Into the Labyrinth

THE UBIQUITOUS MR LOVEGROVE

Tessa's long, ivory legs were spread and tented, my head between them. My mouth was busy, responding to her increasingly breathless directions.

"Fingerfuck me," she said, and I promptly slid a finger into her overheated sex. She moaned, pushing against the intrusion.

It was a sticky night at the end of July and I was learning my way around the curves as it were. I wasn't sure if Tessa was more complex than most or just better at telling me what she wanted. Whatever the truth, she was detailed and thorough on the subject of my pussy eating technique.

I paid attention not only to what she said, but how she moved and the involuntary noises she made. I drank in her scent and felt her pulse through the inside of her thigh. Going down on Tessa was not a sprint. It was a marathon. A delicious marathon.

Tessa came with a throaty moan and a full-body shudder, a sign my skills were improving. I got up on my knees, watching her sweat-soaked chest heaving as she came back down to Earth. She opened her pale blue eyes and looked at me with something I hoped was more than mere friendship.

"C'mon, turn over," I told her.

She smirked. "Real romantic, cowboy."

"Oh, this is a romance?"

She sighed. I'd caught her in her own rules. This was nothing serious. We were fooling around. Romance was for a couple and we were just friends.

"Okay, okay," she said. She turned over, getting onto all fours, presenting herself to me. Sometimes I wonder how different things would have been if she'd demanded I romance her, or if I had merely done it. Kissed her neck like I did in my daydreams, held her gently when I entered her.

I rolled a condom onto my length and took her slender hips. Tessa's willowy figure and porcelain skin made her seem fragile at times, but she was tough. At least, she was tough on the outside. I gave her ass a swat, which was really more for my benefit. Since she'd told me to pull her hair, I found that I enjoyed that aspect. Giving Tessa a little bit of pain to go along with the rest.

I entered her without any further ceremony. I'd primed myself eating her pussy for the last hour and I was ready to explode. That's how these nights usually went. A lesson that gave steadily increasing returns, and she returned the favor with her mouth or pussy. That we'd already fallen into a pattern was either a red flag or good sign. I didn't know. All I knew was that every encounter with Tessa was better than the one before it.

She moved against me, but I didn't need much encouragement. Swiftly I was hammering her with fast thrusts, my pelvis slapping her ass. I came like a thunderbolt, bottoming out in her sweet pussy, my fingers digging into her hips.

When my cock was finished bucking, I pulled out of her, stripped the condom off, tied the end, and tossed it into the trash. Tessa didn't object when I rolled her on her side and cuddled up behind her, my arm around her middle. This was, according to her arcane rules, still in the midst of sex and therefore affection was fine.

She pillowed her head on my arm. Our bodies were slick with sweat, and the sea breeze coming through the open window didn't do much to cool us down. Our breath was soft in the darkened room. My gaze crawled down her slender side. So much of me wanted to press her into a tighter embrace, to kiss her softly, to show her the sweet, warm feeling blooming inside me.

"I was thinking of going up to Santa Cruz this weekend," I said, breaking the silence. "Catch the

Lost Boys

showing." It was an annual thing, where they showed it outdoors on the beach.

Lost Boys

was shot in Santa Cruz and had a ton of the local color. I used to watch it every year when I'd been in college. It was always a good time.

"That might be fun."

"You want to come? We could do a road trip kind of thing. Get a motel room. Or, hell, sleep on the beach. I've got a tent."

"I have work."

"Get the night off. We can go on Saturday and come back Sunday."

She was silent. Then, words that put some ice in my heart. "Feels like a boyfriend thing."

"Okay," I said, tracing patterns on her back. "Want to fix me up with Espy then?" I'd been gently teasing her about her friend Espy Rangel. I was attracted to her, but it was mostly a futile attempt to make Tessa jealous.

"Espy's not gonna go away for the weekend with a strange man."

"What's strange about me? Is it the way I yodel when I cum?"

"What?" She looked over her shoulder at me.

"Is it the way I eat cheese with my nose?"

She laughed in disbelief. "The fuck is wrong with you?"

"Is it the way greet people with tickles?" My fingers dug into her ribs.

She squealed, "You dick!"

I caught her lips with mine, and she responded, her mouth opening, her tongue caressing me. "Is it the way that I always taste like fine champagne?"

She giggled. "You wish you tasted like champagne." Her eyes fell to my lips, a summons I wasn't going to ignore.

Our tongues ran over one another, her teeth worrying at my lip. I struggled, getting ready to rise.

"Where are you going?" she murmured.

"Getting a condom."

"It's fine. Just don't cum in me, okay?"

"You sure?"

She reached behind her, grabbing my rapidly hardening cock and running the turgid head over her lips. "Does this feel like I'm sure?"

I brushed her blue hair from her face and our eyes met. She was uncharacteristically serious, and our gaze never broke as I pushed into her. For the first time I felt Tessa without a layer of latex between us. Her pussy was warm and soft, holding me with something approaching affection.

My hands ran up her flat belly, which was already moving, as she gyrated down onto me. Her small breasts fit nicely into my hands, her nipples hard like pebbles beneath my fingers. She sighed happily, grinding against me, pushing down into my lap. I held her, my stroke deep and long. My other hand fell between her legs, running up and down the place where we were joined. I brought my light touch to the apex of her sex where the hard nubbin of her clit waited.

I brushed it as she had taught me to do with my tongue. She purred under my touch, her squirming growing more desperate with each passing moment. Her mouth broke from mine, "Oh,

fuck

," she swore, and I watched her shudder through an orgasm.

Her pussy held into mine, and I felt my own climax ready to burst. I pulled out of her with regret. And not a moment too soon. I painted her lower back with shuddering strands of pearl.

We settled back, cuddling in the warm summer air, caching our breaths. I kissed Tessa's neck, right where her pulse beat against her pale skin.

"You sleeping here?" she asked.

"That's cool, right?"

"Yeah." She paused. "I'll see if I can get the night off for

Lost Boys

, okay? But we come back the same night."

I smiled, kissing her neck. "Anything you say."

We drove up early in the day. The trip was only a couple hours all told, and though we were in my crappy old Nissan, Tessa controlled the stereo. It was 2002, but even then, the tapedeck my car had was a dinosaur. Tessa fed it homemade tapes of her favorite groups, which were pretty much mine too. The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, all the usual suspects.

Tessa spent the whole ride slouched shotgun, one of her long, pale legs up, her foot sticking out the window. I touched the leg closest to me, and she didn't swat my hand away. I kept myself from looking over only through a supreme act of will. The touch let me pretend: this wasn't just my best friend. This was my

girlfriend

. That's how these stories were supposed to go, anyway. But I knew the instant I looked over, she would turn, her blue eyes bright behind her pitch-black shades. The Tessa Judgment Stare.

That would be it. Illusion pierced. For now, I was going to pretend we were what everyone thought we were in high school.

I'm biased, but there's no better drive than the central Californian coast. In the summer it's just hot enough to feel it, but the cool breeze off the Pacific made the heat not just bearable but delicious. We pulled the standard road trip rules, too. We ate candy and drank sodas and cranked the tunes. We pulled into Santa Cruz in the late afternoon. It was my old stomping grounds, and I took Tessa to the taco truck I'd lived on when I was broke and in school. We ate 39 cent street tacos and washed them down agua frescas.

"Okay, you weren't overselling this place," Tessa said, popping the last lime-soaked wedge of taco into her mouth.

"Right? I thought we had the best tacos in the world in Aragon, but then I come up here..."

"There are times I think I made a mistake going back east for school."

"But on the bright side, we're using our degrees so well. Bartender, guy selling overpriced junk to tourists. You need an advanced education for that."

"If only Vassar had offered a mixology major." She wiped her long fingers off on a thin napkin. "Okay, how are we killing time until the show?"

"Movie's at ten, so we can fuck around on the pier for a couple hours. Want to go play some fixed carny games?"

She grinned. "Win me a dumb stuffed animal and you might just get lucky tonight."

"Who still says 'get lucky'?" I asked.

She gave me a smack. "Come on, cowboy. Show me your worth as a mate by popping a balloon with a dart."

"You're lucky you're hot."

"Believe me, I know. Now let's go. Win me something ridiculous."

We spent a fun evening on the pier, listening to the swirling screams from the rollercoaster that took up about half of the pier. Took me a couple tries, but I won her what she wanted by shooting water into a fake clown's mouth until a balloon popped. It was four years of practice that got me those skills. I had used my time in college wisely.

When it came time to pick her prize, she'd pointed to the spider without hesitation, and now she was cuddling the thing. "What should I call her?" she asked me.

"I don't know, Shelob?"

"What kind of name is that?"

"When

Return of the King

comes out next year, you're gonna feel silly."

She laughed. "I have to admit, those are good. And not just for the twink."

"You're talking about Legolas."

"He and the short bear are a cute couple."

"I can't even be mad about that."

As the screening approached, we made our way down onto the sand and staked out a spot. I unrolled a blanket. Tessa wrapped a smaller blanket around her shoulders and sat, her long legs curling under her. Even in summer, night on the Pacific was cold, with the night air blowing off the current.

She was smirking as she sat. "What?" I asked.

"You're getting checked out."

"Where?"

"Over my right shoulder."

I followed her direction and caught who she meant. The woman was beautiful, no question about that. She looked around our age, maybe a couple years older. She was Asian, with long, black hair, and a voluptuous figure. She was wearing a curve-hugging dress, heavy tights and a leather jacket. Her friends had the kind of eclectic look I associated with Santa Cruz townies. They reminded me of a second draft of the vampire gang from the movie, a kind of photogenic version of counterculture.

"She's not checking me out," I said. "She's looking at you." She was eyeing Tessa like she wanted to drain her blood to rule the night.

"Oh really now?"

I turned away and Tessa glanced. "You asshole, she's looking at you."

"I swear to God, Tessa. She was staring at your legs."

"Liar," Tessa said, settling back into me and cuddling her spider. It was the most relaxed I'd ever seen her, and I wrapped my arms around her without thinking. I wanted to kiss the top of her head, right where the part of her blue hair showed pale scalp. I just had the feeling if I bridged that gap, kissed her in that affectionate way when sex was the furthest thing from us, that would have destroyed the illusion. As long as I played along with Tessa, pretended that this was just something two friends did, it could go on. I spent so much time trying not to puncture the bubble.

The movie started. I knew every second of it by heart. Wasn't just going to school up here either. It had been part of the canon when I was growing up. I'd even seen it in the theater thanks to some bad decision-making from my father, and had nightmares for weeks after. Didn't matter. I loved it.

Half the crowd was watching, the other half was running lines from the movie, acting out scenes, calling to the screen. Some were ignoring it and drinking or making out. It was an impromptu party, and this was why I wanted Tessa to come with me.

I settled into the movie. It wasn't the memory of it I had as a kid, first in a darkened theater, and then a gauzy VHS copy at sleepovers. This was my memory of seeing it with friends. It was a perfect experience, elevated by Tessa's narrow warmth cuddled up to me. When Grandpa delivered arguably the best closing line in movie history and Echo and the Bunnymen started in with their cover of "People are Strange," I sighed in happiness. I wasn't ready for the night to be over. All that was left was a too-long trip south, when the coastal road damn near turned black.

"You hungry?" I asked.

"I could eat," she said.

I stole a glance over at our admirer. This time our eyes met. She had been looking, but I couldn't tell if it had been at me, or if the movement of my head pulled her attention. Her full lips parted in a grin. Her face had a youthful, elfin quality. I smiled back.

"What are you...oh," Tessa said, turning to see the woman.

She was approaching us now. I got a better look at her. She was shorter than both of us, but moved with the easy confidence of someone who knew just how alluring she was. And she wasn't wrong. The only thing better than the swing of her hips was the bounce of her breasts.

"Hey," she said. "I'm Courtney."

We introduced ourselves.

"Don't know if you had plans, but my friends are gonna have a bonfire thing. You want to come?"

"Yeah," I blurted. This would be a way for the night not to end. More time with Tessa. Tessa, fuck. I looked at her.

"Sure, yeah. That sounds like fun."

"Great," Courtney said. "Come on, I'll introduce you around."

I took the blanket from Tessa and picked up the one we'd been sitting on, rolled them into a bundle and followed the two of them. Tessa stood close and Courtney, a tiny space between them, that unsure, trembling place that existed before any real contact. I shook my head in amusement. I had taken Tessa up here partly to try to get this into something official, and I was only going to succeed in getting her laid.

Courtney introduced us around to her group. Everyone looked around their mid to late 20s, and had that alt-style influenced by a harder subculture. You had goth-adjacents like Tessa and Courtney and me. There were a couple almost-hippies, one kinda-punk, and one guy who looked like he woke up on the beach.

We made up the beach to a quieter area dotted with firepits. While a couple of them busied themselves building the fire, I shook out the blankets, then lay the big one down not far from the fire.

"You're Theo?"

I turned. One of the almost-hippies smiled up at me. She was a pleasantly round woman with sparkling blue eyes. "Yeah, it's nice to meet you."

"Melinda," she reminded me.

"Right, sorry. Ten names all in a row. All I could think of was a cartoon cow playing an accordion."

"That's specific."

We sat down and got to talking. She was a local, a manager at a breakfast place I liked to go to on the few occasions I had the cash to burn on a good hipster meal. She thought it was just incredible that I was from Aragon Beach and that I had gone to college here, and that was right about when I realized she was flirting with me.

Then I felt a weight sit down on the other side of me. I was ready to say hi to Tessa when a voice I didn't recognize said, "Hey there, Theo."

I turned to find Courtney. Her eyes were an incredible shade of brown, nearly black. They were as deep and dark and complex as Tessa's were bright and clear. Her long black hair ruffled in the sea breeze. Her face was soft and feminine.

"Hey," I said, unsure of what else to say.

She flashed her teeth. "Mel keeping you entertained?"

"Yeah, she's great." Melinda hid her annoyance poorly, but I think this happened to her more than once. Courtney was gorgeous and Melinda was merely pretty. I looked over to check on her and she was performatively ignoring us, packing a pipe with weed. I'd figured that was going to come out sooner or later.

Melinda lit up, took the first hit, and passed it to me. When the skunky scent filled the air, the smoke hit me like a truck. I passed it to Courtney, and she passed it to Tessa, who was chatting with one of the other guys. A spike of jealousy seized me. Maybe Courtney wasn't the one I needed to be worried about. Maybe, I had to remind myself, I didn't have the right to be worried at all.

"Tessa tells me you run a souvenir shop?" Courtney asked.

"It's my folks' place. I'm just working there for the summer."

"And then?"

"Million dollar question."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Courtney said. "I graduated...oh, god. Three years ago."

"Yeah? What did you end up doing?"

She shot me a rueful grin. "Still figuring it out. I'm a barista. A barista with student loans."

"That's hopeful."

She shrugged. "I don't think we were built for this world we're in now."

"I never felt like I was built for any world."

"Yeah, it's just like...it's a maze. There's supposed to an exit. I spent my life thinking there was, but now? Damned if I can see it."

"Fuck, Courtney. That's bleak."

"I don't know. If there's no exit, isn't the only thing to do to have fun? Smoke good week on a beautiful night? Flirt with a beautiful stranger?"

"Is that what I'm doing?"

"That's what

I'm

doing."

My eyes flicked over her shoulder. Tessa had a halo, like the world retreated around her. Or it was really good weed. I'd believe either. "Yeah, she's beautiful."

"You two together?"

"No. No, just friends."

"Oh, bummer." I watched her make calculations silently in her mind. She glanced over, and Tessa was trying not to look at the two of us. "It was nice meeting you."

I was left with Melinda. The whole group of us kept the party going, but I felt like I was on the edge of it. Story of my life, I guess. Eventually, everyone started making noises about turning in. Tessa, who had been talking with Courtney, came to me. She leaned in, her breath hot. I wanted to kiss her.

"Hey, look. Courtney invited me back to her place. I really want to go, but I don't want to leave you in the lurch."

"It's fine."

"You could probably go home with that hippie chick." She nodded at Melinda and yeah, Mel was trying not to be obvious about looking at me.

"If it's all the same to you, I'm gonna drive back. I promised my folks I'd work the shop tomorrow."

"Theo, the sun will be up by the time you get home."

"I know. It's fine. Go home with Courtney."

Tessa broke into a wide grin. "Thanks."

"You can get a ride home?"

"As long as my tongue works. I'll give you a full report."

She was off before I could tell her that she didn't need to. Melinda came up behind me. "Hey, do you have a place to stay?"

"I was gonna head back."

"Oh, okay. Listen, if you're ever up here, give me a call."

She gave me her number, and I wasn't entirely opposed to calling her sometime. I just wanted to get some distance between me and this evening. It was supposed to be the night Tessa became my girlfriend and she was going home with somebody else.

Driving along the black road home, it was easy to turn to dark thoughts. The thing that I kept returning to was that I wasn't any good. She was trying to turn me into a decent lay, and sure, I was better, but I wasn't anything to write home about. The evidence was in front of me. Well, it was back at Courtney's house. Knowing Tessa was fucking her right now when she should be fucking me, gnawed at me.