For those who pay attention to such things: When Sarah is alone the story is in the past tense. When Claire and Sarah are together the story is in present tense.
Thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for copy editing.
Impact of The Bitch
My room is hot and still, I can hear traffic moving on the avenue, but it's light and my block is quiet. I think this is my favorite time with Claire, when it's
too
early, the murky climb out of unconsciousness into her embrace.
Claire and I are facing each other. One of my arms is trapped under her neck, the other hand is squeezed between her thighs. Her arms are thrown over her head, one bicep pressed over her eyes. Her mouth is open and she is snoring slightly. She had fallen asleep so abruptly last night I thought she was making a joke. When I realized she wasn't I felt bad that I hadn't seen how tired she was; that I hadn't realized how badly jet-lagged she still was.
It had been a sticky restless night, the two of us moving around on the bed in the heat and humidity. Still, every time I woke up Claire and I were touching. Sometimes just a hand on a belly, other times our legs were twisted together, once her face was on my breasts, her arm around my waist - everywhere our skin touched would be wet with sweat.
And then at some point, very late, or very early, I had jerked out of a dream, my heart hammering. She was behind me, her arms wrapping my arms tight, pinning them.
"Shhhh," she had urged. She had held me tight until my heart had slowed and my breathing had calmed. All the time she was breathing as if she was still asleep. Maybe she was. Her arms were so strong and sure. My breath slowed to match hers, her muscles relaxing with mine, and the two of us slipped right back to sleep.
In the light of day, my dream is forgotten. There are tiny beads of sweat on Claire's upper lip. I blow on them softly, wanting to cool her. The way her lips sit on her teeth when it's open this way makes her overbite look exaggerated. She must have been an adorable little girl... but so
very
naughty. Even at rest the corners of her mouth curl mischievously.
I think of what my mother told me about catching me naked with Katherine McNamara. I try to picture where we might have been. I have a sense memory of sitting naked on the shag carpeting of the guest bedroom, of sunshine, of still being wet from the pool... hiding behind the bed? Something about the idea tickles a memory, my mother's face looking down on me, both shocked and amused. I wonder if I had a naughty smile when I looked back at her?
Claire's eyes are moving under her lids - the fast chaotic movements of REM sleep.
She sometimes laughs in her sleep, but when I ask she never remembers why, or tells me, but it makes no sense to either of us. Still, it makes me happy for her. I wish I could share her dreams, that I could laugh with her in my sleep.
Even with the window open my room smells like sex, like pussy, like our sweaty bodies; us. My scalp is damp. A drop of sweat prickles my forehead. Still, the heat and humidity of the city is cool compared to the wet boiling inside me. I remember how it felt to cum with Claire, straddling her cunt, my cunt flooding her, hers flooding me.
My hand is squeezed between Claire's sticky sleeping thighs. I push gently upwards, finding her lips with the edge of my index finger.
Her skin is soft and moist, so perfectly smooth and hairless. I think of her doing that for me, of making time to get a Brazilian as soon as she arrived in Paris. I picture her, on her back, her knees at her chest, spread wide. Did she gossip with her beautician about me the way I gossiped with my saleswoman at the chemist? I try to picture her babbling happily... Somehow it doesn't ring true, but I'm really not sure.
I am moving my finger against her lips, just smoothing them against each other - lip and tip. Her skin is damp and tacky in the heat. I feel the fringe of her labia, a sliver of her delicate inner "lips" - the edges of those soft petals. No more than a thread of flesh, they are moist too but in a very different way than her outer lips, exuding slippery pearlescence. In my mind's eye I can see the thin flaccid edge of pale pink peeking out, almost like a tongue - but so flat, so unlike any other part of our bodies in that way; the brink. I know exactly what those petals feel like on my tongue, all the different ways she tastes.
Physically, I know Claire more intimately than anyone I've ever known, and she knows me far more intimately than anyone has ever come close to. Emotionally I feel much closer to her than anyone in the world, even my mother. But in other ways, I hardly know her at all, our friendship is so new.
Still, I like picturing her with her legs spread and feet in the air happily babbling in French with a pretty Polish lady as she plucks hairs from Claire's pussy.
Somehow my mind jumps from that image to Claire telling her mother about us. I picture Claire's mother as an older version of Claire, although she's told me she takes after her father. It's vexing that I don't have a clear image of her mother, but I can very easily imagine Claire in that situation, can picture her expression, and the volume of her voice as she explains herself earnestly.
Claire is wet enough that my finger moves easily against her. My slick fingertip rides the shallow crease of her still-closed sex. I am dragging tiny amounts of slippery moisture upwards. With each stroke I am able to go a little further, sliding back with greater ease. Beneath the sliding surface, I can feel her clitoris, heated and hard. Insistent but still buried and held secret in the soft, fleshy grip of her outer lips.
"Mine," I whisper, watching her lashes flutter at the sound, the movement of her eyes under her lids, the bulge of her pupils tracking dream objects, in dream rooms, with dream lovers. There are no wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, no lines mar her brow, and her cheeks are smooth and unblemished.
My mind jumps again and I picture my mother's face when I told her how old Claire was, when she realized Claire was closer to her in age than to me. She had asked out of the blue. The two of us had been having coffee my last morning. I'd gotten up first and started the pot. She came in just as it was ready and I poured us each a cup. She kissed me, she hadn't brushed her teeth, and her breath smelled of sleep. I gave her the mug with a picture of the pope on it; John Paul - "THE Pope," my father had always said. I took one I'd given her. It had a glazed square of Pantone red - 186
We had sat across from each other in silence for a bit, both still dazed from sleep, lost in our own thoughts. I was getting up to get the pot, to give us each a warm-up when she asked.
"How old is Claire?"
She was looking out the side window at her car parked in the driveway.
"Thirty-six."
Her expression hadn't changed, her attention had stayed fixed on the car, but her head had bobbed back in surprise.
When she turned to look at me, it was because I was offering to refill her mug. She had looked into my eyes, her expression calm, but clouded. And then Wes had shuffled in.
She and I didn't say much more to each other, about anything, after that. I should have called her when I landed, to tell her I was safe. She should have called last night, to be sure I made it home OK.
I had expected her to be hysterically upset about Claire and me, for her to attack me in a fury, accusing me of perversion and sin.
"What are you doing?" I'd expected her to hiss as soon as Claire was out of earshot. "Have you lost your mind?!?"
She had been so calm. She hadn't even seemed surprised. Part of me was still amazed she hadn't thanked God Dad wasn't alive to see this. But that could still be coming... maybe she was just overwhelmed and didn't have the emotional bandwidth for hysteria. Maybe the only thing that kept her from losing her shit was exhaustion.
I could hear her screaming, "HOW COULD YOU?! HOW COULD YOU BRING
THAT
SIN INTO THIS HOUSE?!? YOUR FATHER'S NOT EVEN IN THE GROUND!" I dread talking to her, dread what time and distance might allow her to say.
Claire's eyes open. A slow reveal of bright clear hazel beneath thick lashes, still clouded by sleep, but she looks happy. My fingers are in her now, stroking slowly. I am moving from the wet source all the way up to the little fountainhead, which I have lubricated and exposed. Her flesh is slippery and warm, soft and giving. Pushing in deep feels like fingering a warm mousse. The image makes me smile, although I'm certain Claire would hate it.
"Why are you laughing?" she asks, her voice quiet, her breath strong and funky.
"I like how you feel," I tell her.