slots their crotches together. She looks down on Abby with those glitter dark eyes peering from between long, messy locks. The tips of her hair curl so perfectly around her breasts that she looks like they were placed there by a photographer.

  "Oh!" Abby can't help but gasp.

  It’s like a kiss. Actually, it's exactly like a kiss; lips pushing and overlappin
g, the warm wet beyond. There's even the soft prickle of hair, like when she kisses men with beards. Ixazaluoh is au natural and it makes her beautiful, womanly. It is slick and wonderful, the best kiss anyone has ever given Abby in her life. Only she's not kissing with her mouth.

  "H-holy fucking fuck," Abby sighs. Ixazaluoh grinds her pelvic bone against Abby's clit in reply and Abby screams, jerking and writhing under her lover.

  And then Ixazaluoh begins to thrust. It's not at all like when a man does it, no hard slap of balls against her ass, no loss of contact, no single point of sensation. It is broad, and wet, and there is no respite, no microseconds of rest as he pulls out to prepare for another thrust. It is relentless gyrating, pushing Abby's tailbone into the mattress, spreading moisture all up their stomachs and down their thighs, pressure and friction, the drag of skin on skin and it’s wonderful, it's everything.

  Abby wants this, only this, for the rest of her life. She wants to live in this moment forever. She wants to let Ixazaluoh flay her open and scoop out everything Abby hates about herself and fill it up with Ixazaluoh and only Ixazaluoh, to wrap her skin around her and live within her inside her always, always.

  And when Abby comes it's like a goddamned tsunami.

  Sensation swoops across her skin, muscles snapping tight, head whipping back and forth on the pillow. Ixazaluoh falls on her, mouthing her nipples, pulling them tight between her teeth, drawing Abby's orgasm out, pulling it from her body like toffee. Lips on the love bite again, tongue on the rough bruise, mouth on her mouth and it is all Abby can do to remember to breathe.

  And when her body finally releases, when all the tension drains away and Abby is left puddled on the duvet, soaking into the mattress because she has no bones left — must have shook them to atoms, can’t possibly still have any in her body — Ixazaluoh lays down beside her and systematically licks her from temple to toes. She licks up their combined juices, the sweat from beneath Abby's breasts, the sticky remnants of Balché and saliva from where it had run into her armpit.

  "Did you…? Should I?" Abby manages to remember to ask, because it's polite to make sure your partner comes too. But her brain a fogged over haze of utter satisfaction and contentment and she doesn't quite get the whole thought out.

  "Hush," Ixazaluoh says, urges Abby onto her side and spoons up behind her. She slides one strong thigh between Abby's, the other curling over her hip like a cage. Arms around her shoulders, a hand on her breast, a mouth on her nape, breasts pressed snug and pillowy against her shoulder blades.

  Trapped. Every inch of Abby flows back into Ixazaluoh, accepting her captivity.

  "Sleep," Ixazaluoh commands, and Abby gives herself over to it.

  She is warm, and she is safe, and she is wanted. And it is more than she has ever hoped for in her life. To be wanted.

  In her dreams, she hears Ixazaluoh talking. "You ate food I prepared, and drank of the liquor I blessed," Ixazaluoh whispers, smearing the words against the shell of Abby's ear, nipping at the lobe with each tight consonant. "You can see me, Abigail, and you have accepted what I have brought to you. You have given me your name and you have given me your body. You are mine. You will be mine forever."

  "Mmmokay, s'deal," Abby says sleepily and rolls over to pillow her head against Ixazaluoh's lovely, blowsy breasts. Her heartbeat is like the ocean against Abby's ear.

  Something small pricks against the skin at the base of Abby's left thumb, possibly a small bug bite, but Abby just bats the sensation away and lets sleep wash over her like a wave.

  ☼

  In the afternoon, when Abby finally rouses, she realizes that Ixazaluoh is gone and she has bruises in places she never thought she could have bruises. They rub and pull and ache, and they feel fantastic. There's even one on the base of her left thumb, a small black circle that looks like she smacked the cap of a pen too hard.

  Abby takes a long bath and makes a point of shaving everything. It seems polite to ensure that your partner won't get hair stuck between their teeth. Abby drowses by the pool, the livid purple mark above her collarbone on full display, along with the hand-shaped bruise on her thigh, and she smirks at all the young men who stare at her with incredulity and all the women who give her fussy looks of disapproval or low looks of jealousy.

  Abby looks well fucked, and she knows it.

  She nibbles on terrible resort buffet for dinner, not feeling up to making her reservations at the faux-Italian bistro on the other side of the compound, and sips her way through an entire bottle of wine. She's not drunk, but she's not sober either, and she takes her time wandering back to her room. The night is warm, the breeze is as cool as her lover's breath, and the light pollution is so low that she can actually see the stars. She sits on one of the loungers by the pool, admiring the patterns in the sky, how big the moon seems this close to the equator, and isn’t at all surprised to look up a few minutes later to find Ixazaluoh standing beside her. Her dark hair is loose, tumbled over her shoulders and kissing her jaw. It makes her blend into the shadows, and the dark uniform helps. She is not wearing one of those terrible Day-Glo neckerchiefs this time.

  Ixazaluoh takes her hand, pulls her gently to her feet, and they go back to Abby's room without a word passing between them. Housekeeping has been, has replaced the sex-stained linens and the cleaned the liquor-sticky water glasses. Ixazaluoh tumbles Abby onto the pillows, sideways across the bed, and tickles her until Abby is breathless with joy. They drink Balché, and Ixazaluoh teaches her how to scoop a tamale off of her stomach with her teeth. The heat of pepper oil in Ixazaluoh's mouth makes Abby's pussy tingle and burn, and Ixazaluoh pours more Balché over her clit to soothe the fire.

  When they are panting and spent, Ixazaluoh pinning Abby to the mattress with her body, like a living blanket, she kisses the day-old bite mark on Abby's neck and says: "It's the solstice tomorrow. I have the day off. Come home with me."

  "Off the resort?" Abby asks, startled.

  Ixazaluoh laughs. "Afraid you'll be mugged or shot in the face?"

  It's a cruel tease. Tourists get mugged all the time when they wander off their leashes.

  "Not with you," Abby says. "I just thought… I just thought that you wouldn't… want anyone to see us. Me. Together."

  "I have no shame of you, Abby," Ixazaluoh says. "You are mine, and I have pride in that."

  Abby wraps one of Ixazaluoh's curls around her finger, over and over again, instead of answering. Ixazaluoh grasps her chin gently between her thumb and forefinger and raises her face, forcing Abby to meet her eyes.

  "Abigail," Ixazaluoh says softly. "Are you ashamed of me?"

  "No!" Abby blurts. "No! I just… I'm concerned is all. Are you bringing me home to show me off like a trophy? You know, 'look what I got into'? Or is this some sort of, I don't know… do you want to move home with me?"

  Ixazaluoh laughs. "Neither. Well, no, I will admit, you are a catch and I am going to enjoy flaunting you over the others. But I cannot leave. And you cannot stay."

  "I could," Abby ventures. "I could quit my job, give away my cat, terminate my lease."

  "And what would you do in Mexico with no job, no apartment, and no cat?"

  Abby feels silly and childish, but she ducks her head, full of juvenile embarrassment and says, in a very small voice, "Be with you?"

  Ixazaluoh shakes her head slowly. "That will not put food in your stomach."

  "Then how is this supposed to work?" Abby asks. "How can I be yours and not be here at all? This is a one-time thing, isn't it? You're just talking pretty. And I'm reading too much into it." She sniffs, miserable, and refuses to cry. "Just like I always do."

  "You are mine and I am keeping you until the day you die," Ixazaluoh says firmly. "But you will go home and you will tell your bosses to send you to places that aren't resorts, and to let you write the kind of stories you want, and they will. And you will do good with your work and see the world, and then, when you have the time and the money, you will come back and ground yourself in me
."

  "You can't just say that and think it will happen that way," Abby protests.

  "I can, and I have. I am Ixazaluoh and my pronouncement has been made. You are my devotee, and you will do as I say, for I love you."

  There is something… deep, in Ixazaluoh's voice. Something more. Abby feels like she's been struck by lightning, like it’s forked straight through her skin, through the muscle and the blood and the organ tissue and scorched the very marrow of her tailbone. She pulls back from Ixazaluoh, slowly, feels her eyes going round. She looks down, and curses, mentally, because she's forgotten.

  She's forgotten, utterly, that Ixazaluoh has no shadow. Even in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, no darkness collects under her body, no black stains the white sheets.

  "Tomorrow is the solstice and I need you," Ixazaluoh says softly.

  No one has ever needed Abby before.

  "What are you?" Abby asks, instead of answering.

  "I am Ixazaluoh," she says.

  Abby shoves herself across the mattress and somehow ends up on her feet, though she's not entirely sure how she's staying upright. Her head is spinning. Her whole fucking world is spinning.

  "Oh my Christ," Abby groans, one hand on her forehead, one on her stomach, as if either would keep the realization from striking home. "You think you're a goddess?"

  "I do not think," Ixazaluoh says. She is sitting on the side of the bed, utterly regal in her nudity, looking perfectly composed even with her long dark hair a tangle of sweat-matted curls and sex-created tangles. Her eyes flash, and there is something more, something deeper in them that makes Abby stumble back, bark her heel against the side of the desk and yelp. The whites of Ixazaluoh's eyes are too white.

  Abby clutches at the office chair to stay upright and sucks in giant gulps of air, hoping that somehow more oxygen will make this all make sense.

  Ixazaluoh still has no shadow.

  "How are you doing that?" Abby asks, pointing at Ixazaluoh's feet. They’re beautiful feet. Her pedicure is teal and smooth. Abby just spent ten minutes kissing and licking those feet and now they are on the floor and they have no darkness around them at all.