Rachel had just begun the long-put-off defrosting process. She never wanted to do it, but today she had no excuse not to. Her frizzy hair was tied back in a red bandana. She had on a white t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts. She looked into the freezer and sighed. Then the doorbell rang.
On her step was Bobby, what was his last name? Whitefish, probably. Susan's friend Bobby. The one with the laughing eyes and that incredible butt. The last time he had been over, at Susan's eighteenth birthday party, which was also his eighteenth birthday, he had caught her staring at it, and she blushed uncontrollably.
"Susan's not here, Bobby," she said.
"I know," he answered. And she was uncomfortably aware of the relentless thrust of his gaze, straight into her eyes, like a home invasion.
"Well," she started, then didn't know how to continue. "Well, then," and she couldn't get any further. "Bobby, what . . . "
He didn't let her finish. "What do you think I'm here for?"
She found herself blushing that same way. Uncontrollably. Like a B-vitamin flush, down her whole body. She was afraid she might pee.
"Don't you think we should go inside?" he asked. "Who knows what neighbor might be looking at us." And he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
And then held her in his arms. And the next thing she knew his tongue was in her mouth. And it was as though her whole pointless life, the shape of which she never could justify, had all been directed straight towards this moment. It is what she had been put on earth for, this moment. She kissed him as if he had arrived to save her life. Which perhaps he had.
She was not aware of taking off her shorts, or of him taking off her shorts, but somehow she was on the hall table, and he was inside her, and then somehow she was huffing, and moaning, and then screaming, screaming a high shrill sound that had never come out of her throat in all her days on this earth. And then everything was quiet.
Was that an orgasm? Was that what an orgasm was like? No wonder her friend Vonda couldn't stop talking about them. If that was what an orgasm was like, she wanted more of them.
As if reading her mind, Bobby said, "Was that the first time for you?" She nodded, shyly, unable to meet that gaze of his.
"Well we have to make sure it isn't your last," he said. "I would bet my motorcycle nobody has ever licked your clit," he said. "And I love that motorcycle. Am I right? Am I right? Look at me. Look at my eyes. Has anyone ever gone down on you?" She shook her head, and then had to break her gaze. He picked her up in his arms, and she was not a light woman, she had been meaning to go on a diet for longer than she had been meaning to defrost. She was on her bed.
"No," she said. "Not here."
"Shush," he said. Then he was gently, very gently, incredibly gently, with a gentleness she never would have guessed he had, never would have imagined existed in any man in the world, not pressing her thighs apart, but indicating with his touch that she should spread them, the way a dancer indicates the direction for his partner. Remember dancing? How long had it been since she danced? Since a dance partner touched her that way. She should never have never married a man who didn't dance.
He lowered his face to below her belly - her belly she meant to go to the gym and do something about - and it was so funny to see it there. Where she had never seen a face before.
And there was the most delicate sensation, like a butterfly's wings. At the swollen pink mass at the top of her privates. He was licking it.
A rush ripple up her spine, and she realized it was the most pleasant thing she had ever experienced. If you added up everything wonderful she'd ever known. Lemon cheesecake. Pink chiffon. A second glass of gin. Standing on a stage while others applauded. The pride of beating out Helen for Tom's attention. All of it. Put every wonderful thing in one box, and in the other box was having Bobby what's his last name lick her like that. Having Bobby lick her was more than all that. A hundred times more. And then she wasn't having thoughts like that. She was moaning, she was pressing herself up into the air towards him with thigh muscles she didn't know she had. She was clenching. And then she was screaming again. And then it all went quiet again, while inside her waves continued crashing.
He stopped. He held her. He lifted her t-shirt over her head. He unhooked her bra. He was gently circling her nipples with one finger, and she realized her nipples were stiff and achy. Yearning. Wanting. Hungry. Hungry nipples. Then they were in his mouth, and that tongue was licking them, and he was touching her, down there, this time with a finger rather than a tongue.