The garden was lush and alive with bird song and the scent of jasmine. Our cottage was in the back with a large gardenia beside the door, slightly apart from the others, and the splash of the fountain between only increased the feeling of seclusion. The hotel receptionist chattered on showing us the ironing board, the remote for the TV and DVD, remarking on the extra blankets in the armoire, and of course their deluxe business center.
As she rattled on to me about wireless and printing protocols and access codes you caught my eye and arched your eyebrow and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud and hustle her out in an unseemly rush.
Finally, she turned to leave but not without asking three times if there was anything we needed, anything at all. Just ask… you’re sure you know the number to ring reception? I ushered her to the door and stood guard until I was certain she was off to look after another guest.
I closed the door softly and turned to you. You smiled and drew the drapes. With them closed the light was pale blue and muted and with the room suddenly full of shifting shadows the sound of the fountain outside made it feel as if we were in an underwater kingdom. I watched you stretch to straighten the drapes. Your back arched and your breasts jutted forward straining against the red silk of your top. You caught me watching and smiled, one hand on your hip, and slowly, deliberately, you slid the tip of your finger down between your breasts.
You stepped away from the window and walked past me to the bed, barely touching me with your shoulder and hip as you passed. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of roses and lemon that lingers like an echo in the air behind you. You are so beautiful that I find it hard to breathe.
Beside the bed, you unfasten your skirt and turn for me to admire you fully. Your panties are cut high so the curve of your ass is framed in arcs of red lace. You lie on the bed on your stomach with your knees bent and feet in the air. I can see the soft swell of your breasts. You are relaxed and completely confident in your power. You lean your head to one side and raise an eyebrow at me.
“Well?” you ask. “What are you waiting for?”
I unbutton my shirt and now it is my turn to smile as you watch me. I step out of my jeans and I know you notice the line where my tan stops. I start to pull off my boxers but you stop me.
“Not yet,” you tell me, huskily. “There is something I need from you first. I want the truth, the naked truth.”
I must have looked puzzled because you lean your head back and laugh, then pat the bed. “Here,” you invite me, “I just have a few questions. Nothing scary, I promise.”
I lie beside you and feel your warmth.
“You have to focus,” you warn me, sounding every bit the teacher you are. I know you have seen my eyes wander to where your top rides up and gives a glimpse of the line of lace that outlines the curve of your ass. The lace is sheer and I see through to…
“Of course,” I answer quickly, tearing my eyes away, looking into your eyes and doing my best to stay focused on your words. I put on my attentive, good student face and will my thoughts to behave.
“Just a few questions,” you repeat slowly. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Describe your first sexual experience, and remember, details count!”
“I’m sure they do,” I mutter, surprising myself by becoming the unruly school boy to your teacher. Your look straightens me.
“The very first experience or the first time?” I ask, as much to myself as to you. “The first time. I was 16 and I was in love with Brit. The summer before we had kissed and touched. Okay, I saw that look — details you want, then details you’ll get. I touched her breasts one night when we walked away from the fire on the beach and we kissed until our lips ached and I didn’t know what to do next but it was sweet and tender. I still see her every year. She is a lesbian and happy and lives in California. But that is another story.
“The summer it happened was the next year. Nico came to the island; she had long dark hair and was a little heavy and sultry. All summer we had almost connected, hands barely touching when we sat beside each other. A kiss one day after swimming in the lake. Lying together watching clouds in the field. But each time it might have turned into something more we were interrupted, called back to the real world. We were both desperate for something without really knowing what it was. Only that we had to have it.
“The last night of the summer vacation it was foggy and dank and I couldn’t sleep. I snuck out of my parents house down all three flights of creaky steps and walked down the hill to the house where Nico was staying. She was awake. I watched for a moment; she was reading on the window seat, eating chocolate. I didn’t make a sound but she looked up and saw me in the light through the window. I still remember her smile. Shy and knowing all at the same time. My hair was wet from walking in the fog, she brushed it back and said I must be cold and hush because the rest of the house was sleeping.
“She took my hand and we went upstairs. In the dark, by her door, we kissed and she tasted of chocolate. We kissed for what seemed hours and my lips were bruised and I felt about to burst. Piece by piece we shed our clothes like skin we no longer needed. I kissed her shoulders and her belly, kissed her between the legs and felt her moan and bring her legs up around me. I licked her, breathing in the salt smell of her. Licked her and sucked, led by instinct more than any knowledge of woman or anatomy, led by her sighs and the pressure of her thighs and her fingers in my hair. Licked and sucked her until her belly tensed and she arched and bucked wildly.
“When she calmed, she kissed me and I felt the dark wave of her hair across my stomach and thighs, felt her mouth around my cock and her teeth so sharp against me driving me wild with the desire to posses her, to take her. I knelt above her and without thinking, without needing to think, we fit. It wasn’t that I pressed into her or that she pulled me in, more like two halves of a magnet drawn together, just made that way. As my cock pressed into her she cried out and I hesitated, though every fiber of my body was desperate to be inside her, to move within her. I held like that with the tip of my cock just barely inside her until her arms came around me and her legs pulled me in, deeper and deeper, and held me there.
“We moved like that for a time which could have been moments or hours until it felt as if a wave lifted inside me and we were held at the peak. I let it pass through me, let it subside just a little and then began to move in her again. Slid in and out until she cried again and laughed and whispered, I’m coming, in my ear. And later I had just barely the sense to pull out before I too lost control. But I didn’t come and stayed hard and she took me in her hand and whispered in my ear until finally I came in an explosion that took us both by surprise.”
I pause and watch you, your tongue just showing between your teeth. A flush spreading from your cheeks down your neck.
“So, how did I do?” I ask.
“Not bad for a start,” you reply.
“A start?” I say, reaching out to tuck a stray curl of hair behind your ear and slipping down your neck, reaching for more.
You catch my hand and take a finger in your mouth, teeth sharp and bright, lips red in a smile. “Yes, you know I am curious. I mean there you are, spent, but what happened next?” Your finger trails along my leg, from my ankle to just above my knee and back again.
I sigh. “Next, hmmm. Let’s see, we curled into each other and I only closed my eyes for a moment and then it was dawn and the grey morning breaking. I was only 16 and suddenly aware that I was not where I was supposed to be. I dressed and she stirred and sighed and smiled and we shared a sweet moment still enveloped in the glow, still completely in our private world. But you remember those creaky steps I mentioned as I crept out of my parents’ house? Well there was my father waiting, and my mother as well. And suddenly I was ashamed and just like that the glow was stripped away. They couldn’t talk to me, only at me, and finally I crept away to sleep, like a whipped puppy. It was the last day of the summer holiday and I only saw her again to say goodbye. All the other kids in our group were there and it was stiff and awkward and I had nothing in my heart but dismay and anxiety. She wrote me later. A long and rambling teenage letter, neither of us knew how to talk about what had happened. You remember 16? What did I know really about life and love? Nothing, and not knowing what to do I did nothing.”
“Do you ever think of her?” you ask.
I lean back, hands behind my head, suddenly caught by the past. “I have thought about her many times and wondered, but have never found her and though I searched never had a night like that again.”
“Never? You never had a night like that again?” You move and shift so you’re lying on your side and as I watch you run your hand along the curve of your waist and hip, smoothing the edge of your top, sliding a finger just under the lacy edge of your panties. “Did you ever tell your wife about this, Ben?” you ask.
“No, my love,” I answer, “you are the first.” It is odd but I feel lighter now as though I have set down a burden I had no idea I was carrying.
“Then I’m sure you won’t mind telling me about any other special occasions.” You reach back and loosen your hair and with a small shake of your head let it cascade onto your shoulders.
“Maybe you think I am terrifically experienced,” I answer. “But actually, it isn’t true. A girl here and there, but somehow the memory of walking into my parents’ house, well it haunted me. So many other girls and women ended up…” I stop for a moment, remembering the ache of love gone wrong over the years. “It was so easy, so perfect and natural that first time, but after that, nothing worked.
“Oh, there were some memorable moments. The night Mariam and I walked down to the meadow above the sea and the kitten followed us and as we sat and talked and stroked the kitten suddenly our hands found each other and her mouth was wide and warm and moist. Or the time Patsy came to my room and I knelt before her and slid down her jeans and kissed her through her silk panties. But somehow the start of those moments didn’t carry through. They stayed just moments. When I reached beyond, went beyond, it became a rush and a jumble and they…”
“Shhh,” you whisper, putting a finger on my lips to hush me. “Ah, shame, my beautiful man.” You pout for me and raise a leg for me to admire. “And do I?”
“Live up to your promise?” I ask, and laugh easily now. “Ah, gorgeous woman, you have more promise in your little finger than all my previous moments strung together. I don’t know what I did to deserve such magic again.”
I love the way you blush now and duck your head at the compliment, letting your hair hide your smile and satisfaction. I roll and catch your foot and press along the shapely sides, rub into the pads of your toes, trace the curve of your heel and the bend of your ankle, slide between your toes. You close your eyes for a moment and I hear your breathing become shallower and faster. My hand slides up your leg behind your knee and along your thigh.
You roll and put a little distance between us, reach back to the nightstand by the bed and retrieve your glasses. “I am not done with you yet. You’ve given an adequate account of your early years, now I’d like to learn more about your fantasy life.”
I love that you blush as you ask, love that you want so much from me. “So what precisely would you like to know?” I ask, putting the question back to you, wanting you to say it, say what you want from me, loving the slight squirm you make as you think how to put it.
You give me a long look over the top of your glasses and I can see the hint of a smile, though you do a wonderful job suppressing it. “Tell me a story,” you whisper. “The story you would tell yourself when you are alone.”
“It is summer,” I begin, “and I am staying by the sea. I like to walk early in the morning before the beach is crowded, while the sea is calm. Each day I walk a little farther, exploring. I saw you the second day, searching for shells above the line of the tide. You looked up as I passed and my heart caught when you smiled. Then you turned back to your search and I to my walk. It was one of those rare moments of connection. Fleeting, momentary, a sense that I must have met you before, a face so familiar I almost stopped. But these moments pass in an instant, a face in a passing car, or in a crowd. Recognized and lost in the same instant. I looked for you the next day and the next but the beach was empty but for the determined morning runners wearing pained expressions and little else. Another day and another pass.
“ And then today a line of mist hangs glittering in the early sun just beyond the breaking waves. It is like a curtain drawn making the beach private and quiet. I walk out onto the damp, cool sand and there, just above the waves is an arrow pointing towards the east and the rising sun. I follow the line of footprints and I am suddenly and inexplicably sure they are yours and I look ahead intently into the mist. At first there are several lines of footprints and then I meet a group walking back and soon there is only the single line of prints in the sand, sometimes they edge into the foam and sometimes rise up the beach out of the water’s reach.
“I come to the rocks that mark the end of the long curve of the beach and suddenly, here, the sun breaks through the fog and the air is bright and sparkling and alive. I follow a small path over the rocks and there, caught in the rocks’ embrace, is a small cove and a patch of sand almost invisible until I stand directly above it. And there you are, stretched out on a blanket, a book lying by your side. Head back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun on your face. You are wearing a long shirt over your bathing suit and the top buttons are loose.
“I have come over the rocks quietly and I stand there a long moment watching you, close enough to see the sun glint in your hair, close enough to see your breasts rise and fall as you breathe. I walk up quietly but you must feel my footsteps through the sand because your eyes open just the barest slit and a small, half smile comes to your lips. But you don’t say a word and only lie back all the way with your towel under your head and your eyes closed as if you are asleep. I kneel beside you. Gently, I undo the buttons on your shirt and open it. Gently my hands go to your thighs and with their soft pressure you open your legs but still without opening your eyes, still without a word.
“I caress your upper legs and let my fingers draw circles and lazy eights on the satin skin on the insides of your thighs. My fingers reach up and slide under the leg bands of your suit, slide up and around your hips and back where the curve of your ass swells firm and round. I come back and reach further to let my fingers run across your mound and slide along the lips tracing the line of your sex, dipping for a moment into the moisture that is beginning to rise. I watch your face and the half smile is still there, only now a flush has risen from the tops of your breasts and up your neck.
“I bend down and through the fabric of your suit I kiss your pussy, pressing my tongue against you, feeling you begin to push back. My tongue is sliding up and down the length of your pussy, up to the pubic bone and then down and down toward your ass. I can feel you wet and hot through the fabric and I can hear your breathing now and the catch in your breath as my tongue passes over the top of your pussy. I hold it there, flicking back and forth.
“My hands reach for your shoulders and push down the straps of your suit. You sit up now, eyes heavy lidded with desire, and you help me with your suit. We ease it down to your waist and then you lie back again, one arm over your face, the other in my hair, guiding me, your touch telling me what you want and how much you want it.
“Your hips rise up so that I can slide your suit over your ass and down your legs. I lean forward again and now my tongue faces no barrier but reaches into you, and you press against me. My hands cupping your ass are slippery with you.
“You shift under me and turn so you can reach my cock. You grip me firmly and I know you can feel me surge with your touch. Your fingernails graze the underside of the head and I moan with pleasure as I continue to tease you with my tongue. You hold me with both hands now, one hand cupping my balls, squeezing them gently and then not so gently, until I am squirming with sweet agony. Your other hand strokes the head of my cock, slides down the length then back to let your nail slide along the slit at the tip. In response, my tongue and lips move faster. I feel your mouth come over the head of my cock. Feel your tongue around the head and then slowly, oh so slowly, your tongue slides down the length of me.
“I am desperate to come but I want you with me. I want you to be as desperate as I am, to call out and ask — no, to beg — for more. I turn so I can kiss your belly, suck each lovely breast and tease the nipples hard. Kiss along your shoulder and the sweet, soft skin of your neck. I lean back so I can see your face, flushed with passion and greedy with lust. I look into your eyes as I slide my cock into you. I press in as deeply as I can, feeling the pulse of your body around me and the warm grip of your muscles holding me. I pull out until just the tip of my cock brushes the lips of your pussy and wait until I feel you reach for me with your arms and your hips, reach and pull me deep into you again.
“We move like that in the warm pocket of sun with the sound of the sea around us and the sharp salt smell of the ocean and the warmth and the waves hold us as we hold each other. We rise and fall with the sound of the rushing waves, building and then falling back and then building once more. I feel the rhythm of your body change and become deeper and more serious as though you are reaching for something, moving toward a finish, and there is an urgency in our breath and in the moans and in the grip of my fingers on your shoulders as we reach for one another.
“I feel you press up suddenly, taut with every muscle contracted, and at that moment I push deeply into you and feel the heat surge through me in a rush of release. We lie still except for the shudder that passes from me to you and back again and then suddenly we are laughing at the sun’s warmth and wave’s song and sheer animal joy of passion and loving and release.
“Did you like my story?” I ask.
Your smile manages to be both inviting and alarming. “I think it is has promise, but we will have to see how things come out in the end, won’t we?”