Candlelight City

by Jessica Tang Von Harper

  “Yes,” Suzie murmured.

  Brad slipped his hand down her front and pressed his finger between her legs. It slid easily into her. “Wow. Feel how wet you are,” he teased. “That guy who was fingering your pussy after your interview was right. It really does turn you on to be naked in front of strangers.”

  “Mmm… I think tonight it’s just that I really want you to fuck me.” Suzie met his eyes so he could see that she wasn’t joking. Her heart skipped, wondering if he would take her right then, against the car. But Brad just smiled and took her hand, leading her towards the house.

  Suzie shivered as they walked through the meadow. They could already see a handful of people standing and drinking along the front porch. Suzie received some stares, but no one reacted with shock at seeing a naked girl approaching the house. She could already that this wasn’t a conservative party by any means. One woman had bright blue hair piled in a high beehive, a squat woman was dressed as if she was a gypsy, and a tall black man was dressed in a white leather vest like a Native-American. This was clearly an artistic set, and Suzie was relieved, feeling like her nakedness would not stand out as much among such an eclectic crowd.

  Brad led them into the house. Some rooms echoed with loud conversation and music. In the vast living room, an improvised stage show was taking place in front of a raucous and appreciative audience. In the kitchen, the kitchen table and counters were almost invisible under a sea of alcohol bottles. Brad looked from room to room until he found his aunt and uncle in a quiet den, settled in armchairs, having a discussion with two other couples. Lisel had a long, grave face and straight dark hair that fell to her waist. She wore a flowing white dress. Al was small, bald with a fringe of dark hair. Both of them gazed impassively at Brad and Suzie, as Brad tried to explain what had happened.

  “So this is Suzie,” Lisel said. “We’ve heard you’re quite an actress, my dear. However, now that I see you, I wonder if Brad might have been influenced by some of your other fine qualities.” She glanced pointedly at Suzie’s naked body.

  “No, she really is a great actress,” Brad protested.

  “You must be quite persuasive to talk her out of her clothes in the short drive from Benningtons,” Al said. “And especially to stop her from putting her clothes back on before getting out of the car.”

  “We lost her clothes,” Brad said, as if it was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  “Lost her clothes?” Lisel echoed.

  “Well, then, you could have offered her your own shirt, like a gentleman,” Al said. “Or came inside to get her some clothes.”

  “Actually, the reason why I’m naked is that Brad was bringing me back here to have sex with me,” Suzie explained. “We didn’t know that you had company. I saw that you were having a party when we drove up… but I decided to stay naked. I don’t want Brad to have to waste time removing my clothes when he’s ready to have sex with me. I want to be naked so he can take me whenever and wherever he likes.”

  Lisel smiled and rolled her eyes. “Apparently our nephew is even more persuasive than we guessed.” She addressed Suzie, “We have open-minded friends so you’re more than welcome to remain naked if you like. But if you change your mind, you’re just as welcome to borrow some clothes from our costume closet. We have lots of leftover outfits from shows.”

  Al chuckled. “Have fun, you two. Nice to meet you, Suzie.”

  Brad led Suzie to the kitchen, where he poured her a glass of wine. From that point on, the night became a blur. Suzie never reached the point of staggering drunkenness, but someone was always filling her glass with white wine, and she settled into a warm, happy haze. Part of it was the alcohol, but she knew another part of it was the joy of finally being able to be with Brad. She quickly lost any inhibitions at being naked, and warmly greeted anyone Brad introduced her to, without thinking about her state of undress. She hugged the men she met, and it didn’t bother her when they would squeeze her ass or fondle her breasts while they hugged her. Brad noticed these casual touches, but he didn’t ask the men to stop, knowing that Suzie couldn’t help but be aroused by having strangers fondle her naked body.

  In the living room, the guests were playing a game where someone had scripted famous scenes from movies, and similar to karaoke, they were taking turns being on stage, selecting scenes and performing them. Suzie and Brad watched a couple scenes, and then someone loudly suggested that the “naked girl” take the stage. The idea spread through the crowd until everyone was pushing Suzie and Brad to perform a scene. They went up and performed a scene from “The Godfather” to roaring laughter and applause. Suzie took the role of the Godfather, and the crowd went crazy when she leaned back with her legs carelessly spread and archly told Brad she would “make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

  They left the stage, but the crowd was so enthusiastic about their performance that after two other scenes were performed, Brad and Suzie were called back up for an encore. This time they picked a scene from “Love My Memory”, an emotional scene between a man and woman who were on the verge of breaking up. The first scene they had played for comedy, but this one they played seriously, and the crowd became quiet, enthralled by their performance. When they finally kissed at the end of the scene, the audience went wild again.

  Later in the evening, Suzie left Brad to find the restroom, and ended up waiting in a line. The man behind her struck up a conversation with her. He introduced himself as Marlon. Marlon was an older man, with dark hair that was grey at the temples and braided in the back. He had a good sense of humor and a flirtatious grin that Suzie found disarming. They chatted as they waited, and Suzie noticed that as they talked, Marlon would find little excuses to reach out and touch her. At first, he was only taking her hand or patting her on the shoulder, but gradually he became bolder, fondling her breasts on the pretense of admiring their shape, or patting her bare ass when he wanted to emphasize a point. When Brad came to look for her, they were almost to the front of the line, and Suzie was leaning with her palms and one knee against the wall, legs spread, with Marlon doing his best to stuff as many fingers between her swollen labia as would fit. Suzie moaned, grinding her crotch against his hand.

  “Marlon,” Brad scolded the man. “You shouldn’t take advantage of Suzie like that. She’s too turned on to stop you.”

  The man removed his fingers and apologized. Brad took Suzie’s hand and pulled her out of the line. Suzie’s mind was hazy with wine and arousal, and she let herself be led away for a moment before she remembered that she really did need to pee. When she reminded Brad, he only laughed.

  “Bathrooms are for preserving modesty,” he told her. “You’re not exactly being modest tonight… why would you need to hide yourself away to pee?” He found an empty plastic cup someone had left and offered it to Suzie. She squatted over the cup in the hallway and let the pee flow out of her. Marlon pulled out his cell phone and filmed her as she peed. Suzie moaned, at such a heightened state of arousal that the mere act of peeing in front of a stranger was intensely erotic to her. After she was done, her hand seemed to move of its own accord, sliding between her spread legs and fingering her clitoris. She played with herself for few minutes while Marlon filmed this as well.

  Brad gently tugged at her arm, pulling her to her feet, forcing her to disengage. “Come on, Suzie. Let’s go out back. The night air will cool you down.” Brad took her hand and led her outside.

  In the back yard, a woman and two men with acoustic guitars were in the middle of an impromptu concert. A small audience was scattered around picnic tables and mismatched lawn furniture, clapping sporadically as the music started and stopped. Brad led Suzie to a shadowy area where a low wicker fence surrounded several planters. Brad leaned against the fence and Suzie leaned against him. They had a good view of the musicians from where they stood. Brad casually put his arms around Suzie, one hand resting on her breast while the other went between her legs. He gently stroked her body as they listened to one song and then anot
her. Due to a trick of the light, Brad was almost entirely in the shadows while Suzie’s body was illuminated from the side by a floodlight, and the illusion was that Suzie was standing naked while disembodied hands moved up and down over her skin.

  Suzie could feel Brad’s erection against her ass, and she squirmed against it. She reached back and found his zipper, tugging it down until his penis came free. For a moment, she gloried in the feel of the warm penis nestled in the crack of her ass, and then she bent over and pulled the penis straight, aligning the head with the opening of her vagina. She settled back onto it, suppressing a moan as it filled her.

  The musicians launched into the song, “Bridge over Troubled Waters” as Suzie moved back and forth on Brad’s erection. Her hands rested against her knees, and her breasts swayed back and forth as her leg muscles tensed and released, her body nearly matching the rhythm of the music. She might have been dancing. Brad leaned back in the shadows, his hands behind his head, a passive participant. It was as if he was allowing Suzie to have sex with him on the condition that all the effort was hers. Suzie had no problem with that; she reveled in the throb of his penis, knowing that he was enjoying the experience as much as she was.

  Suzie paused while an orgasm rippled through her. Her eyes were closed and her hands slid up her sweating body to her breasts, pinching her sensitive nipples. As the pleasure ebbed, she resumed her rhythm.

  The musicians started a new song, with a faster beat, almost as if they knew she wanted to start moving faster. The world looked soft around her and everything seemed to have an inner glow. Suzie could see that some of the eyes scattered around the back yard were watching her instead of the musicians. A dark-haired girl at a nearby table was transfixed by Suzie, staring wide-eyed at Suzie’s public display of sex. A goateed boy next to the girl was taking advantage of her aroused distraction; he had hiked up her skirt and his hand was pushing aside her panties, his fingers probing into her vagina. Suzie watched them for a moment, wondering if this girl or other girls at the party would end up the same as Suzie, naked, having sex in front of everyone.

  Suzie remembered Maddy, and how it looked when Maddy had sex with the pizza man. This provoked another orgasm, a bigger one, and Suzie let her body quiver with it. Brad still hadn’t touched her, other than his throbbing penis which touched the inside of her vagina. But suddenly he gripped her thighs and pulled her hard onto his penis. One hand pressed against her pelvis, pushing her down, and the other arm wrapped around her chest, lifting her into his lap so that her back was against his chest and his mouth was on her neck. Instead of thrusting in and out of her, now he kept her vagina filled with his penis, and he moved it inside of her, almost as if he was stirring her with it. Suzie couldn’t suppress the low moan that came from her throat. In this new position, she felt very close to Brad. She felt as if they were a single creature, moving in unison, joined eternally. The pleasure she felt was beyond anything she’d experienced before.

  She knew when Brad was about to come right before he did. His penis seemed to freeze in an enormous swelling throb, as if it required significant effort to unleash an orgasm of that size. Suzie pulled off him in that moment. She knelt in front of him, eyes closed, sensing rather than seeing his giant erection jutting in front of her face. Then he came, and Suzie gloried in the feeling of her face and breasts becoming drenched in ropes of hot ejaculate. She moaned, her mouth opening and swiftly filling with salty cum, which she swallowed.

  Later, as they cleaned off in the shower, Brad confessed that it had been the most intense orgasm of his life. They made love again in the shower, and then again in Brad’s bed in the early morning as the party waned and the house began to quiet. Suzie felt Brad’s strong arms around her as she finally drifted to sleep.

  21. A Plan for Emma

  It wasn’t easy to explain things to her parents, when she came back the next morning wearing Brad’s clothes.

  “You spent the night with Brad?” her mother asked. “That’s fine, if you had to rehearse, but you could have called, you know!”

  For a moment, Suzie thought about going with her mother’s incorrect assumption. But she couldn’t do it. “We weren’t rehearsing,” she admitted. “We slept together. We’re a couple now.”

  Her mother gaped at her.

  And just like that, Suzie was grounded for two weeks. It seemed a cheap price to pay considering what she had gained. She was still able to see Brad at school and it was wonderful to be with him. They were suddenly inseparable, aware of each other’s class schedules, always finding moments to be together. Aside from Corinne, who abruptly quit “Candlelight City”, the rest of the school easily accepted Brad and Suzie as a couple, and Suzie wondered if there had already been speculation that the two of them were attracted to each other.

  The one problem Suzie had was Emma. She was aware that by spending time with Brad, she was losing time with her best friend. At lunch, Emma would still sit with her and Brad, but Suzie could see that Emma was feeling lonely. Suzie would suddenly realize that she and Brad had been flirting for five minutes with Emma sitting silent for the entire time. She’d try to involve Emma in the conversation, but it would come off as clumsy and transparent.

  Suzie was discussing the subject with Brad, and lamenting that Emma didn’t have a boyfriend of her own. She mentioned that Emma liked Ricardo but Ricardo wasn’t interested, that he was only interested in dating girls from the theater.

  “I don’t know,” Brad said. “I think he’s more interested than you think.”

  “Really?”

  “I came up behind him while he was sitting on the front steps of the school the other day. He was by himself, staring at his phone. At the angle I was walking up to him, I could see his screen, and he was looking at a video of a naked girl. Then I realized it was the video he took that day at your house. Remember? Emma had stripped, and Ricardo was doing a fake interview with her while filming her body.”

  “What? He still has that video? I thought he deleted it!”

  “Apparently not. He still has it and he still watches it. Maybe he tells himself that he should only date a girl in the theater, but Emma is clearly still on his mind.”

  Suzie tugged at her hair. “Should I tell Emma? Or would that just frustrate her more? I wish there was a way we could get Ricardo to take the chance with her.”

  Brad grinned. “How about this. We’ve been talking about going to the movies to see “Princess and the Postman”, right? I know Ricardo wants to see it, too. What if we go this weekend? We’ll make him think it’s the three of us, but you can invite Emma, too.”

  “That sounds like an ambush blind date. Won’t it be obvious we’re setting them up?”

  “It’s not so far-fetched that you would invite your best friend Emma to see the movie with us, right? And it’s hardly a ‘blind’ date. They know each other. We’re pretty sure they like each other. Heck, they’ve had sex right in front of us. It’s just a matter of getting them to spend some time together. No pressure, just a bunch of friends seeing a movie.”

  Suzie considered the idea. She nodded. “Let’s try it. You invite Ricardo, I’ll talk to Emma.”

  When Suzie described the plan to Emma, Emma was thrilled with the idea, so much so that Suzie immediately wondered if it was a big mistake. Ricardo didn’t even know Emma was coming, and the idea was to pretend Emma was a casual addition, just Suzie inviting her friend. Not a set-up. But Emma was fretting over what she was going to wear, as if it was a real date, and Suzie doubted they were going to convince Ricardo this was casual.

  “Just a t-shirt and jeans. It’s just a movie, Emma!” Suzie told her friend, starting to feel frustrated. But she reflected that the way Emma was acting was undoubtedly similar to the way Suzie herself had acted before going to dinner at Benningtons. So Suzie took deep breaths and tried her best to be patient.

  22. The Movie

  The plan was that Brad would first pick up Ricardo, and when they stopped by Suzie’s house to
pick her up, Emma would be there as well. Emma arrived at Suzie’s house several hours before the movie, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and Suzie was momentarily relieved at her friend’s casual appearance. But then she noticed Emma had a suspicious bag under her arm.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Stuff to help me get ready,” was all Emma would say, flashing an innocent smile. Suzie was uneasy but didn’t push it.

  The time approached when Brad and Ricardo were supposed to arrive, and Suzie was already ready to go. Emma, on the other hand, ran into the bathroom at the last minute, and Suzie heard the shower going. “Emma! Hurry! They’re almost here!” she called. Emma said something from the bathroom, but it was inaudible over the sound of the shower. Suzie knocked on the door a couple times and then went to the living room, praying that Emma would be showered and dressed by the time the boys arrived.

  A knocking came from the front door.

  Shaking her head, Suzie stood and answered the door. Ricardo and Brad stepped in.

  “Are you ready?” Brad asked nonchalantly. He was so smooth that for a moment Suzie thought that he, too, was unaware of Emma. He really was a good actor.

  “I’m ready, but I invited Emma, too, and she’s still in the shower,” Suzie said. At just that moment, she could hear the shower turn off from the bathroom.

  “Emma’s coming?” Ricardo asked.

  “Yeah… I told her about the movie, and she wanted to see it, too. I told her she could come with us. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

  “Um…” Ricardo started to say, but then his eyes widened as he looked over Suzie’s shoulder.

  “Hi, Brad! Hi, Ricardo!” Emma chirped from behind. Suzie dreaded what she would see when she turned around. Emma stood in the hallway. She was wearing a white bathrobe, but it was a skimpy silk robe that exposed most of her legs and Emma had it loosely belted so it was partially open, revealing a generous amount of cleavage. On top of that, she was still wet from the shower and the fabric clung to her skin.