Victory

Tuesday night. Clutching a beer in a cold room, still wrapped in my jacket, anxiously holding hands with friends and staring at the news projected on the wall.

I've been up since 4:30 and I'm tired and sore and drinking to steady my nerves as we wait, we all wait, wondering...

And then it flashes on the screen, and we're crying. Almost everyone. I'm choking back sobs and looking around and then I see him looking at me.

We've only spoken once or twice, but everyone's hugging around me so I use the excuse to fall into his arms, against his tall, lean body, and let him hold me.

"We did it," I say.

"Yes," he replies.

I let him go and glance over my shoulder at the doorway to the upstairs offices. I move away and walk in that direction, not sure if he's going to follow.

Footsteps echo behind me, but I don't look back. I hear the door close, and then I turn around. We're both smiling like idiots, and I step toward him, pressing myself against him. Our lips meet and it's electric, delicious, earnest and just a bit messy. Like high school when your mother might walk in at any moment.

I want to feel what's under that big sweatshirt, but I slide my hands up and rake them through his hair instead, and he slides his hands under my coat, fumbles with the edge of my shirt, raking it upward. His hands are cold but my shivers aren't just from the temperature.

He presses my back up against the door and I run my hands down to the waist of his jeans. He's hard already and I fumble with his belt.

His lips find that spot at the base of my neck that melts me every time. This young boy's got good instincts. I purr against him. His fingers are warmer as they slide below the waistband of my skirt.

"Is this a cliche?" I laugh softly.

"Do you care?"

"No," I whisper and finally get his jeans unbuttoned.

His hands shove my skirt up and push my panties out of the way and he slides inside of me, smooth and perfect. We're going to be missed by the fiftysomething people just on the other side of the door, but all I feel for the moment is his body against mine and twin waves of jubilation and pleasure riding up my spine.

My legs tighten around his waist and I gasp softly, shuddering, and bury my moans against his neck, digging my teeth in.

His voice breaks as he comes, a soft noise that makes me smile.

For a second we hold each other steady, then he lets me down and we shrug our clothes back into place, smiling, flushed. I go to open the door and he pulls me back for a second, kissing me again. He tastes saltysweet.

I step out the door first and into the room, and he waits behind me.

"Where'd you go?" a friend asks me.

"I just needed a second alone," I reply, still smiling.

(just a fantasy)

On the phone

It was a dirty little secret.

He would call me up in the middle of the night and we'd spend hours on the phone. I liked his California drawl, his laugh, his unironic use of the word "gnarly" and the things we would talk about, argue about.

We would talk until I was half-asleep, curled in my bed, stroking my hands down my own skin. It wasn't even dirty talk, not really, though sometimes he'd laugh and tell me that he was looking at my pictures right now, and my hand would creep down between my legs...

I never told him what I was doing.

I kept my toy beside my bed.

I reached down for it, pulled it out, and switched it on, keeping the phone next to my ear on my pillow. It was a quiet one, but it did the job, teasing my already-wet cunt. The vibrations made me shiver, but I had to keep my voice calm, to pretend that nothing was different, that I was enthralled with his story.

His voice was hazy, his words unimportant, as I stroked myself, breathing deeply, calmly, not allowing my hips to shake or my voice to break, just a tiny catch in my breath. The sweat was rising on my skin, I reached up to steady the phone with one hand and moved the other one faster, the vibrations thrilling me...almost there, yes...and I came, holding myself still, letting only the softest of gasps escape.

"You know what I mean, dude?" he said in my ear.

Oh, yes, I do.

Sharing.

I have a couple of stories I want to share with you.

I don't know if I can do them justice right now.

One of them is true. One of them is only in my head. I'm not going to tell you which is which. I'm not going to tell you who they're about, or if it's the same person.

They're moments that haunt my dreams, make me shiver and smile when I'm reading alone, make me slide my hands under my skirt...

Thoughts of the stubble on his cheek brushing my thigh...

Thoughts of his voice whispering in my ear...

I will share them soon, I promise.

Creating myself

I put on makeup, lean into the mirror, examine my skin.

I make myself into something you think you can understand. Paint my lips, exaggerate my eyes, pour myself into tight things that you think you can get underneath by peeling them off, but what I've created instead is a shield that you can't quite get past, and underneath it is all my real feelings.

I kiss you and part of me is there, part of me is feeling your lips, your tongue, your hand sliding beneath my skirt and finding, slowly, what you're looking for.

And part of me is above, and watching, and recording.

I do these things for the story to tell later.

Story: A former friend, and more recent enemy, with his face between my legs on a kitchen countertop. It is my birthday. I am twenty-five. He loved me once. Part of him still does. And part of the ritual when we fuck is making each other come harder, better, longer than we ever have before. It's revenge, sort of. It's a point that we have to prove. He kisses me afterward so I can taste myself. And in the morning we wake up and it's not even really awkward so much as we simply know that it only works for those few hours in the night. We barely talk.

Story: Against a wall in the train station, around a corner. It's late. I am drunk. And his kisses are sweet, the sweetest I've tasted for years and thousands of miles. I can feel his cock through his jeans, but he can't have me. It's just a tease. His fingers teasing. We breathe heavy, against each other. What do we want?

Story: Two beds in a dorm room that smells of old sweat. They are so close I could reach out and touch the boy in the other bed, who is asleep, or pretending to be so. I am kissing a boy with skin so tattooed I can barely tell what color it was underneath, and his kisses are delicious, perfect--hard to remember this now--that his touch, so hesitant, and his whispers, slightly shy, kept me shaking on the brink for hours. It was all downhill once we actually had a room to ourselves.

Story: A boy I knew from when we were kids--literally kids, grade school boyfriend that I've found again through the magic of the Internet--kissing me in the back of a cab. I have driven several hours to be there, and I am beyond tired and into delirium. I want this moment to last. He tastes so good. The sparkle in his eyes, the crooked grin that I remember...it's a trip back in time. But it can't last, doesn't last. Just for the night, and not even then.

I can say no to most people easily, but a bit of history, a little weirdness, a taste of magic or the promise of getting caught and there's a story to tell, later. A piece of you I can use. And so I give you the piece of me that you want to see. The taste you want. The person you think I am.