Candlelight City

by Jessica Tang Von Harper

  “Sexy and smart, too,” the man said. His lips pressed against her hard nipple. He had a narrow moustache that scratched at her breast as he sucked on it.

  Someone’s finger began to slide into her vagina. “Oh!” Suzie was shocked. “Is that you?” Even as she asked, she knew it couldn’t be, not unless the man had three hands.

  “Nah,” said the man. “I don’t know who that guy is.”

  Suzie’s head swam as she stood there, unable to stop the strange hands from exploring her body. “Do I know you?” she desperately asked the man who had his fingers in her vagina, but the man didn’t answer. Suzie arched her back and caught her breath as the man slid a finger across her clitoris. Her every instinct told her to reach down and push away the hand that was stroking this most private part of her body, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go off the metal cups Brad had given her to hold. She considered kneeling slowly down and setting the cups on the ground so they wouldn’t spill, but when she started to kneel it only opened her legs wider and the man plunged more of his fingers into her. Suzie gasped and stood up straight, moaning in spite of herself as the fingers squirmed inside her.

  “Here comes your boyfriend now,” the first man said. “Thanks for letting me touch your tits.” The hands pulled away from her breasts.

  “Um… you’re welcome,” Suzie said, but for all she knew the man was already gone. She hoped the other man would also extract his fingers from her, but he showed no sign of stopping.

  Brad’s voice came from her left. “Hey, Suzie. I bought us some ice cream. Rocky Road, your favorite.” Certainly, he couldn’t have missed noticing that a strange man had three fingers inside her vagina and a fourth finger starting to go up her asshole! But his voice betrayed no reaction.

  “Here.” Brad’s voice came close to her left ear. “I’m putting it just in front of your face. Stick out your tongue and you can taste it.”

  Suzie put her tongue out as far as it would go and leaned forward until her mouth met cold, rich chocolate. As she licked the ice cream, she realized that at some point she had moved her feet further apart and started to hump against the disembodied hand that was molesting her. She forced her hips to stop, embarrassed by her body’s reaction, yet a moment later she realized that she was again grinding against the hand, and beyond that, a shiver of an orgasm was on the verge of cresting through her. Moaning, she focused on the ice cream, pretending that was what was arousing her. She sucked on the chocolate while she came in the stranger’s hand. A cold drop of ice cream dripped off the edge of the cone and landed on her breast, where it trickled a line to her hard nipple and then dripped to the ground.

  “Let’s move on,” Brad said, cleaning her breast with a napkin. He took hold of her elbow. The unknown man abruptly extracted his fingers from her vagina and asshole, leaving her swaying. As Brad pulled her forward, Suzie had her mouth open to ask him who that stranger had been. But then she closed her mouth without saying anything. Asking Brad who the man had been was no different from admitting that she had let an unknown man put his fingers inside her in public. When Brad had returned to her with the ice cream and saw the stranger with his hand between her legs, he probably assumed it was a friend of Suzie’s, or at least someone she knew. That explained his lack of reaction. How could she admit to Brad that, in fact, the man had been a complete stranger?

  Suzie walked behind Brad for a while, until he touched her shoulder. “Stop here.” Suzie stopped. Voices seemed to be all around her, as if they stood in the middle of a crowd. Suzie could almost visualize where they were, somewhere in the middle of the courtyard that stood between the Foot Locker and Mac’s Sports Bar and Grill. She opened her mouth to ask why they were stopping, but the reason became obvious a moment later when she felt Brad’s hands on her breasts. She realized that it turned him on to touch her body in the middle of the large crowd. While he squeezed her left breast, his right hand went between her legs to press against her pubic mound, his fingers teasing open her labia.

  “Have you heard the story of the young man who journeyed to an island monastery seeking the secret of life?” Brad asked.

  Suzie shook her head, not trusting her voice to speak. She couldn’t believe that she was standing naked in the middle of a Friday night crowd, letting her boyfriend play with her body. She could hear the voices around her making comments, and she knew that pictures were being taken of her, both from the cameras of visiting tourists and from locals.

  “The man rowed a boat seven miles to a beautiful and isolated island,” Brad said. “He went to the monastery and found the wisest old monk there. What is the meaning of life, he asked. Instead of answering, the monk gave him two cups filled to the top with water. Carry these two cups wherever you go, then return to me tomorrow, said the monk. The man stayed up all night, holding the cups, and in the morning he went to see the monk. The monk took the cups back and asked how the man had liked the sights of the island. Had he seen the waterfall? Had he seen the bathing pools? Had he seen the gardens? The man had to admit he had not, all he had done was concentrate on not spilling the cups.”

  As Brad talked, he methodically explored her body with his hands. He located her clitoris and teased it with his fingers, then his light touch travelled up her body and traced her nipples. Turning her, his fingers slid over her neck and down her back. She felt him pull apart her ass cheeks and tickle her asshole. The lightness of his touch slid across her body like pulses of electricity, causing her muscles to tense in anticipation as they came near. She knew that her body’s responses were clearly visible to the people around her, and that only seemed to increase her arousal.

  Brad pressed his palm between her shoulder blades, and Suzie bent at the waist, widening her stance to preserve her balance. She heard him unzip and felt his erection as he let it rest against the small of her back. The head slid down her ass crack until it rested against her swollen labia. Brad leaned forward, pushing into her. In the middle of the crowd, he began to have sex with her.

  “The monk asked the man to return the next day.” Brad continued with his story even as he thrust against her. “Again, the monk gave the man the two cups, but this time told the man to not waste the day, and be sure to view the beauties of the island. That day, the man wandered around the island, and he saw the waterfall, and the bathing pools, and the gardens. But at the end of the day, when he looked at the cups, they were empty. He had spilled every drop of water.”

  Suzie felt surprisingly calm as she listened to Brad tell his story, soothed by the unconcerned tone in his voice. His hands cupped her breasts and his erection throbbed inside her, and her nakedness started to seem perfectly natural, and their sex started to seem natural as well. She felt as if this was what her body was made for, her breasts made to rest in Brad’s palms, her weight supported by his strong arms, her pussy made to hold and pleasure his penis. She was still aware of the crowd that surrounded them, but the voices became just another part of the sex, like a multitude of narrators describing in different voices the joining of her body to Brad’s.

  Brad leaned over her. “The man returned to the monk, and the monk explained to him that this was the secret of life. Explore and experience the world as thoroughly as you can. But always be careful not to spill what you hold.” His weight pressed against her back. His penis was throbbing and felt enormous inside her. When he spoke, his voice was a ragged whisper. “That’s something that I love about you, Suzie. Even when you’re naked and getting fucked in front of a hundred people… there’s something in you that will still hold two cups without spilling them.”

  It was true. The cups were still in her hands, and she hadn’t spilled a single drop.

  Brad’s thrusting increased in speed and intensity, but just when Suzie expected him to climax inside her, he stopped. He pulled out of her and she heard the sound of his zipper going up.

  “Are you done?” she asked, wondering what was wrong.

  “Not yet,” he told her. “Come on.” He
took her elbow and again began to lead her through the crowd. She understood that he was intentionally delaying his gratification, enjoying the build-up.

  Their path meandered through the Riverwalk, presumably because Brad needed to detour around clusters of pedestrians walking from store to store. Suzie tried to keep track of the sounds around her and hold a mental picture of where they were, but she became disoriented, and finally resigned herself to following Brad and trusting he knew where he was taking her. She noticed that the Stanford sash was gone, but couldn’t remember when it had fallen off. Frequently, she felt strange hands pressing against her ass or feeling her breasts as she walked, and she resigned herself to this as well. She had no way of stopping people from touching her naked body. It was easier just to give in and let them feel her.

  “Stairs,” Brad warned, and they ascended two short flights of stairs. A door opened ahead of them, and they passed from outside to inside. Wherever they were, it was a wide space, and filled with people talking to each other. Suzie felt the backs of chairs brush her legs as Brad led her through a narrow point.

  Finally he stopped her. “Here we are. Now you can set the cups down. Lower them gently… there you go.” They clinked as she set them on a flat surface. “Now move to your left a bit… exactly. Sit.”

  Suzie lowered herself onto a chair. It was round like a barstool, but covered in a soft fabric.

  Brad was suddenly behind her. She felt his fingers on the blindfold, and he slid it slowly up. Suzie blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light.

  She was astonished at what she saw. They sat at a small table, at the edge of a wide balcony. About twenty other tables were distributed around the rectangular balcony, but their table was closet to the edge, and directly in the middle. A glass wall encircled the balcony, about four feet high, and from where they sat, they had a perfect view of a stage that was about fifty feet in front of the balcony. It was a perfect place to view a performance, probably the best seats in the house.

  But that wasn’t what astonished her. Below them, filling the fifty feet between where they sat and the stage, a teeming mass of men in matching light blue shirts surged and fidgeted like a flock of birds. Most eyes were on her, and when they saw her blindfold removed, they raised their hands toward her and cheered, laughing and calling out to her.

  “What is this place?” Suzie managed to say, gaping at the hundreds of grinning faces that stared at her.

  “The Lafay Palace,” Brad said. “You’ve never been to a concert here before?”

  “No,” she said. “I guess I’ve come here for dinner… but I’ve never sat up here. Who are all these people?”

  Brad leaned against the railing, looking down at the men. “Pitcher Air Force Base. They’re here for a private concert. Invitation only. It’s a Support-the-Troops thing.” Brad grinned at her. “Don’t worry. We’re also invited. You’re familiar with Juan Sebastian Diego, right?

  Suzie’s eyes went wide, and for the moment her nakedness and the hundreds of leering men were forgotten. “Juan Sebastian Diego is going to give a private concert? Right here?”

  She waited for him to say he was joking, but Brad only smiled and nodded. He pointed at the stage. “Right down there, in about twenty minutes. Yeah, he’s a big supporter of the armed forces. I guess he gives a few private concerts a year.”

  “Brad… that’s amazing!” Suzie gazed down at the stage, astounded that Brad had arranged such a secret surprise. Their table was clearly one of the best seats in the place, and for a concert Brad had no reason to even know about, much less be invited to. “I don’t even know how you did this!”

  Brad stood next to her, looking down at the crowd below, as if analyzing a completed piece of art. “Well, let’s just say that when you’re a good friend to a lot of people, then you end up with a lot of people who want to be a good friend to you.”

  Suzie put her arms around him, pressing against his side. He turned towards her and let her press a long kiss to his mouth. When she pulled away, Suzie whispered, “What you said before, about how we’re going to different schools next fall… it’s sad if I think about it, but maybe it’s not what I should be thinking about. We have half a year before then, and being with you, those months going to be the best months of my life. How many people can say that? That they’re about to have the best months of their life?”

  “We’re lucky, Suzie,” Brad murmured. “There’s no doubt about that.” He kissed her again as he squeezed her breast. Suzie pressed her body against him, feeling his erection straining against his pants.

  When the kiss broke, they remained with their faces close to each other. “What now?” Suzie asked.

  To her surprise, Brad stepped away from her. He raised his hand towards the table. “Now we drink the drinks you carried for us.”

  Suzie laughed. She sat at the table and picked up one of the cups. The liquid inside was a cloudy red. She brought the cup to her lips and sipped it.

  It was wonderful.

  “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted!” she said. “What is it?”

  Brad sat across from her and took the other cup. He grinned. “Fruit punch.”

  “Fruit punch?” She was surprised, and took another sip.

  “It’s my own special mix of juices. But basically, it’s just fruit punch.”

  “It tastes so good!” Suzie said. “How do you make it?”

  “I’ll show you sometime when you’re at my place,” Brad promised. “But it’s really nothing special. The reason it tastes so good, is that sometimes when a task requires effort and sacrifice, the reward becomes that much sweeter.”

  Suzie sipped her drink again, considering his words. A cacophony of guitar came from the stage, band members tuning up behind the curtain, and a low roar of anticipation came from the crowd. Brad stood. “I’ll get us some snacks for the concert.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, I won’t be gone long. Relax and have your drink, enjoy yourself.” Brad had a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe you could stand at the edge of the balcony and see what it’s like to have a thousand men staring at your body.”

  Perhaps he was joking, but Suzie said, “I will,” and as Brad walked off, she approached the edge of the balcony and looked down at the crowd of soldiers. They crackled with anticipation, talking loudly and laughing. Some stole glances at her while others stared openly. Some of them called out to her, yelling things at her, but their words were lost in the din. Once the concert started, they would surely turn away from her, but at that moment, quite a few of them had their backs to the stage and their eyes turned up towards her. “It’s like I’m the opening act,” Suzie thought giddily. “I’m opening for Juan Sebastian Diego.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing, and when she opened them again, she was Jenna. The lines came easily to her mind. She looked out at the audience spread out before her and started one of her monologues. It was much too loud in the room for her words to penetrate to the crowd of soldiers, regardless of how she projected, and those close to the balcony who did hear her just looked confused. It didn’t matter; she delivered every word with earnest sincerity. She tried to will them to believe that she was Jenna, and this was her story.

  She paused in her monologue, an empty space normally filled by a line from Elias. To her surprise, a cheer erupted from the crowd, and men applauded and pointed at her. She was confused for a moment. Had they heard her speaking after all? Then she realized her hand was between her legs. Without realizing it, she had started to finger herself while she was speaking. Perhaps it was because she’d been trying to stay in character as Jenna, or perhaps it was the excitement of performing naked in front of the large crowd. Whatever the reason, her hand was splayed against her vagina, her middle finger nuzzling her exposed clitoris. Suzie blushed and pulled her hand up. The crowd cheered louder, encouraging her to touch her body more, but Suzie just held up her hands and smiled, turning away.

  B
rad returned to the table carrying a tray of bruschetta and mozzarella sticks. “You have your phone with you?” Suzie asked him.

  “Yeah… why?”

  Suzie grinned. “If you’re going to be in UCLA in the fall, then I better give you some pictures to remember me by.” Knowing that it turned Brad on to see her display herself, Suzie walked close to the balcony and stood facing him, with the crowd of soldiers behind her. Brad smiled and snapped a picture. He turned the phone to show her the picture, and she was startled to see herself so brazenly naked, a sea of faces in the background staring at her with undisguised lust.

  She continued to pose while Brad took pictures, doing her best to ignore the soldiers below her. She climbed onto the table and carelessly let her legs splay open, giving Brad a good view of her vagina for his pictures. Her labia were swollen and glistening with arousal, and it turned her on even more to think of Brad in the Fall, sitting on the UCLA campus, looking at naked pictures of her on his phone. She unconsciously fell into a model’s rhythm, posing for a picture, changing her pose slightly for the next picture, moving and posing, moving and posing. Even as she began to finger herself, her hand moved to the rhythm, stopping for the picture, sliding and stopping, rubbing and stopping.

  Brad took more pictures of her as she teased the soldiers below, standing on the table, holding her hands in the air, swaying her hips, meeting their eyes boldly as if daring them to come up and take her. Hands on her breasts, pinching her nipples, tugging on them. Turning to show the men her ass. Bending, pulling her ass cheeks apart, teasing the soldiers with her vagina and asshole. The place roared with approval.

  Music came from the stage, and the cheers for her turned into even louder cheers for the imminent start of the concert. Brad took her hand and helped her down. Suzie felt exhilarated, and she yelled and cheered with the rest of the crowd as the curtains pulled open and Juan Sebastian Diego stood there. He immediately launched into his hit song, “Amor Loving” and Suzie raised her hands, feeling the vibrations of the loud music pulse against her skin. She knew the song well; when she was in junior high, she had played that album over and over again for weeks. The familiar melody resonated with her, and she felt the urge to dance madly. She swayed her hips to the beat, losing herself, and when the song finally ended, her body glistened with sweat.