Torn Shapes of Desire Page 9

  You slide it further, to the bulge in the tight black pants, cupping your hand around quickly hardening flesh. You run your fingers up and down his inner thigh, moving up to caress his balls, then between his legs to squeeze a firm buttock. He stands motionless throughout and only because he is so close can you hear his quickened breath above the music.

  You then lean forward and gently breathe on that space just inside his hip. Reaching out with your tongue, you trace a path to his now hard cock, nibbling gently through the fabric. Your hand between his legs pulls him closer and he sways forward, extending one hand to the table for support. The other finds its way to your hair and wraps itself in long, black waves, pulling your head closer as well.

  You give him one more kiss and pull away, though. His hand in your hair is still, exerting no force. You stand up, coming only to his chest, and deliberately begin to undo buttons. One, two, three, four... using that same terribly slow movement that he taught to you from the stage. His chest is smooth, as you prefer, almost hairless. You rub your cheek against it as you continue to undo buttons. Five, six, seven... and eight. Finished, you reach up and slip the shirt off his shoulders. It slides off, until caught at the wrists. You hadn’t undone the buttons at the cuffs, and he is trapped within the shirt. You leave him that way.

  You begin to drop tiny kisses on his skin, following a long, slow path down one arm. You nip gently at the elbow as he tries to remain still, and spend an endless time licking and sucking each finger of his left hand. You enjoy this immensely, circling the tips with your tongue, biting very gently with your teeth, humming in the back of your throat in time to the swelling music.

  You then let go of his hand and return to his white body. You pause to mark him, sucking hard at the tender juncture of neck and collarbone until a violent red mark appears. You pull back to admire your work, then pull your fingernails down his chest, just hard enough to leave clear red lines, beautiful against the white skin. You look back up at him, and he is smiling.

  You go back to dropping kisses down his body, curving over his chest, sliding down his stomach, your tongue licking at the sweat coating his skin. You nibble at his ribs, and his right hand, still caught in your hair, pulls you sharply away. Your head is pulled back so you are forced to look at him briefly. He shakes his head again. You nod in agreement and he relaxes his grip.

  Now your fingers undo the button on his pants and unzip them. He wears nothing underneath, and his cock is caught against one side. You reach in with your right hand and grasp it firmly, pulling it out of its prison and into the open air.

  The air in the room is cooler now. A cold breeze is blowing from up in the rafters, and the sweat is cooling quickly on your body, chilling your skin. You move closer to him and kneel down, your hair falling around you. You are an elegant line of black, your body silhouetted in candlelight.

  You unlace his boots quickly, growing impatient. He lifts each leg so you can pull off the boots and toss them under the table. Black socks go too, and it only takes a moment for you to reach up and pull down the black pants, unpeeling them from his muscled legs. He steps out of those as well, and now stands clad only in the blue silk hanging from his wrists, one hand still entangled in your hair.

  He is beautiful in the candlelight, glowing lion–gold. You rise to your feet again, and stand before him, still fully dressed yourself. You shiver in the growing cold, and lean forward to press a chaste kiss on warm lips...but the kiss doesn’t remain chaste for long. He captures your mouth in his, and the kiss turns almost violent. His tongue probes your mouth, exploring, as his hands clasp your waist and pull you towards him.

  He cannot embrace you fully with his arms constrained, but his fingers hold you firmly, the thin chiffon no barrier as strong hands slide down your hips to cup your thighs and pull you to him. His warmth is welcome against the cold of the room. His eyes glow pale blue in the candlelight.

  You suddenly notice the music crescendoing, and you are somehow sinking down to the lushly carpeted floor, underneath him. He is kissing you fiercely now, and you moan, arching up to meet him as his fingers dig into your buttocks. There is the faint sound of fabric tearing and his arms are suddenly sliding up your curving back, tangling once more in your hair, scratching down the dark brown skin covering your spine.

  Your own arms are wrapped around his at first, but as he pulls down the straps of the black dress, you relax your arms and slip them free, curving up so he can pull down the top of the dress. He quickly unsnaps the front of your lace bra, freeing your breasts into the chill of the room, their dark nipples firm and erect in the bracing cold, and your own heat. He drops one last quick kiss on your lips, and then begins to tease your nipples with his tongue, tracing inward spirals on your breast until he has almost reached the nipple and then suddenly changing to the other breast, leaving you gasping.

  You only tolerate this for a few minutes before you reach up and pull his head towards you, whimpering softly as you do so. You’ll never know whether it was the whimper or your movement that caused him to take pity on you, but soon his mouth is warm and wet against your right nipple, sucking and pulling and nibbling gently while he

  He then begins to nibble the skin of your stomach, your ribs, pushing the dress down until it just covers your hips and he can taste the salty skin near your hipbones. Your moans are almost covered by the rising music. You are writhing beneath him now, begging under your breath for him to please fuck you now, sliding your legs down his sides so the chiffon rides high on your thighs. The fabric inches upward until you can finally rub your cunt against his skin, bare flesh against flesh.

  At that he seems to break, and lifts his head from your body long enough to look at you one more time. Then he slides his hands down and at first he seems to be removing your dress but he’s actually sliding it up and lifting you higher and he is suddenly plunging in you, his long hard cock enveloped in your warm wetness. The music swells to a grand crescendo now, and the room is echoing as he moves back and forth inside you. Your legs wrap around him and you pull him closer, using his body to pull yourself deeper and harder against him.

  And you are splitting inside and out and you are both sweating now despite the cold, your slick bodies sliding against each other and your long black hair sprayed out behind you like a fan against the dark green carpet. He bends down once more to a breast and bites and your fingers are digging deep into his shoulders. Your legs are clenched tight against his body trying to hold him still but he is too far gone for that and pounds deeper and faster and you are suddenly screaming above the music and you are both curving into a sudden frozen arc and the spotlight suddenly comes down on you both, blinding white. As you collapse into a pile of cream and chocolate skin, limbs wrapped around each other, his head resting on your shoulder, a solo flute arpeggios its way up into ending.

  As the spotlight fades to black, restrained clapping is heard from the gallery up in the rafters. The clapping swells as more of the audience joins in, until the room is thundering with applause. You relax, finally satisfied.

  Orange after Midnight

  only Chicago could have a fucking orange sky

  formed of antique lampposts and

  framed by fake Gothic buildings

  sere grass where once, hours past midnight,

  sky still orange

  we regretted cold and fading inhibitions that

  prevented love to match the sky

  on manicured lawns

  Chantal

  She still doesn’t know.

  Chantal sits cross–legged on my futon, leaning back against the blue cushions. She hugs my stuffed lion close. Its golden fur glows in the dim light of my single working lamp, blending into her honey–brown skin. Her skin is a legacy of her despised mother, the fashion model. She isn’t quite as gorgeous as her mother had been, and she isn’t looking her best at the moment, with tears running down her face and dressed in rumpled clothing she’s slept in for two days straight, but she’s stil
l quite beautiful. Not that I’m objective.

  I’m trying to listen to her telling me again just how much she had loved Jeff, but even the gallon of chocolate ice cream we’re inhaling is starting to lose its interest as I listen to this story for the hundredth time, in yet another variation. It isn’t just Jeff. She’s done this before. Fallen in love, had great sex, realized she had picked a jerk, dumped him or been dumped. Over and over, always with the wrong guy. It was only a month or so ago that I’d started to wonder if maybe she were really a lesbian.

  We’d discussed it before, since I’d come out to her years ago, but she’d always denied the possibility and quickly changed the topic. She’d started avoiding my touch then too, giving brief hugs on greeting and parting and sitting much farther away than she had before. And right now I’m regretting having a full–size futon, large enough that she can easily sit out of reach. I’d have to lean way over before I could run my fingers over those impossibly long brown legs, curving down her calf to cup her foot in my small hands, gently rubbing her toes. She starts sniffling again, and I hand her another tissue.

  My heart is beating much too fast, and I can’t stop looking at her, hoping she won’t notice my wanting, possessive gaze. Time is running achingly slow as I avoid looking at my watch. Not because she’d think I wanted her to go, oh no. If it were up to me, I would have her stay safe in my bed, warm in my embrace forever.

  The doorbell rings. She looks up at me helplessly.

  “Don’t worry, Chantal. I’ll get rid of whoever it is quickly. Just hang on a sec, okay?”

  She nods in silence broken only by a sniffle quickly smothered in tissues. I walk over to the buzzer.

  “Who is it?”

  “Giordano’s delivery.”

  “We didn’t order any pizza.”

  “Hey, I’ve got your pizza right here.”

  His voice is muffled through the intercom, and I shrug my shoulders as I open the door.

  “I’d better go down and explain to him.” I tell her as I head downstairs.

  “Okay” she quavers, and for a moment I don’t want to walk through that door, trapped in the spell of her lush contralto. She is so much a child, huddled there in her huge green flannel shirt, incongruously blond hair falling free across her face. But then I shake free of the spell. I walk down the half flight of stairs to where the man in the crisp white shirt stands holding a pizza, already having come through our broken security doors. As I near him, he holds out the pizza box towards me. I reach out... and he drops the box and is suddenly somehow shoving me up against the crumbling plaster wall of the stairwell, and I am almost falling onto him. I tense to struggle, but suddenly feel the prick of a knife through my thin black t–shirt, uncomfortably cold against my rib.

  “Christ!” explodes almost unbidden from my throat, my voice rising dangerously. “What the hell do you think...”

  “Shut up, bitch.” he says, deceptively calm, in a voice pitched to carry. I can tell he is nervous. The knife trembles against me as he urges me up the stairs, and I am suddenly terrified of what is happening here in this now unfriendly building. We enter my apartment, and he swings the door closed behind us with his foot, not bothering to lock the door.

  Chantal has risen from the futon and stands framed in a halo of flickering light. That lamp has never been reliable, and now in this uncertain moment it seems to sound its death–knell, flicking in and out as we walk slowly into the room.

  “Not a sound, bitch.” he warns, cutting off the scream that is only now rising in her throat. “If the neighbors hear anything unpleasant, that’s it for your girlfriend.”

  Chantal sinks down onto my rumpled blue blankets, a muted moan caught in her butterfly mouth and frightened eyes locked on the glint of bright steel against black silk. I feel a sharp pain where the knife point lies poised against me, but it is impossible to tell if I am actually bleeding against the black.

  “Strip.” he orders her, an unnerving thread of excitement clear in the tremor of his low voice.

  She shakes her head mutely in protest, wrapping her arms tight around her golden body. She must not know how that motion pulls the fabric of the shirt taut against her full breasts, and pulls the fabric sliding up her legs, baring even more tawny thigh. I catch my breath in shameful pleasure at the sight, and am brought back to reality only by the lifting of the knifepoint from my ribs.

  Just as I start to shift out of his grasp he slides a tightly–muscled arm across my throat, pulling me back against him. He has lifted the knife only to bring it to my throat, and I freeze. He slowly, so slowly, slides the frighteningly sharp knife down the front of my silk top, slicing it cleaning in half, and leaving the fabric to flap aimlessly in the wind of the creaking fan. I wear no bra at three a.m. Small pale breasts have fallen free, pink nipples hard with fear, and the cold breeze, and excitement. I am wearing only black silk shorts now, and I cannot help but think how beautiful he and I must look, black silk against his white shirt and pants, brown curls so oddly similar. He looks like my brother, I suddenly think, and then must struggle down dangerous laughter. My nerves are being stretched far too taut. I fear I will break.

  He lifts the blade up to a breast and I am truly frozen now as he holds the knifepoint a fraction of an inch away from tender skin. He looks back at Chantal.

  “Strip.” If before his voice was nervous with excitement, it is now implacable. It would take someone far braver than my poor fawn Chantal to resist, and she slowly begins to unbutton the oversized shirt. He is not content with the flannel slowly slipping from her shoulders, though.

  “Stand and strip.” he says, and she obeys almost silently, muffling the whimpers deep in the back of her throat. Endless moments later she has unbuttoned the last button and the shirt falls unheeded to the floor. My gaze slips back and forth between her radiance (never before has she seemed so beautiful) and the possessive wanting in his eyes. “Come here.” he says, and at that I stiffen even more, wanting to slap that look from his face, that purr from his voice.

  Her hands flutter up and down her body as she walks toward us, futilely attempting to preserve some shred of modesty, of dignity. It is useless. She is too fragile a flower to stand up against this kind of torment, and the tears welling in her eyes have provoked a growing rage within me. She stops inches away from me, shivering in the direct wind from the ceiling fan.

  His knife hand suddenly drops away from my breast, although his left arm is still locked around my throat. He is fumbling with the zipper on his pants, finally dropping them to lie puddled on the floor around his feet. His legs are startlingly pale, almost blending into the white cloth. He wears no underwear either, and his erection pokes out from his shirttails, rising hungrily.

  “On your knees, bitch.” he says to her, the hunger clear in the hoarseness of his voice. “Suck me off.”

  And suddenly I can’t take anymore. This has gone as far as I can stand. I jerk sideways, pulling free momentarily of his arm. His knife hand comes up quickly though, and his other hand swings in a wide grab from Chantal... only to be blocked as I step calmly in front of it.

  “No.” I say, the words sticking in my throat as I strive to make my voice as soft and seductive as possible. “Please” as I slide to my knees in front of him, “let me.” My eyes are locked on his, and I fervently hope that he can see in them that he has pushed me far enough, farther than is safe for any of us. I am all too aware of Chantal’s gasping breaths behind me, the only sound she has let herself make, and of her skin scant inches away from mine. I wait for his response, unable to read past the desire in deep brown eyes.

  He stares in silence for long seconds, knife poised in his right hand. He looks me over slowly, insolently, and I will myself not to stiffen against his intrusive gaze. Finally he nods, silently. I lean forward and run my tongue down his stiff erection. I trace small, lazy circles around the shaft. I tease the head with flicking tongue until the growing fever in the eyes I have not dared glance away from war
ns me that teasing will not be permitted for long. And I suddenly realize that I find this man beautiful after all, and if he hadn’t had a knife to my throat I might have wanted this as much as he did. It is then that I first begin to tremble.

  It is quickly over, and I swallow carefully, not wanting to rouse his dangerous unpredictability. I wait, kneeling in front of him, holding his eyes with mine once more, willing him not to look away, to glance at Chantal. He seems to read my desire. His next words are addressed solely to me, “Strip and lie down.” He seems to disregard Chantal, though his body is still tight, still alert. I do not think I can get the knife away. I rise obediently, and quickly step out of the black silk shorts, not wanting them to be torn as well. Some part of my mind must still believe that we will survive this.

  I lie down on the futon, pushing aside blue blankets to create a clear space in the center, baring the dark green sheets. I stretch lazily, offering my body up for him to drink deep. A brown cat curled in the blankets. My eyes are focused on his face, on the raw desire battling with some indefinable thought. I doubt I could look away if I wanted to. Some tiny detached part of me wants desperately to photograph his face. Portrait of a rapist. I am shattering into a hundred different elements, held together only by the need to protect.

  His free hand is suddenly on Chantal’s shoulder, twisting her cruelly around, off–balance. Then the hilt of the knife is shoved into the small of her back, and she falls onto me. I voice a wordless protest, but she falls silent, curving so as not to hit too hard. Even in this she is graceful. Then he begins to speak.

  “Go on, bitch. Fuck her. I want to watch you two sluts fucking each other on your nice, clean sheets. Eat her, you dirty slut!” His voice rises higher and higher, and I wonder if perhaps the neighbors will hear. Doubtful — the walls are not that thin. Chantal is shaking her head at the stream of invective, terror blossoming, a flower in her face. And suddenly I reach up and hold her face still in my hands, my eyes promising her that it will be all right. An outright lie; I have no idea what is happening now. She reaches a hand up to clasp one of mine, then buries her head in my shoulder. For this moment, this man is giving me a perversion of my deepest desires. It would be unfair to ask me to refrain.