Coming Soon

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Poppy finally nodded, too afraid to say anything out loud at this point. They tried their best to relax but they were rigid as fuck and they knew it. Their legs hardly spread under the blanket and their arms were so tight at their sides that Emilee couldn’t reach under the blanket if she’d wanted to.

  Emilee didn’t seem fazed by Poppy’s rigidity, however, and simply slipped her ready fingers under the blanket. Emilee moved Poppy’s legs open and settled her hand at the base of Poppy’s vagina.

  “If you want me to stop, say so. If you like something, say so. If you don’t, say so. Okay?”

  “All right,” Poppy squeaked out.

  “Maybe try closing your eyes. Sometimes that helps.”

  Poppy closed their eyes again and spread their legs further. Emilee moved her fingers up Poppy’s thighs and landed on their labia. Emilee stroked slowly, gently, as she moved further under the folds.

  “I like that,” Poppy whispered, eyes still tightly shut.

  “How about this?” Emilee said as she found their clit and pinched.

  Poppy gasped, “I like. I like.”

  Emilee chuckled, and pinched a little harder. Poppy’s chest fluttered, skin warmed . . . and another tingle shot through them. Poppy squirmed and sucked in a breath as a smile grew inside them.

  “I’d like to try something else now. Are you good with that?”

  “Uh huh,” Poppy said, eyes still closed and mouth slightly open.

  Poppy felt Emilee scoot even closer, her whole body now flush with Poppy’s, pressing hard into them. The contact made Poppy move their hips back and forth, allowing their own movements to add to Emilee’s. Tingles built as Poppy tried desperately to stay present, to allow the sensations to fill their body. Poppy moaned as Emilee moved her other hand under the blanket too. As Emilee moved her hand up to Poppy’s vagina, Poppy suddenly froze.

  Panic gripped them tight. Their throat felt like it was closing. “Stop!” Poppy managed, but not before Emilee’s fingers had slipped inside them.

  Emilee pulled her fingers out immediately, but Poppy’s eyes were already open and they were sitting up, ready to flee.

  “I’m sorry. Do you not like that?”

  Poppy didn’t know how to answer. Their eyes teared up and they looked the other direction in a half-sit, half-lean slump.

  “Hey,” Emilee removed her other hand and rubbed Poppy’s back. “Can we pause for a moment? I have a thought I’d like to share. But only if you want to hear it.”

  Poppy wiped their escaped tear and shifted to look at Emilee. They didn’t need Emilee to tell them what was wrong. They knew. They’d just been denying it. Poppy took a couple of deep breaths before saying, “I don’t mind hearing your thoughts, but I know why I’m struggling.”

  Emilee nodded. “Do you feel safe to share?”

  “No, and also yes. Sorry, I’m just . . .” Poppy hesitated, and pulled the blanket up over their body further. They swallowed hard. “I want to share because I want to feel pleasure. But I’m scared.”

  “This is a safe space,” Emilee said, keeping her hand on Poppy’s back.

  They looked at Emilee, her sweet smile and sure demeanor, and a reassurance washed over them like a warm summer day. “I don’t want to be penetrated. It causes my dysphoria to trigger.”

  Emilee leaned forward and pressed her head to Poppy’s. “I understand.”

  “Really?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  Poppy shot her a quizzical look.

  “I am she. And he. And them. Tonight, though, I am she.” Emilee leaned back and met Poppy’s eyes again.

  “So you’re fluid?” Poppy shouldn’t have been surprised, but they were. Their forehead scrunched up in confusion.

  Emilee nodded.

  “I am too, though I prefer ‘they,’” they finally said. “But I’ve been hurt because of it and now I’m scared.”

  “But you’ve just taken a huge step.” Emilee brushed a long strand of red hair from Poppy’s face. “Is this the first time you’ve talked about this?”

  Poppy shook their head. “Sharing is what got me hurt. I don’t want to talk about those details right now, but I do want to be whole. I want to embrace all of me. I want to learn to feel pleasure in my vagina. I want to orgasm.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Silence filled the space between them, but also held a great deal of substance.

  “I have an idea . . .” Emilee moved her gloved hand back under the blanket. “Do you mind if I try again? But this time, no penetration. You can always work up to penetration later, if you want to. Not saying you need to, nor is there any rush.”

  Poppy laughed awkwardly. “I’m nervous, but yes.”

  They settled back into the beanbag again and Poppy spread their legs.

  The more Poppy wanted to shove the sensation away, the more they felt it instead. The building fire, the ache from deep within, all about to combust and explode out of them in pleasure. No one had ever truly seen Poppy before. Or accepted them in such an open and willing manner. It made Poppy feel alive inside, desired and whole . . . which all added to the tingles as Emilee ran her fingers up their clit again, rubbing harder with each pass.

  They felt their mouth falling open, inner juices building as their muscles clenched, ready for what felt like the inevitable release. Emilee seemed to sense their readiness as she kept moving faster, harder, rougher, and Poppy moaned.

  Poppy thrust their head back as a wave of pleasure overtook them. They cried out, almost screaming, as they finally let go. Emilee’s hands moved faster, and firmer, to match Poppy’s cries of ecstasy, and it made them release even harder. Orgasm fire moved through their body, lighting them up like a rising sun.

  The more the orgasm fire raged through them, the more Poppy felt at home with being all they were. Their body somehow felt less problematic as pleasure dominated their senses. Even their skin felt ablaze as Emilee slowly withdrew her hand and held Poppy’s thigh. Everywhere Emilee touched, they felt pleasure.

  Poppy could hardly catch their breath. Their eyes misted but not from tears. “That was amazing,” they began. “Thank you, Emilee.”

  “You’re welcome, Pops.” Emilee half grinned as she looked at Poppy.

  Poppy felt their cheeks flush again and they pulled the blanket over their mouth as giggles ensued.

  “I’m surprised you reached orgasm. It took me several months here before I finally could.” Emilee brushed the hair from Poppy’s face again.

  “I think it would have taken me longer but I’ve been wanting this for so long. It’s why I went to see a sex coach. That”— Poppy pulled the blanket down, uncovering their mouth—“and you accepted me as I am. I’m not used to that. You helped me to feel comfortable.”

  “I’m glad I could,” Emilee said, then sat up and began cleaning the area. “Our thirty minutes is about up. Do you want a turn at pleasuring me or would you rather try another partner and receive again?”

  The way Emilee spoke so easily about moving on to another partner also tickled Poppy’s insides. She was so confident in herself. Poppy wanted that level of confidence too.

  Poppy also wanted to explore Emilee.

  “How many rounds do we get before things wrap up?” they asked.

  “Usually six. Then we break for food, or socialization. Part of being comfortable with our bodies and sexuality comes from supporting one another, so we make sure to have time for other areas of support after play. But . . .” A devious grin washed over her. “We can continue after our social time. And some do. Ellena and I allow folks to go until two, because this is, after all, a finger-bang party”

  Poppy blushed. “I’d like to please you then, if that’s okay. Then I can try playing with someone else. May I please you now, Emilee?”

  For the first time, Emilee’s cheeks flushed crimson. She looked down, eyes smiling. “Yes.”

  Two a.m. rolled around far too fast for Poppy’s liking, so it was no surprise that they were the last to
leave. They’d never met so many amazing people. And, they’d made friends. Actual friends. Even exchanged numbers. Hannah was right. Poppy had been ready. They couldn’t wait until their next session with her so they could tell her all about their success.

  When Poppy reached the sidewalk, they turned back to look upon the house one last time before getting into their car. Even in the darkness of night, the house would forever be cemented in their mind as a house of warmth, a house of pleasure, and a house of fingers . . .

  BUSINESS TRIP

  Ella Dawson

  He stands beside me on the balcony, one hand wrapped loosely around a glass of whiskey. The other rests on the railing a few careful inches away from mine. He looks at the sky instead of looking at me. I can read the tension in his shoulders, stiff underneath a blazer he must have bought in a boutique with some salesgirl flirting for his credit card. It’s strange to see him nervous. He is usually so slick.

  Part of me always suspected he was like this underneath, a little awkward and hesitating. He puts on this cool dad façade at work, early forties, subtle facial hair, fashionable glasses. He grew into his face late but wooed girls with his collection of vinyl records in college, at least in my imagination. I see concerts in downtown Brooklyn on his Google Calendar sometimes, bands like Tame Impala and The Hold Steady, cool but not aggressively loud. He doesn’t have the swagger of the forever handsome but there is this air of trendy confidence about him. Everyone leans toward him in meetings with unhidden desire to impress him. I wonder if he feels like a fraud sometimes.

  “It’s getting late,” he says, because he knows he’s supposed to. It’s part of our dance, an exit ramp neither of us wants to follow.

  I ignore his gesture to the proper and take the glass out of his hand. He doesn’t protest when I put it on the table behind us, which makes this easier. I face him and he faces me, parallel desire lines.

  “We shouldn’t,” he says. “I can’t put you in this position, it’s . . . inappropriate.”

  “You’re not putting me in any position.” I can see his jaw work as he swallows. I can see it on his face as he imagines the twist of my words, how he’d like to contort my young body underneath him on the bed just inside the sliding door. “I invited you back to my room,” I continue. “I offered you a drink.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he says. Reassuring himself. Forgiving himself.

  “You’re not pressuring me,” I say. “This is what I want.”

  His hand, glassless, clenches on thin air. I want it in my hair, on my face. I want to taste the gin on his lips.

  “What,” he starts, stammers, “what do you want?”

  I circle my fingers around his wrist and take a step back, and he steps with me, and then he is against me, warm and lean. He kisses like he is ashamed and famished, grasping my jaw between his thumb and forefinger before sliding his hand back to my neck. This is my weak spot and I melt between him and the stucco wall. I am all need. I am relieved. A kiss like this takes blind and stupid courage.

  We could both get fired—no, he could get a reprimand while I get shame and judgment and walking papers, no recommendation, no second chances. Sooner or later the girl who fucks the boss meets a consequence but I want this calculated chaos. I have an escape route planned and he doesn’t need to know that yet. This won’t taste as good.

  It started with the earrings. They were cheap metal chandeliers painted gold, glittering obscenely in the impulse-buy section of the department store. I thought nothing of them when I made the purchase, adding them to my basket when I noticed their bargain price. I don’t wear earrings often; they tangle in my hair and clack against the phone when I’m on calls. But I had a vague sense that they’d make me look older, sophisticated, and I slid them on the next morning before rushing to the subway. What a picture I made wheezing on the platform, an assistant in an H&M suit, her slacks unevenly hemmed by hand.

  We were in the bi-weekly meeting discussing the budget when I glanced up from my spreadsheet and found him staring. His brow was furrowed, his head tilted to the side, and he startled when he noticed me noticing him. The vice president droned on about Q1 figures and I looked down at my laptop. When I snuck a glimpse of him again, the pale skin across his cheekbones had gone pink.

  Later, in our standing check-in meeting: “I like your earrings.”

  His voice was sheepish, like he was already regretting the words. His lips flattened into a thin line, his chin twitching. I realized with a pang of tenderness that he was chewing on the inside of his lip.

  “Thank you.” I pinched one of the earrings between my thumb and index finger and turned it just enough to catch the light. He followed the shine, his pupils darkening. “I just bought them.”

  “You don’t usually wear earrings.” The observation was an admission of guilt and he blushed again. A fistful of freckles was smattered across his cheeks. Funny that I’d never noticed those freckles when I spent so much time minding his schedule and anticipating his needs.

  “I don’t,” I said. My confirmation was an out, moving the exchange from the illicit to the factual. His assistant was wearing earrings when she usually doesn’t, a logical change to notice in the workplace. That my glimmer caught his eye wasn’t inappropriate, it was attentive management.

  The meeting moved on to correspondence, how I should reply on his behalf to a question from the compliance team.

  I continued my job search with some remorse, his freckles following me as I fell asleep at night. They were one of the few things I would miss when I moved on.

  It is my job to know the little things about him: his middle name, his ex-wife’s lawyer’s email address, how his face pinches when he skips lunch and becomes ravenous at three in the afternoon. It is my job to book his flights and schedule his keynote speeches and confirm his hotel reservations. It is my job to request that our rooms are close by, just in case we have to work late into the night on some emergency. Those things happen, you know. Slides need to be updated, typos caught and corrected.

  His anxiety about what we are doing bleeds into how he kisses me. When I take his lower lip between my teeth, he keens into my mouth like a helpless animal. This hidden side of him feeds an appetite I didn’t know I had before that day with the earrings— an appetite to seduce, to take, to control. Even as he pushes me back against the wall, the stucco digging through the fabric of my sensible shift dress, I have him. My fingers twine through his hair, long French-tip nails grazing his scalp. A defeated moan vibrates in his chest.

  I pull my mouth away from his a fraction of an inch and he lets out a shaky breath across my lips, his forehead propped against mine. When I whisper instructions, I imagine them pouring like smoke down his throat and into his lungs. “I want you to kneel,” I say.

  He is rigid and limp all at once, those slender shoulders tensing as his jaw goes slack. I tighten my fingers in his hair, delighted by his hiss. “Am I pressuring you?” I ask, wry and steel. Wide-eyed, he shakes his head, only to pull his own hair against my firm grip. “Good.”

  He licks his lips, another familiar nervous tell. I consider pouring the whiskey in his mouth and supping it from those bruised lips as it drips down his jaw.

  Then, just as I wonder if I’ve pushed him too far, he sinks slowly to his knees on the cold ground. He winces as the concrete grinds through the wool of his trousers. For a moment he hovers there, his hands fisting in my dress at my hips. Then he looks up at me and waits for further instruction, his eyes black beneath delicate eyelashes.

  “Good boy.” The endearment comes from me like it’s been lying in wait in my throat. It pleases me as much as it pleases him. I can feel the slickness between my thighs, the desire dripping from me all evening as we circled this dangerous inevitability. The sight of him beneath me, preening under my praise, is almost more than I can bear. My clit pulses.

  “Take off my shoes,” I demand next, my voice wavering a notch. He fumbles with the strap of my high heel, his
fingers grazing my ankle, and I shiver against the wall. Then he finds the buckle and guides me from the tight pump, cradling the underside of my right foot like it is something delicate. He repeats this with the other shoe, focused and careful. When I am standing flat against the concrete, he traces the seam of my stockings before pulling his touch away, guilty.

  “That’s okay,” I say, his magnanimous assistant. “You’re allowed.”

  With a grateful grunt, he cups my calves in his warm hands. I want to feel his touch on my bare skin and I step one foot forward, canting my knee out. This brings him closer to my core and he licks his lips again, smelling my heat like a dog. “Roll down my tights,” I tell him.

  His hands shake as he slides them up my legs and over my thighs. When he finds the waistband, I push my hips away from the wall so that he can guide my pantyhose down. My underwear pulls away with them and I don’t stop him, too busy watching awe play across his face. He wants to push up my skirt and see me, his fingers twitching at the back of my knees, but he slowly helps me step out of the pantyhose and sets it aside with my shoes.

  I brush his hair back from his face. “Such a good boy,” I murmur. “Such a patient boy.”

  I’m the patient one, lining up all of the pieces for this business trip so that we could find ourselves here, ready, alone. It all had to look accidental or else he’d never have accepted the drink as he practiced his keynote address. Coming out to the balcony had to be his idea, the hotel room too stuffy, his mind unable to think surrounded by that terrible, generic hotel art. I created this for us, followed my suspicions and playing my cards until he could be brought to his knees willingly before me. His Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps, intoxicated by the scent of my desire for him. My arrogant, predictable, beautiful boss.

  I find the bottom of my skirt and pull it up, the cotton dragging across my heated thighs. He watches without breathing and makes a strangled noise as I’m revealed, cunt throbbing against the cold night air.