Art Reception

Men like Will make me exert every bit of self-control I have, just to appear sane, and I really wasn't doing a very good job of it so far. Meeting a mind like that, so quick and bright, so agile, I tend to lose perspective. I tend to talk too much, and I end up in a hundred overlapping digressions that sound like madness. I lose people when I do that, and I didn't want to lose this one.

I am grateful for my lengthy and pointless liberal arts education in this one respect: people like Will, who might not otherwise take me seriously at all, tend to at least give me a chance when they discover that I'm able to speak intelligently about literature and philosophy and psychology and art. What I Know comes from another education entirely, but my ability to quote Eliot and Ovid, to discuss Jung and Camus is a doorway, a way to give myself credentials, so that when I begin spouting madness about Taoist orgies and Tibetan charnel ground rituals, they at least stay with me for a while.

I let him segue back into safe topics like philosophy for a while after we got back inside the reception. I knew he was still processing what had just happened out in the garden. My suspicion was that public fellatio wasn't something he was accustomed to. So I drank a bit more champagne and let him tell me about Schopenhauer. But it was getting late, and I noticed that most of the guests had left. It was time to go somewhere else.

"If I have any more of this, I won't be able to behave myself at all."

"Really?" he said. "Perhaps I should get you another glass."

"Oh, we wouldn't want to shock all these nice people," I said, with my best innocent look. My mind returned to the undoubtedly audible moans a few of these same "nice people" may have heard from the garden just a little while ago. I could tell he was thinking the same thing. He grinned. Were his ears turning a bit red?

"Perhaps we have indeed been shocking enough for this crowd already. Shall we go?" he said.

"It has been a lovely time," I said, "but yes. I think my head is quite satisfyingly full of Japanese prints for the moment." Because I have the mind I have, my imagination immediately turned to some of the more vivid Japanese art I'd seen in pillow books. I struggled to stay focused.

We left unobtrusively, and the deep, cricket-filled night outside the party was a pleasant change. The air was moist, heavy and warm, and by the quick, shifting breeze I sensed that a storm was coming.

"Shall we walk for a while?" he said.

"Not too far," I said. "There's a storm brewing." He looked doubtfully at me, and then at the perfectly clear sky above us. "Trust me," I said. "I've lived here a while."

It may have seemed like we were wandering, like we had chosen a direction at random. That was not the case. I had a friend who lived just a few blocks from the place in which the reception was being held. By happy coincidence, this was one of the nights that he stayed overnight at his job, and when I explained the situation he was amused enough to let me borrow his place for the evening.

I used to feel guilty about my manipulation of these situations, but I don't anymore. Set and setting is important, especially at moments like this, and I am perhaps already too old to leave things to chance the way I used to.

We came to a little section of the neighborhood that was overgrown by old elm trees. The sidewalk was dappled by the light of the streetlights through the leaves. He slowed, suddenly, and turned to look at me. I could tell he was struggling for something to say. I moved my hands up to his chest. I stroked the side of his face, loving the fascinating texture of his beard, tracing light fingertips on his cheekbone. He pressed his cheek against my palm.

"Bijou, I..." I smiled, and waited. I didn't want to interrupt. "Honestly, I have no idea how to approach you. I don't know what to make of you. I..." He trailed off, probably condemning himself roundly in his own head for being inarticulate. It was immensely charming, knowing how well-spoken he was naturally, and having seen how self-assured he could be under most circumstances. "You're..."

Crazy, I thought. Alarmingly insane. Unpredictable, disconcerting, worrisome. Impossible to figure. An alien sex shaman from the planet Mongo, maybe. But I didn't speak. I turned my face up a little and kissed him, deep, slow, nibbling a little on his lower lip. Energy surged through him, and his hands tightened as they moved over my waist and back. His hips shifted and moved involuntarily toward mine and I could feel his cock, getting hard again, pressing against me.

"Listen, love," I said when we finally drew apart. "There are a couple of things that you already know, and they're really the only important things. The first is that when you want someone, the suspense comes from having to wonder if they want you too, or if they want you as much as you desire them. Once that's established, it gets a lot easier. Right?" He nodded, a little indulgently.

"Let's get that out of the way then." I tightened my arms around him and spread my feet so that I could press my mons firmly against one of his thighs, almost riding it. I kissed him again, actively, letting my body respond the way it wanted to, letting the serpent uncoil in my spine. His hands roamed over me, harder, gripping my waist and my shoulders. I made sure he could feel the heat and moisture between my legs, feel it very distinctly on his thigh.

"Can you tell," I said when we eventually released each other, "how much I want you?"

"I can hardly believe it," he said simply. I loved how straightforward that was.

"Believe? Faith is the evidence of things unseen, sweet. This is quite tangible, don't you think? No faith necessary. And I'm not in the habit of faking anything. Or exaggerating."

He grinned then. "God, smart women make me so hot."

"I know." I said. "Lucky for me, since I can't cook. So, love, there's the other thing too." It was hard to talk, with his hands now becoming bolder, moving up to lightly pinch my nipples, which were incredibly hard. "What to do with a lover, how to figure out what they're going to like, how to please them, their preferences, their buttons. That's a concern, yes?"

He nodded again, now listening, more focused. "Don't stop touching me, love. I love your hands on me." Obediently, his hands began to move again, down to stroke the curve of my ass. I was vaguely aware that the wind had decisively shifted and cooled suddenly. Good thing we were almost to our destination. "How bout if I just promise to tell you what I want and what I like? I'm pretty good at that. Would that help?"

"Oh, I think you've made your point," he said, grinning, " and I know perfectly well you're taking me someplace in particular. You've been on a distinct path on this little walk. Where are we going and how long will it take for us to get there?"

I slid my hand down to the front of his trousers and pressed my fingers round his cock. "We're almost there already, you clever beast. And it's going to take months. Perhaps years." The wind shifted again, and the temperature suddenly dropped distinctly. "It's about to rain," I said. "Luckily, I know this place, just around the corner..."

"Of course you do, you manipulative monster," he said, smiling broadly. "Take me there. I think you were right about that storm." The tops of the trees were now whipping madly in the updraft as the edge of the front approached. I grabbed his hand and we half-trotted the next block or so, rounded the corner and headed up the driveway of a darkened house. The first huge, hot drops of rain now spattered the sidewalk, and the wind had gotten wild. A nicely timed clap of thunder rolled from the southwest just as I pulled out my keys and unlocked the side door. He shook his head, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at me with something like amazement, or appreciation, or possibly wonder.

I didn't make the weather. But if you're smart enough to watch all the signals, you can make it look suspiciously like you might be in charge. I let him wonder.

Derek's studio apartment was half of a small old house in one of the more charming sections of town. It was simple, small, and perfect. He's a Taoist and studies martial arts, so his place has the air of a tea house, simple and asian in decor, uncluttered but obviously owned by an interesting person with good taste. He's also a lover of mine, and so he'd kindly left out a few things he knew I might need, like candles, incense, and a few CD's stacked next to the stereo.

"Take off your jacket, love, and sit down. Let me get some lights on." True to form, Will went straight to the bookshelf and started examining titles. Sun-Tzu and Lao-Tze, Rumi, Machiavelli, Dylan Thomas, significant sections on antique aircraft, Celtic mythology and of course, sex.

"Friend of yours?" he smiled.

"Very good friend. You'd like him," I said.

"I suspect I would," said Will, pulling out a thin volume called The Tao of Love and Sex. He thumbed through it, looking at chapter headings in the dim light. I lit candles around the room, and as the light grew I noticed in amusement that he had found the written inscription in the front of the book.

"Very good friend," he said.

I busied myself with the amber incense, so that he wouldn't see me smiling. "Does that bother you?" I asked.

He took the question seriously and didn't just give me an automatic answer. He thought about it. "No," he said, sounding a bit surprised at his own answer. "Not really. You're so far outside my experience already. I can't label any of it. You don't hide anything, and you don't apologize." He paused, obviously thinking hard, and perhaps confused. "I almost like the idea. It's strange..."

Quite purposefully, I conjured up a few memories of this room, some vivid images that these four walls had witnessed, a few sounds that I had personally made in this very space, and thought about them as loudly as I could. Will looked at me strangely. He was thinking about the same things, and finding his responses to them quite different from "normal" jealousy.

"From my perspective, it's not that strange. But then, I seem to be from another planet."

"S'pose I could visit that planet some time?" he said. "It seems to feature some very interesting and beautiful women."

I moved forward to press myself against him. "I think you'd be very popular there." I let my hand casually trail over the front of his trousers. His cock jumped a bit and he looked at me with a rather unreadable expression. I smiled a little and deliberately undid the top button of my dress. Then a second. And a third.

"Do you... want me, at all?" I said, lowering my head and looking up at him, with just a little bit of a smile.

"I have," he said, and his voice cracked, as if he hadn't spoken for hours. He cleared his throat. "I have been wondering all evening what you were wearing under that dress."

"Care to guess?"

"I suspect it's nothing. But I admit to being biased by a certain amount of wishful thinking."

"You're actually very close," I said, and rose to stand in front of him. The neck of the dress now fell open almost to my sternum, and it was obvious that there wasn't anything underneath it, at least there.

He made a move as if to stand, but he didn't look like he really wanted to. "Don't get up," I said. "Really." And I smiled and undid a couple of buttons at the bottom of the dress. "I don't suppose the boots count as being underneath the dress, do they?" My favorite narrow boots, very understated, supple black leather with a simple, low heel, stretched up over my calves. I left them on.

I unbuttoned another one at the top. The dress was open to my navel. I looked directly into his eyes and undid another couple at the bottom. Now there were only three left. They covered the one thing I did have on under the dress, a tiny black g-string that was so small it was basically just some ribbons. Embroidered in the front center, just at the tip of my pubic bone, was a small but very detailed apple. It's one of my favorite pieces.

Now I let go of his eyes, since I knew he wanted to look at the rest of me, and I slowly undid the last buttons. He leaned forward a little to look at the apple, and I held perfectly still. It's an excellent piece of embroidery, the apple, with a tiny stem and leaves, hanging from a bit of a branch. Then I slid the g-string down over my hips and off, letting the apple fall. "There, you see?" I said. "You were right."

He stood up, then, and moved toward me. His hands moved over me, over the dress and then under it. One move and he had slid it the rest of the way off my shoulders. It fell behind me on the floor.

There is something I like very much about being naked with someone who is still fully clothed. It's a question of balance of power, I think. I like the submissive feel of it, and yet there is strength in the willingness to stand simply, naked, to present oneself, holding perfectly still, to someone's gaze.

He moved toward me, his hands roaming over my skin, learning all the curves and shapes, pulling me hard toward him. He bent to kiss my nipples, his hands gripping my breasts. Then he slid down, onto his knees, rubbing his face over my stomach and moving it down to inhale, to breathe my scent, and his hands gently found their way between my legs. He sat back, just a bit, and watched his own fingers, as he parted my lips and stroked, here and there, gently, just looking, learning the territory. I was on fire, almost embarrassed about how wet I was. Juice soaked the insides of my thighs.

He stood back up, and wrapped me in his arms, sinking his face onto my neck to breathe the scent of amber and jasmine, the fragrance of arousal everywhere. I reached down to press his cock through his slacks, and felt how solid it was, how it actually throbbed under my hand. He groaned, now aware again of how long it had been trapped and straining against the fabric. I tentatively put my fingers on the zipper, tugged at it a little, and his hands quickened and gripped me everywhere. Yes, then. I unzipped, and was deliberately awkward as I tried to open the front, until his frustration took over and he reached down to push my hand out of the way and free his cock, so that it jutted toward me. I wrapped my hand around it, stroking the length of it. He groaned again. His hands found my breasts, squeezed them, and one arm went round my back, down to fondle my ass.

Gods, the feel of his shaft in my hand. The sensation of that incredibly soft skin over blood-thickened flesh, the solid life that beats like a heart there. It fascinates me, the way a man's phallus is such an extension of him, how it reflects him, becomes a microcosm for his entire body. I worship nothing, but I come as close to worship as anything I do when I get to hold a cock in my hands. Or into my mouth.

As if he was reading my mind, he said, "Oh God. Suck me." He sounded surprised at his own demand; it was obviously a little out of character for him to be so commanding. "Please," he added, partly out of an attempt to amend the tone, but mostly out of hunger. I knelt immediately, just as hungry, and took his cock into my mouth, slamming it deep into my throat. His hands found the back of my head and he moved, hard, against me, completely out of control. Then he fought himself back down, realizing how instantly close he was coming to losing it altogether.

"Stop," he grunted. "God, stop. You're going to make me come already, and I don't want to. Not yet. God, your mouth..." He lifted me up to stand with him. "You asked me if I want you. I think that should be obvious by now."

"Oh, I just wanted to hear you say it," I grinned, and began unbuttoning his shirt. "Or maybe you could just show me."

He took a deep breath. He seemed to be relaxing, suddenly, to be taking a step back to notice this exact moment. Then he took my hands away from his shirt and pressed me back toward the bed, just forcefully enough that I sat down there. I stretched out to watch him undress, and he held my gaze firmly while he finished unbuttoning his shirt and shrugged it off, and then dispensed with the slacks. There was something leonine in his pace as he moved toward the edge of the bed, and he knelt suddenly in front of it and grabbed my ankles, pulling me forward off the edge of the bed so that my hips were right in front of him. His hands moved up my torso, and found my breasts, and he squeezed the flesh and let his fingers play around my nipples as he bent down to kiss my hips, my belly, my thighs.

I loved the way he was exploring me, so slowly. I could feel his hands move down to press my thighs wider apart, and again he moved back a bit, as if appraising me, spreading me gently open with reverent fingers, so he could see the deep folds there, how hungry it was. It was maddening, this sensation of being completely exposed but left untouched. I felt the heat of his breath against me, just that, and squirmed, my hips bucking up toward his mouth.

"Sweet," he murmured. "So very sweet." And then his tongue was on me, just playing gently around the lips, stroking me open and more open, finding my nestled clitoris and touching just the tip, which made little bolts of hunger shoot up into my belly. Little flickers, circles, just playing with me, learning my moves, learning which action made me thrash and moan, and which sent me into frenzied begging, ooh yes please don't stop that...

But he was teasing, just learning a little bit about me first. Soon he stopped altogether and moved up next to me, taking a moment to unzip the boots I had forgotten to take off, and pull them from my feet. He laid next to me and let his hands wander all over my body, memorizing it, taking it in.

"I'd like to learn you now," he purred into my ear. "I want to understand how you work." And his fingers moved down again between my legs. He shifted so that his arm was under my head, curving round me to fondle my breast, and he moved his leg over mine and pulled it back, so that I was spread wide open for his hand. I cooed -- I liked the little bit of force in his body, the strength he was using to pose me, as if he were taking up a musical instrument and settling in to play.

And play. He stroked up and down on my cunt, letting his fingers dip in and out of me, just barely. I squirmed toward his hand and his leg tightened over mine, holding me still. He stroked little circles round my pearl, learning the motions that sent me into moans and coos. I could feel heat spreading through my body, cruising on the sensations of his hand, as he sent one finger deeper into me, making me writhe, hungry to be filled. His fingers dipped, dove in and out, returned to the pearl to stroke me up another level, till I was desperate for him to continue, gods, just like that, please...

And finally he let me go, caught the signals and stayed in that tight little rhythm, a little slower so that I thrust up against his fingers, keening with desperation. It was on me then, a bright burst, driven by that insistent stroke, and the ripples started deep inside my pussy and moved through me, arching my spine and sending my voice spiraling up. Little cries and sobs escaped me, and I wanted him then, wanted him so completely that I couldn't think straight, my hand grasping at his cock. "Please," I heard myself begging, but I couldn't say anything else between the gasps as his fingers continued to circle, and then he began to slide his fingers into me, deep this time, pressing his thumb against my clit to keep it at the peak. I rocked against his hand.

He was smooth -- I didn't notice that he'd already had a condom set nearby, and he drew his hands away, his arm from underneath me, and in one motion he was down pressing his face into my cunt, his tongue taking me into space again, keeping me in a frenzy. Then I felt his arms move under my thighs and he lifted my hips up to meet his own, and pressed his cock slowly, firmly all the way into me. I yowled and grabbed at his waist, trying to pull his whole weight onto me, but he sat back a bit, arms still under my thighs, and held still for a moment, buried in me to the hilt. I writhed against him, my body begging him to move, but he didn't. He looked down at me with something like adoration, and only then did he move my legs up over his shoulders and begin to rock, and rock, and then slam into me, all his strength behind the lover's blows he rained down on me, over and over.