SexE2

The light streaming through the cotton of my sheets is the colour of tangerines drenched in apricot syrup. Your arm and my pillow frame your face... 

Your eyes shine at me in my second-favourite type of smile. 
You're trapping the sheet behind your head, turning the bed into a cave made from barley sugar.

I lean against your chest and reach to kiss your mouth... Your other arm steals around me and pulls me closer to you, and I kiss you, and lip-nibble down to your neck, and nuzzle in the place where your neck ends and your shoulder begins.

You're laughing and gasping slightly already, teasing me for my habit of absently dropping a hand to cup your balls. You think it's all for show, but I'm usually surprised to find my hand filled with their warm softness. I squeeze gently and you stop laughing. Your eyes close and you look only happy.

My body is yearning toward you, even while we're pressed together like this, and my... what is your phrase?... my 'aggressive hips' are slowly pushing you across the bed. I slip an arm over your waist and pull you back, pressing closer, then moving away and letting you have space to breathe.

I'm feeling happy and laughing and glowing when I feel your hand settle lightly on my buttock I stop still and feel you slide it upward, over the curve of my hip, over my waist, and brushing the top of my back and the nape of my neck.

I shiver suddenly, and pull you over me for kisses... The sheet slips a little, and our cave is gone, exchanging barley sugar light for a normal cloudy day.

I don't care. Your hands are moving slowly over my body, and your mouth is reaching for my nipple. I feel... fluid... liquid... unreal as your fingertips brush my belly, and my hair and... 

My eyes snap open and "ohhh. Do that again."

You grin and do it again... and again... rocking your wrist gently against me and I'm purring and moving against you.

My eyelids feel fat and sleepy- looking as I part them to watch your face, a study in concentration. Your eyes are fixed on my throat, watching my pulse.

I reach down and fill my hands with you again. You're wet. You're dripping. That excites me as nothing else does. 
More than hands. 
More than your tongue even.

You're wet and I can smell your heat and I want you.

I kiss you onto your back, dislodging your wonderfully rocking hand and stroking you gently upwards. I'm moving over you, kneeling above you, and I bend over to feather kisses onto your throat and neck.

I wet my fingers and slip them along and between my labia, opening myself, smoothing the way for you.

I take you in my hand and start to slide you along my entrance... back and forth... teasing a little. 

Well, teasing a lot.

You look at me and I tilt my hips and I slide myself onto you. And stop still.

Your hands are at my hips and you make a sound of protest. I smile and squeeze, exerting what authority I can, while I'm still able to think. Squeezing and rocking, letting you slip slowly inside me.

Then you thrust up and pull down on my hips and I'm lost. I cling to you through the waves of feeling and I know I'm laughing and speaking, but I can't hear me, or stop, or direct it at all. Just ride the crests, and watch your eyes and listen for your breathing, or whimpers as I pass over the troughs.

Your face changes as you get closer... Did you know that? 
Knowing I'm the only person in the world who knows that way you look gives me a rush of tenderness while we're apart. 
But while I'm watching it happen it's exciting.

Then suddenly your throat tightens and you throw back your head against my pillows and I can feel you as you come into me.

I unlock my elbows and come down to snuggle you. Dozing and drifting, and feeling smug that you can bear my weight comfortably enough for me to relax here, with you inside me still.

Now the tangerine colours are only in the puddled sheets, half fallen to the floor...

I kiss your mouth clumsily, seeing my favourite type of smile at last,  and wait for my voice to return.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

Thursday lunchtime, and I’m sitting over a latte and a book. I should be eating, but since Daniel left, I’ve kind of given that up, except when my stomach screams at me that it needs filling. The coffee shop is crowded, of course; it always is at this time of day.

“Do you mind if I share your table?” says a woman’s voice beside me, “Though I must warn you that if you say ‘yes’, I’ll almost certainly talk your ear off.”

I look up at the speaker. She’s beautiful. Large eyes that you can see instantly are blue, creamy skin, and a long fall of shiny hair, the brown-red of mahogany. She’s slim without being thin, and makes black jeans and a white tee-shirt look like designer-wear. Just what I need to make me feel frumpier, dumpier and plainer than ever.

I’m about to say no, and she can see it. She looks ridiculously disappointed, as she turns, casting her eyes about for another seat. I’m not sure why but I say, ungraciously, “Go on then, sit down.”

She talks to me, as she threatened, telling me about herself. She’s Rachel, she’s in marketing, she’s in town for a job interview and she’s got the job. Her voice is a light, unremarkable soprano and it seems to float over the small talk. I’ve told her my name, but nothing more. After a while she looks at her watch and says, “Your lunch hour must be almost over.”

It’s my chance to escape, and I blow it.

“No,” I say, “I’ve got the afternoon off. And tomorrow. I’ve done a lot of overtime recently, they told me to take a break, extend the weekend.”

She smiles. She really is beautiful. I hate her.

I find myself getting angry. “Why did you choose to sit with me?” I demand.

“You looked sad,” she says.

“And you thought you’d play fairy-godmother and cheer me up? How nice of you.” I’m shocked at the words, and the tone, even as I speak them. I wasn’t always such a bitch.

“No,” she says, “sad people have stories, and sometimes they even tell them. Happy people are too busy being happy to tell their stories most of the time. I’m on my own here, and I wanted someone to talk to.”

I’m thrown completely. That’s not what I expected her to say, not at all. And I find myself telling her everything. About leaving England and moving to the other side of the world when I married a Kiwi. About realising within six months of the wedding that I’d made a hideous mistake and that neither of us were the people I’d thought we were. About the rows that went on for more than a year before he fell in love with someone else and left me for her. About the fact that apart from the blow to my self-esteem, I was relieved he’d gone. About having no friends that weren’t his friends. I go on, and on and on.

At some point, she buys us both more coffee. She listens and seems genuinely interested. I grow hoarse from talking, I haven’t talked like this in nine months, not since Daniel finally slammed the door and got in the truck that held his half of our life together.

I notice that the coffee shop is empty, and the guy behind the counter is fidgeting like he wants to leave.

“I guess we should go,” Rachel says. Then she looks at me and asks, “Look Bel, do you know anywhere cheap I can stay in town? I was going to drive home today, but the interview went on longer than I expected, it’s an eight hour drive back to Wellington, and I can’t afford to stay at the Centra. I was only there last night because it was part of my interview expenses.”

“There’s a couple of decent backpackers,” I reply, “although you’d need a sleeping bag,” She shakes her head. “Or…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got a spare room. You can have that if you like.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t! I mean…”

“Look, if you want it, it’s not a problem. Where’s your car?”

And that’s that. We fetch her car from the Centra carpark and drive home. We stow her bag in the front room, and I’m about to make dinner, when I realise that I have nothing in the house other than a couple of bottles of wine in the fridge, some milk and a box of cereal. There isn’t even sugar. She shrugs it off, and eats cereal. I don’t eat.

We sit, later, later, still talking, and drinking the wine. Somewhere along the way we get to laughing, something I haven’t done in far too long. We’ve just opened the second bottle when she drops her bombshell. “You know when you asked me why I sat with you earlier?’

I nod.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you.”

I look at her blankly. She clears her throat.

“I’m gay, Bel. I fancied you. I mean, I fancy you.”

I laugh, and then I see that she isn’t joking. “I’m not gay, ” I say flatly. She nods. She knows. Then, uncomprehendingly, I wave a vague hand over my body. “Why would you,” I ask, incredulous, “fancy someone like me?”

“I don’t know,” she answers seriously. “Besides anything else, I don’t make a habit of going for straight women. I certainly don’t make a habit of telling them. I like your face. It’s a kind, understanding face. I think that answers both questions really, why I was attracted to you, and why I had the courage to tell you so.”

I sit silently. I don’t know how long for, I just sit, looking at her. She shifts uncomfortably on her chair. When I finally break the silence, the words seem to come from nowhere.

“Would you like to kiss me?”

She looks at me sharply, hurt almost. “Don’t play with me, Bel. That isn’t funny.”

“No, really, I mean it. You’ve been nice to me, I’ve had the best day I’ve had in a long time, and an evening where I haven’t been lonely. I’d offer a man who did the same a kiss, even if I didn’t fancy him, if he wanted it. It seems the least I can do. If you want to kiss me, you are welcome to. ”

Nothing… the silence stretches. I shrug.

“You were just saying it to make me feel better, weren’t you,” I ask, “knowing you wouldn’t have to deliver on it?” It’s my turn to be hurt, though I can’t understand why.

She gets up from her chair and walks over to mine. She kneels in front of me and puts her hands on my shoulders. She looks me right in the eyes.

“I’d like to kiss you, Bel. I’d like it very much.”

And she does.

She touches her lips to mine, so gently, her mouth parted, but not wide. She waits for me to pull away, and I’m waiting too, expecting to be repulsed, but I’m not. Anything but. Her mouth tastes of wine and she smells of flowers. I lean towards her, not away, and I feel her stiffen just a little. One of her hands lifts from my shoulder, and laces into my hair, holding me, but it is my tongue that finds its way into her mouth, questing for, and finding, hers. I watch her eyes flutter closed and then I close mine too. All I’m aware of, at this minute is that there is somebody else here with me, kissing me and wanting me. And this kiss is very, very sweet and tender. I almost don’t want it to end, ever.

It does, of course. She moves away, and sighs.

I look at her again, so beautiful, and say, “Would you…”

She puts a finger to my lips and shushes me, shaking her head.

“I’d love to, but you’re a little drunk, and very tired, and lonely. It would kill me if you woke up tomorrow hating me. I think we should just go to our separate beds and sleep.”

We stand and go to our rooms and she says, “Goodnight, and thank you.”

I lay there in the darkness, thinking about the kiss, how it felt, how it made me feel. I’m aware of my body, more than peripherally, in a way I haven’t been since… well, since long before Daniel left. It feels good, but Rachel is right, I’m drunk and in no fit state to make life-changing decisions. I smile a little – there’s one thing, I think, that I am in a fit state to do. I hear little creaking noises from the bed on the other side of the wall that indicate I’m not alone in seeking relief. In the end I sleep.

And I wake shortly after dawn, and get up. I feel alive again, finally, and I walk quietly to the spare room. The door is ajar, and I push it open and go in. Rachel looks up at me, sleepily, blinking a little, and I say the words I’ve rehearsed all the way. “I’m not drunk anymore, and I’m not tired, but I’m still lonely. May I join you?”

Her smile is dazzling, as she replies, “Yes, please.”

I shut the door as I go to her.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

Funny how there are no writeups in this node that really seem to define what sex is.

Sex is the blessed union between two individuals for the purpose of conception.

The repeated thrusting of an erect penis into a vagina for the goal of expelling sperm towards an egg.

Sex is dildos and bondage and threesomes and orgies. Pillows and satin and showers and candles. A man and a woman. Two men, or two women.

Sex is penetration. Sex is satisfaction. Sex can be beautiful and ugly, relieving and painful at the same time.

Sex is a game. A career. An addiction. Sex is a crime.

Sex is not love, and love is not sex.

Sex is impatient, sex is unkind. It is envious, boastful and proud. It is rude, and self seeking, easily angered. Sex does not delight in the truth but rejoices with evil.

Sex is what all the dinners, all the movies, ice skating, and childish laughter; what all the kissing and holding and squeezing; the stroking and sucking and biting and pounding and grinding lead up to:

Screaming and moaning; bed thumps against the wall, springs squeaking, bodys throbbing and squishing and pounding… pounding harder… and harder, faster, louder… brain turning to a white fog of sparkle, breathing harder and harder, forgetting to breathe, forgetting where your body is, and who is with it; forgetting all but a sensation: tingly and cloudy nothingness, as you float back to the bed.

Sex is fun.