Melt

I worried the drugs would run out. They kept a pleasant drumming beat in the back of my head, and I worried I would miss them. But maybe I only worried because the paranoia had finally set. It was too soon to tell.

Norah hit the pipe one more time before passing it back to me. She was passing the wrong direction, but I didn't say anything. Sitting up on her bed, gazing down at the other two, we both knew it was best not to interrupt. What if we broke the fragile balance they'd finally found here?

So I took her pass in silence and lit up. As I exhaled, I arched a stretch through my back, pushed my left leg forward—and let it come to rest against Norah's hip. She turned a lazy, indulgent smile at me and picked it up, placed it in her lap. Traced a swirling pattern across my bare skin.

We'd been watching this dance for weeks now, and it felt a little strange to see it finally unfold on the floor of her bedroom. The two below us—Sam and Abby—let their voices drop with intimacy, and we wondered if we weren't meant to hear them.

"I think you were the best one," she said. She sounded breathless, but I guessed that might have been deliberate.

"I don't know about that," he answered, eyes dropping to the hands he kept folded in his lap.

"Well, you didn't see yourself perform, did you?" she asked, teasing. She had moved almost imperceptibly closer to him, and with that small space now closed, she touched his knee. He looked down at her hand, then back up at her face, his own betraying an interest rife with fear.

"I need to put something else on," Norah blurted out. I kept my eyes down, and while Norah played around with her technology, I watched Abby's hand slide up—just a little bit, just enough. Enough not to threaten.

Norah's song change seeped through the room, rolling out a lilting pulse, a hypnotic flow. When she flopped back down on the bed, her body lay next to mine, almost touching all the way down. Her hand lingered when she took my pass.

"My shoulder is killing me," she sighed on her exhale. I watched her red lips part, smooth dark skin opening up for smooth dark smoke.

Thinking only that I wanted to touch her skin to see what it felt like, I reached out and let my hand run down her back. Her head fell immediately to the side, a happy sigh escaping her curving lips. My hand dragged back up, slowly, pressing little circles into her muscles along the way. As I worked, I watched the machinations of her face—relaxation spreading, melting over her features.

Down below us, Abby had charted out her own new territory. She had one hand on Sam's face and another trailing down his neck, popping open the first button on his collar. Of course, she'd seen him perform just like the rest of us, so just like the rest of us, she knew what lay beneath that cloth. Scars across his skin, marking the site of the mastectomy, his own personal ground zero. I wondered what she thought, knowing that the ground she now tread was, in so many ways, new for him.

I lost track of them again as Norah pulled my attention back to her. She reached up to touch my hair, tuck it behind my ear, then pushed me lightly on the shoulder, letting me fall back. In one fluid motion, she rolled her body over mine.

Her knees on either side of my hips pinned me down. She sat up to take her hit, pulling it out slowly. Then she reached her hands above my head, leaning down, letting her wrists rest on the headboard. Her lips came down to mine, the lightest brush of skin I had ever felt, and when my own lips parted, her breath came softly. I let my eyes fall shut as I surrendered to it. I heard a little sound, just to the right of my head—something hard touching down on the windowsill. The next moment, her hands had found mine, fingers interlaced. And her lips, again—pushing, at first gently, against mine. Like she was testing the waters, even after all this time.

She tasted like salt and smoke. Or maybe she reflected my own taste back to me. The next time her lips came down, they pressed with more vigor. They urged against mine. It was all I could do to grab back at her, to grasp fists into her shirt and let my hips lift ever so slightly against hers. Her hips found their response faster than her mouth did, and she ground down into me. A shiver rushed up my spine as she found her purchase. We rocked together, the press of our bodies spurring our momentum.

As she tilted her head to bite down gently on the naked skin of my neck, I felt a wave of lightheadedness crash over me. I could sense the edges of my perception start to blur, and I decided to concentrate my remaining attention on her. The feel of her lips, her teeth, her breath. With more than a little desperation, I grabbed at her shirt, pulling and pulling until it came free from her body, sliding over her head and onto the floor. Maybe just to make it even, she pulled off mine in turn. When her body came back down to mine, I savored the feel of her smooth skin sliding down every inch of mine. She kissed her way further down my neck, to breasts still cupped tightly in fabric. I let my wandering hands grasp and claw their way up her perfectly muscled arms, then wind into her thick, tightly curling hair, falling in a wild spray from her head.

She came back up to kiss me on the mouth, and I couldn't help but press into it, press into her. I wanted to feel all of her at once, in all possible and impossible ways. My body moved against hers as I kissed her, desperation and oblivion speaking for me, taking me over. She groaned in response, forcing me back down to the mattress with a playful push.

Her mouth found me then, and slid with bites and licks all the way down my stomach, until it met the artificial barrier of cloth. As her hands snapped to attention, jumping to the little brass button so they could rip it open, my head fell momentarily to the side.

Below us, Abby and Sam sat suspended, floating on their own tide. They faced each other like mirror images, each holding up a hand, their fingers laced together in midair while their mouths met briefly, over and over, touching lightly only to flutter away. Slowly, Sam's hand came up to touch her face, to guide her into a longer kiss. I could see him shaking as he opened himself up, as he let himself fall into this soft intimacy.

I lingered with them only a moment more. Norah had found her way past my jeans, which now lay somewhere out of sight, and as I watched, my simple black underwear disappeared along with them. In a moment, her mouth was back on my body, starting at the inside of my knee and drifting slowly upward. The softest parts of my skin lay exposed and unprotected before her, subject to her every whim. Her wet tongue went to work, swirling and teasing, sending shivers through my body, pushing my desire over the edge. Right when I thought I could stand her distance no longer, she slid one arm under and around my leg and brought me right to her mouth. Her tongue slipped smoothly over my clit, eliciting a sudden moan from deep within me as I felt that sudden pleasure.

Her pressure was soft and sweet, spreading small rivulets of sensation through my lower abdomen, building them slowly. My legs came up over her shoulders, giving her greater access, and I couldn't help but wonder what a strange thing it must be for the comparatively chaste couple below us, to hear me groan and gasp under the power of an experienced hand.

While her tongue kept up its glorious dance on my lips and clit, her fingers pressed with gentle insistence just below that, exploring the outer evidence of my wetness. After a teasing hesitation, she entered me, pressing expertly into the soft sponge of my flesh. Three fingers worked at me, in and out, in and out, fucking me with vigor, reaching ever deeper.

"Fuck yes," I gasped, almost involuntarily.

She only fucked me harder at that. I grasped at her hair, needing to increase our contact, needing her to keep fucking me. I didn't look down to see, but I wanted to imagine that, at least a little bit, Sam and Abby watched us.

Her expert mouth pushed down on my clit, her tongue swirling fast. I could feel my pleasure building to a head. I groaned again, shifting my hips up, offering myself to her as best I could. She doubled down, grasping at me, pulling me closer.

"Oh my god," I breathed. I could feel her inside me, pushing deep, over and over. She sent another shiver through my clit and I tensed, knowing I was near the edge. Her fingers worked at me hard, and she pushed, harder, harder, harder—until I bucked my hips up to meet her on her last thrust and felt it all crash down over me.

"Fuck yes," I breathed out my last as the final wave of pleasure cascaded through my body. Norah came up to kiss me lightly on the mouth, and I savored the taste of myself on her tongue.

"You're so beautiful when you come," she whispered in my ear. "You're like a goddamn painting."

"You're beautiful when you make me come," I answered her, slipping a finger through her bra strap to guide her closer. Of their own accord, my legs wrapped themselves around her waist to keep her. "You're like a goddamn superhero."

She kissed me again, and I melted into us.

Below us, our counterparts made the small soft noises of new lovers, still shy and uncertain. I envied them that first discovery, that initial push. But as Norah kissed me one more time, that envy slipped instantly away. All I needed was the feel of her skin and the smell of her hair, and she gave that to me freely.