I’m aware of my lips, before anything else. There is something soft and velvet there. Shane. I can smell her hair. I moan, waking up from sleep, kiss back. It comes flooding back, and I dig my nails into the skin of her neck.
She groans. I open my eyes and it takes me a few seconds to see her, for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I see the fair skin of her forehead, dark hair swept back, and nothing else, because then she’s kissing me again, and my eyes flutter closed anyway.
“Hmm. Whatcha doing?”
“I’m makin’ love to my girl,” she murmurs, and I feel her thumb on my cheekbone.
Her lips abduct my thrilled whimper as she kisses me again. I’m shaking like water, raise my hand to touch her naked skin, feel the taut muscle and bone of her shoulders, her back, her neck. “Shane,” I hiss, the second she loses my lips. It’s a statement, not a question, so she answers only with more kisses. Her hand strokes my hair back behind my ear.
I’m reeling, underwater, floating in bliss. Is this easier for her in the barely lit dusk, without having to look in my eyes? I don’t care, because her mouth covers mine.
I trace the bumpy line of her spine down from her neck, fingers sliding into the furrow approaching the small of her back. Her naked skin is heaven, her fingertips on my face, her lips, are all heaven.
“Pure bliss,” I whisper, and she kisses me again.
“I know,” she whispers, pulling back, then she kisses me some more. The seconds elongate, our lips and fingers and bodies in a dance.
“Do you love me?” she whispers.
“Yesss…” I hiss, capturing her bottom lip between mine. “I love you…love you so much… Shane…”
“Me too,” she murmurs back, grinding her leg between mine. I cry out at the sudden pressure, cry mutating into a whimper, a long whine. Her fingertips graze over my bare *****, and my consciousness slips into another more primal level.
Fed by the sounds I’m making, she lowers herself down to nuzzle my *****, first with the silky skin of her cheek, then her lips, then her mouth which suckles and nips.
“Shane… so close… please.”
She draws back and it’s now too dark to see, but I know that if we could she’d be staring into my eyes. I know that she’s surprised.
She rolls onto the bed, laying so she’s beside me, and she switches on the nightstand lamp. It’s more of a night light than a lamp, and it casts the room in a warm dim cocoon.
I watch her, having no idea what she will do, shivering in anticipation. She looks at me solemnly, kisses me gently. I feel her fingers gliding down over my hip, into the valley of my *****. I moan, spread my legs, bending my upper leg.
She impales me with a stare as her fingers find my *****, and it’s all I can do to hold her gaze. Oh my god, she fully means to stare into my eyes while she makes me come. I don’t know if I can take it, but I can’t look away. She knows me so well, her fingers flicking my ***** so perfectly. To keep staring at her is an unspoken imperative, and it’s like riding a bronco or a playing a game of chicken. My eyes want to close and roll back in my head but they hold it, hold her; they stay on her beautiful eyes even when I start to buck roughly and cry out, when my eyes want to flutter back into my head.
She blinks, surprised at my tenacity in holding her gaze, and she quickens her fingers. I cry out, a guttural sound, spreading further. Her fingers are pressing so much pleasure into me, moving quickly.
I hold her gaze, and I come. Waves of it break and course back through me, and the sound coming out of my mouth sounds alien and intense. Still, I meet her eyes, and something there softens. I reach for her, even as the aftershocks of my ***** are ripping through me, throwing sparks throughout my body.
I rise up to my knees, and look down at her. Her lips are so lushly perfect, eyes so full of light, and it staggers me. Do other people feel bliss like this? I don’t know, but in a second I’m on her. I jump her roughly, biting red bruises into her neck, stroking roughly, nibbling and sucking her earlobe into my mouth. I scratch and bite and maul her, nearly drawing blood, I suck her bottom lip roughly and nip it, causing her to squirm. I am as rough as she was gentle but I sense that it’s not hurting her.
I move down on her and return to that place between her thighs that feels like my own center; I nuzzle there and with no ado begin suckling. It lasts for hours. She bucks breathes hard and when I look up I see her biting her lip. I trace her mouth with my slick fingers, causing her lips to part, then her tongue flickers against my fingers. I grab a fistful of her hair, then burrow into her, suckling her ***** into the perfect sucking O of my lips.
I get her so close a half dozen times. I don’t mean to tease, it seems to be her own body that’s holding her back. I start to worry, because the look on her face is tense. Perhaps she’s reacting to my nearly violent assault. So I backtrack up to her *****, gently, slowly lick. Touch her with ghostlike fingertips, and see goosebumps texturize her thighs and arms. I suckle gently, stroke her inside with delicate fingers, but this does not appear to do any better.
This goes on for a long horrible time. It’s not horrible for me, because I’d happily worship at her altar for days, but it seems horrible for her. I want to stop and ask her what’s wrong, but at the same time I want to see her come, see it break over her face like dawn.
Finally, I feel the faint quivering in her muscles which signify that she’s getting close. I move more quickly, reach up to graze her *****, fondling circles around her nipples. This seems to be what she needs, the spark catches and she begins to quietly shake. It’s a glorious thing to look up and see her androgynous body heaving with barely contained breath, her small ***** rising and falling as she quickens and comes.
I taste her as she comes, burrow my tongue inside to feel it from the inside.
Then I lie, spent, beside her. I close my eyes, satisfied, almost ready to sleep again, but I know we should be heading out to Sky soon.
“What time’s our reservation?”
“Eight,” she says, briskly kissing my forehead and smiling warmly. “I’ve gotta go do some stuff for tonight,” she says, fumbling into her jeans and sweatshirt. “I’ll be back in like an hour.”
“Okay.”
I sit up, the sheets falling back from my skin, perplexed. The second her sweatshirt is pulled over her body, she grabs her wallet from the dresser and slouches through the door.
“Shane?”
“Yeah?” She peeks back through the doorway, her fingers clutching the doorjamb.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s cool, promise.” She smiles quickly like a little boy, and though her body seems to hover with nervous energy, the warmth in her eyes corroborates her words.
I shower and dress and do my hair, trying to take it at face value. I need to learn to trust her. We’re a couple now, and I need to let some of my fear go and not worry so much. To some degree I succeed, then I remember the dreamlike delicateness with which she made love to me, so far out of the norm for us. Did I ***** up? Did something go wrong?
Chill the ***** out, Didi, I think, and sure enough at seven-thirty I hear her come back inside. She comes in smiling, smelling like cold air, and she comes over to me. She smells like our *****, and she presses a kiss to my cheek before disappearing toward the shower, shedding clothes.
Okay, I think. Roll with it, D.
In a half hour I’ve put on black pants with a shimmery blue blouse, and she emerges from the steamy bathroom smelling of green tea and looking perfect, berry-dark lips, smudged eyes, hair just so, wearing leather pants and a rock star shirt. We stare at each other for a minute.
“You look so ***** hot,” she smiles, and there’s warmth there.
“Get out of my brain, I was about to say the same thing.” I grin, then turn back to my mirror, smudging my eye makeup.
She comes to stand behind me and I stare at our reflection, mesmerized. She lifts my hair, and presses a rough biting kiss to the nape of my neck.
In the reflection I see my own eyes narrow as my lips part, gasping. Seeing my own reaction is suddenly too intimate, embarrassing, and I close my eyes. She lets my hair fall, tousles it a few times, slipping into stylist mode, then she just smiles. “You ready?”
I press my lips together, turn just a bit to the side and back. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
.
Her truck is about to die, so we take my car. I hand her the keys, since she knows where she’s going. There’s something strangely pleasing about seeing her drive my car, and I keep darting glances at her as we drive through the cool night.
She doesn’t say a word about bailing, and nothing in her mannerisms suggests a problem. She seems calm, happier than I’ve ever seen her, her eyes warm and open. She catches me looking and smiles, covering my hand with her own.
I’ve had a million dinners with her but still my heart is pounding as we enter the ultra-modern restaurant. The building is all glass and girders, super modern, shoji screens and recessed halogen lighting. She so cannot afford this.
“Hi, Shane,” the hostess smiles, and Shane smiles back. Maybe she can afford it after all, I’ve learned nothing if not that Shane has connections in mysterious places all over Los Angeles.
“Hi. I have a table for two.”
The hostess seats us in a quiet corner table, recites a list of specials, all of which I promptly forget. Both walls are glass, and I can feel the chill of the cool night just outside my skin. L.A. glitters before us, and I feel unsettled, off-balance.
Is this how she felt just after we made love? Is it why she went away for a while? I almost hope so. It would be such a relief to have this excited terrifying feeling in common with her.
“You okay?” She asks, eyeing me above her menu.
“Yeah. Just a little wired, kind of hyper.”
She smiles. Yeah, there is something there, some sort of recognition.
A waiter comes and greets her by name, shaking her hand. I wonder how they met. Shane sees me looking from him to her and smiles. “Tomo, this is my girlfriend Darah.”
Okay, this should not thrill me so much. Should not feel like Christmas and my birthday and the Fourth of July all at once. “Hi,” I smile, shaking Tomo’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” he nods benignly. Shane orders a Kirin and I go for the warm saki.
Tomo disappears to get our drinks and I eye her over my menu. “You’re so connected.”
“Yeah.” She curls the edge of her napkin up with a finger, then rolls it down with a flick of her thumb. Nervous energy. She does this over and over again. “One of the perks of my job I guess. Though I know Tomo from further back than that.”
“This place is amazing.”
She just smiles, pleased to have my stamp of approval, I guess. I turn my attention to my menu. Butterflies are reigning in my stomach and the thought of eating is foreign.
I have a million things I want to ask her but I feel content, calm and patient. She smiles at me. I smile back.
Breathe, I think. You can do this. It’s natural to be scared. She probably feels the same. What if she wants to call it off?
She turns and looks out the window. It is November and too cold for the deck below to host patrons. “I wish we could have been here on your birthday.”
I chuckle, thinking of the horror of the ER. “I wish we could have been anywhere but where we were on my birthday.”
“I’m sure I made it memorable for you.”
I shudder. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Hottie.”
“I won’t,” she promises, light in her eyes. “Seriously, this place is just so cool in the summer, outside, there’s live music and it catches this great breeze and there are paper lanterns everywhere. It’s really beautiful.”
“Wow. I love it already. I’ll bring you here, first warm spell we get.”
She smiles again.
She starts telling me about how she met Tomo, ten years ago, on Sunset. “I was like… seventeen. He was only fourteen and his mom and dad kicked him out after they found his stash of ***** *****.”
“*****.”
“Yeah. He was so small, just a little green kid, had no clue what he was getting into. So I kind of took care of him, taught him the ropes. He’s a good guy. A year later his parents invited him home so we wound up getting off the streets about the same time.” She casts her eyes away and takes a long swig of her beer. I can tell that it’s painful for her to talk about those years, but I sense that she’s making an effort.
I try to imagine her at seventeen, pretending to be a boy, jerking off strangers. The danger of it terrifies me even though it was almost ten years ago. Her strength blows my mind. How long since she’s gotten high? Sometimes I forget just how big her demons are.
I try to imagine her at four, her only parent gone. Where was her mom? She said only that she wasn’t around. Was she a junkie, a deadbeat? I try to imagine what her father was like, imagine that he was dark and slim like her. What would my life have been if my mother died when I was four? A sense of desolation stabs me, brings tears to my eyes. I quickly blink them away, lest she guess what I’m thinking about. She’ll think I’m pitying her. Will she ever understand that these obstacles make me love her more?
It’s not a chance I care to take on a night as fragile as this. I wrap my hands around the warm cup of saki, sip it slowly.
Tomo comes back with our food, and we unsheath our chopsticks, eating quietly. The sushi is fresh and amazing, perfectly prepared.
“What are we gonna tell our friends?” she asks, surprising me.
I sit there, chopsticks in the air, thrown by this.
“Well… I think first we need to define this thing between us, you know, before bringing it out in the open.”
“I thought I was your girl,” she says, and I’m amazed to see insecurity below her joking smile.
“You’re everything.” I blush the instant I’ve said it, but it’s no less true.
She smiles and looks down at the table, then sniffles. “We should probably tell Alice, and then everyone will know.”
I laugh, delighted. “True.”
We’re quiet for a minute. Is the idea of telling the gang about us rubbing her the wrong way? Is she afraid that we’ll be public knowledge, and the stream of sexual advances made toward her will dwindle?
“Do you wanna see other people?” I ask, stomach rebelling against idea of the piece of shrimp I’m about to eat.
She sets her chopsticks down, rubs her fingers as if they’re tired or cold. Oh *****, shouldn’t have asked it.
“No. Not really. But… I dunno if I can promise that. I know that’s what you want.”
“I never said that was what I wanted.”
“You didn’t have to, D.” For some reason I feel blood warming my face. I feel naked. No coincidence that I choose that moment to take a warm gulp of the alcohol. We are quiet for an excruciating minute. I don’t bother to deny it.
“I mean,” she says, picking up her chopsticks, “it’s not that I want to see anyone else, I love you, and I don’t want to be with anyone else. But how could I promise that in the future I might feel that way?”
“No one can ever say that with any certainty.”
“Right. I mean, I don’t know if I can be monogamous. I don’t know that I can’t, I just… I don’t wanna make promises that I can’t keep.”
“So you don’t want to see Carmen?”
“No. Carmen’s great, and if I’d never met you…”
Relief makes me light. I feel dizzy and off-balance, not quite secure. How can I feel so secure and so terrified at the same time?
We’re quiet for a minute. “Well, I admire that you don’t want to make me any false promises.”
“I’m sorry, D,” she says, and it hurts like *****.
“Well, why don’t we see how it goes. This is so new, and nothing’s guaranteed in life, you know?”
“I’ll tell you what I can promise you.” I look up, surprised. Her beauty hurts and salves me at once.
“I promise that I love you like I’ve never loved anyone before in my life. I promise that… when you’ve had a ***** day I’ll be there for you. I promise that I’ll try never to hurt you.”
I smile, but I’m thinking that if she will try so hard not to hurt me then why will she sleep with other women?
But at the same time, I understand her, that ***** is her panacea and her addiction. I understand that while she may be ready to give it up, she’s not sure, and she wants to be sure before she makes that promise. I totally get that, and in a way I love her for it.
“I can promise the same things to you.”
“Really?” Her eyes are shining so gorgeously in the light. “I thought the monogamy thing might have been a deal breaker.”
“It might be still, I don’t know.”
“Do you think we need to just proceed ahead and see what happens?”
“Yeah, I sort of do.”
She sips her beer, not taking her eyes off of me. “D, when I said I didn’t want anyone else, I mean it. It’s not the same.”
I smile. “Just keep being honest with me.”
That will have to be good enough for me, for now.