by Daryl Banner
“Penelope … Nell. I see.” I smile, appreciating it. “When’d you start going by Nell?”
“When I left high school. I couldn’t stand the … sound of my own name. I needed to … shed my old skin, I guess you could say.”
“Didn’t have a good childhood?”
“No.”
She stares down at her bottle, lost in a thought. Somewhere in those infinite, green eyes of hers, I feel like there’s a hundred things she’s not wanting to say. I need to tread lightly.
“My childhood sucked, too.” I take a seat on an empty platform next to her. “Well, I mean, school did. Kids are fuckin’ mean.”
She looks at me curiously, as if appraising me. “Mean little shits, they all were,” she agrees, squinting.
“I wasn’t always … like this,” I admit to her, then instantly regret it, feeling a wave of discomfort surge through me as I recall prepubescent Brant and the way he’d freeze up in front of any girl, pissing himself at parties while pre-deaf Clayton confidently strode forth, showing little me how it’s done. “Anyway, I—”
“Like what?” she asks, pursuing the subject I was trying to avoid. “You weren’t always like what?”
I reach for my neck, then make a sudden and timely discovery that I decide to use as a distraction. “Shit. I … I left my camera in the car. Didn’t even put it back in its case. Left it sitting out on the passenger seat, I think. I wanted to, uh … take another photo of you.”
Nell crosses her legs the other way, then smiles. “Take it now.”
“Now? But I gotta run back down a hundred flight of stairs and grab—”
“Take it on your phone. Who cares? We make art with nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You don’t need your big flashy device. You just need whatever you got on you, always. And if you didn’t have your phone, you’d take pics with your mind.” Her green eyes are ablaze. “Take my picture, Brant.”
I fumble, diving into my pocket and retrieving my phone. Quickly lifting it, I get her in frame, angling the pic to capture her legs and long, beautiful hair, then snap a shot of her.
“Let me see,” she says at once, snatching the phone from me before I’ve given her an answer.
I watch as she stares at the picture, peering curiously at it. The silence in the room grows thicker and thicker the longer her face is lit by the screen. I smile, watching her watch herself.
Then she asks, “What do you see in this?”
“What do you mean? It’s … you. Nell.”
“I mean … you don’t ever just take a photo.” She turns my phone one way, then the other, squinting. “You consider the lights and darks. The balance. Depth. Where my eyes are and … I mean, look. You even caught the white canvas behind me, contrasting with my dark hair.”
“I did?” I lean over, peering into the phone with her. My shoulder grazes hers. I’m so close, her scent invades me and it’s intoxicating.
“See?” she murmurs quietly.
I look at the photo. I guess I see what she means. “Yeah, totally.”
“Hmm.” She continues to study it as if she were analyzing some great piece of art she happened across. And I study the side of her face as if she was some great puzzle I was trying to pull apart.
Then another puzzle comes to mind. “Hey, Nell. Where’s your, uh … bathroom?”
“Other side of the fridge near the door.”
I help myself, crossing the narrow space to a short hallway I didn’t notice when coming in where a salmon-colored opened door leads me into a dim bathroom with a combo tub-and-shower squeezed next to a sink and toilet. The first thing I smell is bleach and paint, then notice the bathtub stained with various colored splotches. Guess she uses the tub more in the name of art and less in the name of actually taking baths.
I close the door softly behind me and touch my back pocket, just to be sure it’s still there. Condom, check.
Then I take a deep breath and look at myself in the mirror, leaning forward to inspect a red spot, curious if I got a bug bite or something. I push down a strand of hair that’s sticking straight up in the back. I lick my lips and check my breath, huffing into my palm.
I could very well move to the next step with Nell and I need to make sure I do this right, because it’s clear to me that her whole “art” thing can shove me away as easily as it can pull me into her bed. She’s not as tough as she looks; minute by minute I’m peeling back the layers and finding the sensitive Nell I know is in there, the one who will respond to my advances, the one who’ll let me kiss her.
And maybe other things, if I can keep her attention.
Maybe things involving her boobs, which I can’t stop staring at in that sexy red crop top.
Maybe things involving that ass of hers, that ass I want to grab and lift her up by, that ass I want to slam against a wall as I thrust myself into her.
Penelope … I smile at myself, as if just the revealing of her name was some admission of letting down her walls. She’s let me inside of her.
And now it’s time for her to let another part of me inside her.
I flush her toilet, fake-wash my hands, then let myself out of the bathroom. I clap my hands together, give them a good rub, and return to Nell still sitting on that pedestal staring at my phone.
“I can print out that pic and frame it, if you like it so much,” I tease.
“Candace.”
Candace? “Who?”
“That’s your dancer’s name,” she says, lifting her eyes to meet mine. “She sent a text. Popped up suddenly, covered my face for a second. Candace. Not Clara. Unless that’s yet another ‘artist of the stage’ you … spent time with. Got a thing for C-named dancers?” she teases dryly.
I glance down at the phone in her grip, making the realization. “Oh. I … I know. She really wasn’t any—I mean, she wasn’t a big—Well, like, what I mean is …”
Each time I try to spin it, the explanation sounds worse.
“No, no,” she returns calmly. “Brant, I’m not … No.” Suddenly, Nell laughs. “I’m not jealous. I’m not hurt. This isn’t …”
“I’m just trying to explain that she—”
“No need, really, seriously. Brant, I knew what I was getting into.” She rises and hands me my phone. It lands in my palm with a resolute, fleshy thud.
“What you were ‘getting into’? Wait,” I blurt, frustrated. “Nell, you got this wrong. I’m into you. I’m, like … I’m way into you.” I don’t even know what Clara—fuck, I mean Candace—texted me for. “You’re not ‘getting into’ anything.”
“Of course I am. Listen, I don’t know where you were expecting this thing to go …” she starts.
“Not straight into your bed,” I lie. Or maybe I mean it. I don’t even know. “We’re just getting to know each other, Nell. Totally innocent. I’m not here to just … score. I’m—”
“Great. So, we’ve gotten to know each other. You’ve seen my home, and not many people have. I just thought …” Her eyes detach for a moment, searching for the words. “I guess I just lost track of the time.”
“The time?”
“It’s late. I have an early class.” She folds her arms.
I stare at her. She’s throwing me out. Because of the text, which I still haven’t read. My insides are worked up so much, I could spit acid. “Nell, don’t ice me out just because some dumb girl texted me or whatever.”
“Dumb girl,” she murmurs.
Fuck. “I didn’t mean … Ugh, listen, Nell—”
“You really don’t owe me an explanation, Brant,” she says, her voice annoyingly calm. “We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend. We had dinner tonight. That’s all.”
“But I don’t want it to be just a damn dinner,” I retort, feeling myself getting angry. “I want more with you. I want to like, talk art and, like, get all deep and shit with you.”
“Deep?” She chuckles dryly. “You? Deep?”
I feel my eyes narrowing. Okay
, now she’s digging at me personally. “You think I’m just some shallow dude?” It’s like she’s pulling my fears right out of my mind. It’s like she knows my insecurities. She’s playing my heart the way a seasoned pianist pulls wicked music out of thin air the second he sits at the bench. “The idea of a guy like me having any … depth … is a fucking joke to you?”
“They all leave.”
“What?”
“They all … always leave,” she mumbles. “Just go. Spare me the pain of having to figure it out later when you get bored of me, just like every person in my life has gone away. Leave, along with the rest of them. I don’t even care. I don’t even really like you,” she adds.
“Now that, I know, is a lie.” Something else is happening here. There is something … dark … going on in her head that she isn’t telling me.
“I never really liked you,” she repeats.
“You’re just saying that because you’re afraid of being hurt,” I state, despite the nagging doubts eating away at what little confidence I can muster in this situation. “You’re tearing down what we got goin’ on because you’re afraid.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“You’re afraid.” I close the distance between us, startling her when my face appears inches from hers. “You’re afraid of me, Nell.”
“Fuck you.”
“Wish you would.”
“That’s all you care about.”
“You’re still afraid of me, Nell.”
“I’m afraid of nothing.”
“If I’m being honest here, I’m kinda fuckin’ afraid of you, too.”
Her eyes change, staring into mine with intensity at those words. The tension is pulsing from her stiffened posture, her clenched hands, her unmoving arms and frozen face. I suddenly feel like I’ve just said exactly the right thing to reach her. She’s caught in my grip, hanging on my words.
“I’m afraid of you, Nell,” I go on, “because you’re really … fucking interesting.” I huff at the total inadequacy of those words and how difficult it is to articulate anything when I’m this damn close to her face. “And, like … you’re really … fucking hot.”
“Brant …”
“And you’re deep,” I finish. “You’re so deep. And I’m … I’m not.”
“Brant …”
“But I want to be. So fucking bad.”
She grabs hold of my shirt and pulls me into her face.
Our lips join, and I taste her at last.
Her tongue darts out, slips past my lips as if it were my own. I might say it tickles if it weren’t for the fluttering that suddenly chases up and down my body.
And then an entirely different fluttering happens when I feel her touch my arm, her fingers crawling up the length of it as we kiss.
My skin prickles, like the winter has cast an early cold front up the tiny hairs on my arms.
I can’t stand what it does to me, so I bring a hand to the back of her head and tangle my fingers in her beautiful, soft hair.
We pull apart for one moment, her eyes gently observing mine, my eyes hungrily staring at hers.
Then I pull her back in with a breathy sound, fisting her hair.
I don’t even know where I am when we kiss.
We’re on the move. Our feet create a dance as our tongues create another, until I back into a short platform and find myself sitting down on it. Nell straddles my lap, her tight ass pressing against my cock as she wraps her arms around me and tunnels into my mouth with her tongue.
And it’s a slow tunneling. It’s a slow, patient, dominating act with which her tongue caresses my tongue and her lips cover mine. It’s like a war of mouths that we’re both meant to win.
My phone buzzes with another text.
She doesn’t seem to hear it. And if she did, she’s ignoring it just as I am ignoring it, holding her firmly against my body as our mouths find the dessert that we didn’t bother getting at the restaurant.
The phone buzzes again.
She pulls away this time, staring expectantly in my eyes. We breathe heavily, staring at one another. My cock flexes by instinct, pushing up excitedly against her ass, and I give Nell a wiggle of my eyebrows.
“What?” she murmurs.
“My cock recognizes you,” I tell her very seriously.
She plays along. “Well, he ought to. He has met me more than once. Though I think he might be better acquainted with my foot.”
My phone buzzes a third fucking time.
She glances at it sitting on the pedestal next to me, then wrinkles her face. “Clay-Boy?”
“Oh.” I’d thought it was the dancer again. “That’s my best friend who doesn’t live with me anymore.”
“The not-gay one?”
“Yep.”
“With the actress girlfriend?”
“You know,” I say, pulling her in tightly, “as much as I’d love to sit here and chat about all my lovely friends, I’ve got a boner pressed against your ass that’s fast deflating at the mention of them.”
“Do you and your gay roommates mess around?” she asks. “Y’know, when you’re super horny and you—”
“No.”
I grip under her thighs and lift her up, startling her to the point of earning myself a little shriek.
Carrying her to the kitchen, I set her on the counter, unbutton her jeans, then grip the waistband. She freezes, and we stare at one another challengingly.
“The idea of two guys getting it on kinda works me up,” she admits, finally lifting her hips so I can slide her pants off.
“Don’t say that around my roommates. You’ll give them ideas.”
“So you’ve thought of it?”
I grip her panties next. “Nope.”
“I talked you into becoming my art project. I think I can talk you into—”
I pull her legs apart and bury my face between them, and quite suddenly she can’t talk at all.
“Brant!” she howls, showcasing a vocal register I didn’t know she was capable of.
Yeah, I take full credit.
My lips turn her into a moaning, quivering mess as I grip her thighs, push my face into her, and gently have my first taste. Unlike every other girl on this campus, she doesn’t wax it bare. I kinda like the natural thing. It’s so … Nell. Every breath I greedily take in is heaven. Each time she squeezes my head with her thighs, I plunge in deeper.
Her hand slaps down on my head to direct me exactly where she wants me, her fingers tangling in my hair and pulling so hard, it hurts.
I fucking love every second of it.
In response, I moan deeply, casting a wave of vibrations that I know she feels by the way her thighs squeeze me so hard, I feel my whole face turning red.
When she relaxes just a little bit, I gently insert one finger and turn the full attention of my mouth to her swollen clit, adding another finger when I feel her body respond to my expert touch.
I glance up to gage her reaction, sliding my free hand under her red top on a quest for her tits.
She gasps.
Found them.
My fingers invade her bra, discovering the flesh of her perky breasts. I grin at her reaction as an earthquake rockets through her body by my touch—though it’s hard to say which touch is earning the prize.
Just as my fingers find a nipple, I give it a less-than-gentle pinch as I continue pleasuring her below.
Her thighs convulse, threatening to dislodge my head.
She moans and grips my hair tighter, pulling at it as if she could get my face any deeper into her.
Turns out, she can.
“Fuck me!” she howls. “BRANT!”
I can’t say how many times my name’s been screamed out when I got my lady-licker this deep down a woman’s wishing well, but I’d say Nell’s wishes are all coming true by the sound of it.
“I’m close!”
I know.
And when she lets go, my face is bathed with the result of her orgasm and all of
my hard work.
I don’t stop sucking and licking her, not until every last shockwave, tremor, and whimper is squeezed out of her and she’s nothing more than a puddle of flesh, panting in my arms.
I come up from between her legs, my cock painfully hard between my own and begging for its own release. She peers down at me as she catches her breath. From the sheen on her face, it seems I’m not the only one who worked up a sweat. She looks so damn beautiful right now, I could already take another dive.
No matter how badly I want to slam my cock into her and get myself off, I have to take this slowly. Tonight’s gotta be all about Nell.
Despite not-so-little Brant desperately disagreeing.
“I’ve never come that hard before,” she moans tiredly, then meets my eyes. “I feel so damn … greedy.”
“Tonight’s all about you,” I admit reluctantly, telling her what I think she wants to hear while ignoring the aching throb in my pants.
She considers that, tilting her head and letting all her hair fall to one side. “Wow, Brant. You are an expert in your field of study.”
“Maybe that should be my major,” I reply. “Women’s Studies.”
She chuckles dryly, then suddenly seems to become self-conscious, slipping off the counter and pulling her panties back up.
Wait, wait. I still haven’t gotten the official invitation into her bed. “Don’t get shy on me,” I tease, bringing a hand around and pulling her in for another kiss, rubbing her lower back. My cock hasn’t softened one bit, still aggressively pushing to be freed.
Her eyes still look playful, but her body stiffens. “You’re sweet,” she says suddenly. “Sweet, and … good at what you do. But … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I was … caught in the moment.”
I stop moving my hand. “Nell?”
“You can’t stay.”
I watch her for a moment, confused by her sudden change in mood. And a bit frustrated, considering the situation in my pants. “Alright. I guess I can … uh …”
Really, it’s normally the other way around. After I’ve had my fun in the sun, I’m always the one to kick out the pretty girl before shit gets awkward. Am I the pretty girl, now?
“Don’t forget your phone,” she murmurs, pulling away.