Threesome - Lawrence Block [21]
(Writing dirty turns me on. I don’t suppose that’s surprising, or rare. But it certainly is nice.)
I did not call him back to bed, or do any of those fine things to him. Before he left he bent over to kiss me lightly on the cheek, and I thought, Priss, you total bitch, this is your man and you love him and what is the matter with you that you have to do this thing with Rho? Because I had never made it with anyone other than Harry since I met him. No real urge to. I would see men whom I found attractive, and I might speculate about them, throwing them a quick fuck in the province of my mind. And a couple of times—but far less often than you seem to think, Harry—I would bring one of these men mentally into our bed, and cheat in the mind while having Harry in the flesh.
But anyway I had never gone and done anything, and I was going to, and I wondered how I could do this to Harry. And I answered myself, in the same figurative breath, that I wasn’t doing anything to Harry by what I did with Rhoda. That the two things had nothing to do with one another.
Not that it made much difference what I told myself, because I was going to do the same thing anyway.
It seemed forever before I heard the Chevy coughing its way to life and taking off down the road. I was certain at one point that Harry had left without my hearing the car, and I almost got up then, but a few moments later I did hear the car and got up and went into the bathroom and showered.
And did things like putting perfume all over my breasts and thighs. Provocative Priss-puss indeed.
I wore no clothes to Rhoda’s room. I padded naked down the hallway and opened her door slowly, silently. She was asleep, the bedclothing a wicked tangle around her body. She had always been a rather hectic sleeper, I now remembered, given to thrashing about and wrestling with demonic blankets and bedsheets, even crying out in fear. I remembered nights in college when her night-terror woke me, and I held her in my arms and calmed her back to sleep.
She slept peacefully enough now. I walked softly to her bedside and knelt down beside her, and ten years went away as if they had never happened at all. We were nineteen again, and young and fresh and juicily alive, and I loved this auburn-haired, ripe-breasted angel.
I took the covers off, peeled them carefully back. She stirred but did not awaken. She was sleeping on her stomach, her legs very slightly bent at the knees, her bottom as slightly raised. I placed the palms of my hands lightly on her buttocks. I could not seem to catch my breath. There was not air enough in the world for me.
I got in bed with her. I lay down beside her and let my body touch hers. I felt afloat.
She made a small distant sound, and stirred again. I ran one hand from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. She spoke my name.
I said, in a whisper, “Don’t say anything. Pretend to be asleep. I want to do everything.”
I petted her back and bottom and the backs of her thighs for a long time. Girls feel different from men, they’re so much softer and there’s more warmth in their skin. They are in many ways nicer to touch, I think. I lay on top of her and rubbed my breasts against her back. I squirmed around and put my cheek, which felt feverish, against her bottom, which was soft and smooth and deliciously cool.
I tickled her little asshole with my fingertip, and felt the muscle flex involuntarily. I ran the finger back across the demilitarized zone separating anus and vagina and dipped it into her. She was hot and wet, and I worked my finger inside her and she got hotter and wetter.
I took my finger out and sniffed it, and licked her taste from it.
I recognized the taste. Proust indeed, cookie crumbs indeed, but it is true,