by Arien Muzacz
(06/28/06)
"Why are you smiling?"
"I can't believe you're in my bed," she says, pulling me closer and kissing my shoulder...then my neck, then my ear, then back down my neck. I feel like a prize she's won and doesn't quite know what to do with, a sports car for someone who doesn't drive. And yet I feel like I've won something too, a prize from a contest I didn't even enter. I never saw myself with a woman, much less one who's only two years younger than my mother, and yet here I am -- in her bed, in her arms -- and it seems perfectly right. Her kisses are so light, barely touching my skin. I'm already getting wet and I want to know if she is too. My fingers brush through the soft patch of peach-colored fur between her thighs until they reach the furrow, the slick damp cavern that's been my new home lately.
I touch her with hesitant fingertips, still afraid to hurt or scratch. Her clitoris seems to find me before I find it, and I slide my fingers gently over it, feeling its contours. It is a tiny seashell that somehow undulates like the waves, hard and soft all at once. I am intrigued by this thing, this warm soft hardness that makes her pant and grab my arms and whisper, "Oh, God," even though she believes in no such being. It moves, hiding itself and coming out again, getting harder and more pointed, and I stroke it slowly, asking her, "Softer? Harder? Slower? Faster?" and wishing I wasn't so inept.
She sighs, "That feels so good," and I feel her body convulse just the slightest little bit. I press harder, maintaining a slow rhythmic petting, and notice that she's wetter than before. Circles, circles, I'm using small circles, I think, and my mind wanders, reflecting on how we met and how often we used to talk and how comfortable I am around her. I lean down to kiss her. Her mouth is open, inviting me in further, deeper. I wonder if there is a hell after all, and if I might go there for touching her (or whether I was already headed south), and why I'm contemplating religious dogma at a time like this. She's panting through our kisses and I remember how scared I was to touch her at first, her slippery soft velvet a frightening unknown, and how scared I was to hurt her. I'm still worried about that, but not in a physical sense.
Now her velvet welcomes me. I open my eyes as we're kissing and look into her eyes. They're a beautiful deep green, darker than glass and more like a forest, and I wish they held a clue to her thoughts. Then I notice the laugh lines in their corners, creasing her baby pink skin in wrinkled folds, and wonder what I'm doing here. I'm scared of losing her and I'm scared of hurting her, but more than that, I'm scared of being together and still ending up alone. She stares at me intently and I wonder what she can see.
"What happens when I'm 75 and you're dead?" I ask her.
She laughs. "What?"
"Well, nobody lives forever, you know...and I can just see myself all alone for the last miserable years of my life..."
"Who says I'm gonna die first?" she challenges.
I roll my eyes. "Oh, come on -- be realistic!"
"I am! I'm pretty healthy. And you're the one who smokes," she says pointedly.
"Yeah, okay, whatever." She could be right, but I doubt it. She closes her eyes as we kiss and I close mine, shutting out the doubt, kissing her harder, feeling her tongue probe my mouth as her body rises to meet mine, our breasts touching. She pulls away, hands at her sides, reaching up to grip my forearms, murmuring, "oh God oh God," and then I feel her spasm as her body seizes my fingers and she lets out a sound halfway between a moan and a cry. I stop stroking her, letting my fingers rest a moment inside her as she relaxes and sighs and I run my other hand through the curls of her thick wild hair, trying to imagine what she looked like when the burnished red still overpowered the gray. She pulls me closer, her skin is cool and smooth, and it seems -- ironically -- that everything is exactly as it should be.
