by Luce Faricy
(06/02/04)

From Julia's bed I can see the outline of the mirror and then her clock red in the darkness, always telling the wrong time, not off by 10 or 20 minutes but by three and a half hours. The closet door is open halfway, because of an abundance of shoes. I can feel the house settling around me, the walls sinking into their foundations, the appliances resting. We all went to bed half-an-hour ago but I know I won't sleep for another half-hour at least. I'm too turned on and not willing to do anything about it.

Giovanna is in the room across the hall with her jealous, hot-tempered partner while I lie alone in her teenage daughter's bed. I enjoy the agonized feeling of being so close to what I want and unable to have it, though not nearly so much as I enjoy kissing Giovanna in the stolen moments we have for our unconsummated affair.

I've been coming to this city every six weeks for the last year to meet with a client about the marketing consulting that pays the bills to support my writing. I already knew Giovanna when she offered me her daughter's room on the weekends that Julia is at her father's house, but these visits have brought us so much closer. When we are alone, Giovanna holds my hand or kisses me; our phone calls can drift into the plainly obscene but we've never gone further than that. I won't force the issue and she seems to know just how far she can push without jeopardizing her relationship with her partner.

I roll over on my side, trying to ignore my aching clit, but when I close my eyes all I see is the slope of Giovanna's chest from the base of her neck down to where her breasts begin to swell out under her shirt. Giovanna is a force of nature in a skirt and heels. She dominates a room and she knows it, but she also responds to the attention she attracts like she can't believe her good fortune. It's an intoxicating blend, watching heads turn in her direction, mine included, and her shy eyes turn away.

She has a stock of low-cut blouses and short skirts that she wears for me when I visit. This further infuriates her partner, who seems to be waiting for proof of our affair so she can throw me out, except that there is no proof and this is my last visit anyway. My contract ends this month and I haven't yet come up with a good excuse to come back and spend more nights torturing myself here.

I won't take care of this desire by myself out of honor for Julia's space. I won't intrude with my adult sexuality, especially because the subject of my lust is her mother.

I stare at the miniblinds, crooked at one end where the cat likes to look out the window, and beside them the dresser where Giovanna has left a book of poetry. I don't need to read it; I know just where the corners of the pages have been turned down and the words they point to: "I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz/ or arrows of carnations that propagate fire:/ I love you as certain dark things are loved,/ secretly, between the shadow and the soul."

A year ago I never would have bunked down in a kid's room thinking in poetry; I would not have opened myself to all those kinds of love. I've spread my legs for many women in my life, but Giovanna is the one who pushes herself into my heart, stretching it open with that delightful pain I had reserved for my cunt alone. Our relationship is based on books and words; she makes me talk to her, invites the airing of my secret fears and desires. We are like that volume of poetry, hot with longing, ethereal, well-read, thumbed through and loved.

I gave her that book and she left it here in Julia's room to show me that she reads it often. Giovanna leaves me signs, tells me in coded ways that she adores me. Breathing deeply, I absorb her scent. She's a tall, imposing woman, but the scent she wears is as light as it is pervasive, high and floral, clean and slightly minty but with a sweet fruit musk. It permeates her house and I think that I could live inside this smell. The juxtaposition of this place slides under my skin and opens my senses: the maddening familiarity of her perfume, the rough discomfort of Julia's flannel sheets, and the alien hardness of her mattress. Every inch of my skin feels luminous in this thick darkness, my body ready to crack open under the right hands.

I've almost persuaded my mind to give up its longing and slide into sleep when the cat scratches at the door. Except it's not the cat. The sound comes from high up on the door and I'm out of the bed before I can think about it. I turn the knob and Giovanna glides into the room and shuts it behind her.

"You're awake," she whispers.

I am, indeed, awake. She's dressed in her long, red bathroom that hugs the curves of her hips and falls open to the center of her chest, showing the deep channel between her heavy breasts. I try not to lick my lips, but it's a losing battle. My hands quiver with the desire to slip under that robe and touch her.

"Trouble sleeping," I look around the room so I won't just lean over and kiss her long, dark lips. My eyes catch on the book of poetry. "Thought I might do some reading," I add as a joke.

"Neruda?" she asks, brushing by me to stand at the foot of the bed and hold the book in her hands. She might as well be cradling my heart in those hot palms.

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair...." I quote before she opens it. "...your hands the color of a savage harvest/ hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,/ I want to eat your skin like a whole almond."

This last I whisper from beside her ear, and I feel her body shiver. She turns and puts her arms around me, the book dropped on the foot of the bed. "You're going to get us into trouble," she says, though truth be told she's the one who started the touching.

I reach up to hold her head between my hands to kiss her. Giovanna's lips are softer than any I've kissed without being yielding. They hold me on their silken surface, teasing, exploring the curve of my own mouth without letting me inside.

Her hands encircle my waist. "So small," she says against my cheek as I kiss her face.

"Wiry," I answer and we both laugh almost silently. We've flirted like this before, kissing lightly, touching each other in fleeting strokes.

Now her lips brush beside my eye as she whispers, "I'm going to miss you so badly. I don't know what I'll do."

I nod my head because tears are burning the back of my throat. I don't know how to let go of this woman. We both turn our heads to look down at the bed. Can I really take her in her daughter's bed? Can I have her here with her partner in the other room? The thought chills me with fear. If we're caught, not only would I get a well-deserved punch in the face, but I'd look like a total asshole. I like to be well thought of, but not so much as I like kissing Giovanna. Too many times in life I've closed myself against the possibility of pain. Not tonight.

Giovanna's hands slide around to my ass, settling me against her breasts and belly. I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull her mouth to mine, pushing my tongue through her lips to flick against the tip of her tongue. She moans soundlessly, a vibration against my lips. With one hand I stroke the side of her neck, the soft, hot skin that smells like flowers and spring wind, then I pull back far enough that I can bring that hand between us, pushing open her robe.

Her breast hangs full and heavy, its thick, dark nipple straining to be touched. I have wanted for so long to feel the weight of her in my palm. I take a long, slow breath and force my hand to move by fractions, to burn every inch of her into my memory. Then I knead her breast in my palm, her nipple hardens, breath quickens. Our hands conspire to get her robe open completely, to let it fall off her shoulders and pool midnight maroon at her feet.

I want to stand and stare, to absorb every impression of her. She won't have it, though, self-conscious that she's a big woman. I love the curve of her belly, holding the memory of the child created there. If I thought she would let me, I would lean into her chest and run my hands along the lower curve of that belly where it slopes down from the top of her hips to its fullness over her pubic bone. But she sees only a middle-aged woman whose doctor says she should lose thirty pounds, and my hands would remind her of that, not evoke the primal desires she brings to my mind. I will have to find another way.

Giovanna pulls back the blanket, inviting me into her daughter's bed. At sixteen, I would have been horrified at the thought of my mother having sex in my bed; at thirty-eight I know that sixteen is never going to find out and I'll take Giovanna anywhere she consents to lie down for me.

My pajamas come off as I slide under the covers, me tugging and Giovanna helping, smiling white in the dim light that filters through the blinds. The feel of her skin along the length of me is too much, I have to put my knuckles in my mouth to keep from crying out. We rock together, arms pulling our bodies tight. As soon as I have my voice under control, I kiss her face and neck, breathing ragged, the lines of the poem coming out of me in a fierce whisper. "I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body," I say.

She laughs, but without sound she could as likely be crying. I know the feeling, when life rushes into a part of ourselves so long closed it hurts.

"...the sovereign nose of your arrogant face..." I continue.

Now she is laughing for certain, but a sadness still clings to her from a life given once too often to others, or taken by them. I can't hope to kiss that sadness away, so I'll try to make her forget it. My hands travel down her breasts and belly to shape her thighs, inviting them to open as I rock back on my knees, gazing down at her. I would have put her on white sheets to show off the deep tan of her skin and the spreading blackness of her hair, not a green plaid pattern. It charms me how even now her body commands the room. Even on her back, the contours of the furniture are only echoes of the rise of her breasts and belly, and the power line of her shoulders looks more solid than the dresser.

"Beautiful," I mouth down to her and she looks away. I wait until her eyes come back to my face. "Beautiful," I tell her again, meaning that she is the one poets write about, because there are not enough words in simple sentences to say how she opens me and pulls me out of myself, creates a place in the world for me to be vulnerable and powerful. I can't say all that, but I can show her.

I slide my hand down over her mound, cupping it for an instant and letting its heat burn my palm. One finger falls between her labia and slides through the thick wetness to enter her. Giovanna's hips buck toward me. Three fingers then, up to the base and she gasps, keeping her throat open to avoid vocalizing her desire. Her dark, painted nails clutch at the thick sheets. She would reach up at catch at my hair, try to pull me to her, but I shake my head at her because I want to watch.

She has told me what she's capable of taking inside her, during long, whispered conversations that left me panting and wordless. I slide my fingers slowly in and out, enjoying the feel of her and meeting her rhythms, riding the rise and fall of her hips, searching for the strokes that make her gasp. I add a fourth finger and then my thumb up to the base of my hand. My other hand rests on the lower curve of her belly at last, just above her mound, where I can push down over her clit to tease her.

My mouth is open, all attention on this hand inside her, filling her. Each thrust takes me further in, thumb tucking under the fingers, the caress of Giovanna's smooth muscles over my knuckles, the tighter opening of her cunt ringing the base of my thumb. She spreads her legs wider and rocks down on me and takes my whole hand inside her.

I want to shout with exhilaration and instead bite my lip so hard tears stand out in my eyes. She is staring at me, wide-eyed and wild, chest heaving. Her tongue traces the curve of her upper lip. I smile and hold my hand still, resting in her, while I bend forward. She's teased me about my flexibility and Yoga habit; I wonder if this could be considered a modified child's pose, bent double with one hand up inside her and my tongue pushing down to find her hard clit waiting for me. Her hips roll against me, but I don't move my hand, I just tease her clit with my tongue, back and forth and then slowly circle, swimming in the ocean taste of her.

When I'm ready, I rock my hand inside her, thrusting lightly up and back. I can't see her, but I feel her hands lunging up over her head to grab one of the pillows and bring it over her mouth. She screams soundlessly, the vibrations traveling down through her belly, down to me and the orgasm that has started to pulse around my hand. My whole self is in that hand, caressed by her wet, iron softness, enveloped in her. I feel her come in waves of motion and wetness, my hand pounding her, her hips lifting, insisting on it. My tongue can't stay on her clit, but it doesn't need to. One of her hands clutches my hair, pulls my wet face up to rest on her belly as another wave rocks her down on my fist.

We hold together like that for a while. She pushes the pillow away from her face and cradles my head in her hands, running her fingers through my hair. "Push," I whisper and her muscles contract, making an exit for me. My hand comes out cramped and soaked. I wipe it along my thigh, then crawl up to embrace her. We're both crying, silent tears drying on our cheeks, an expression of joy and love, along with the knowledge that we may never be able to do this again.

"You?" she asks, lips beside my ear and one hand straying between my legs.

I open and let her touch me at the same time that I shake my head. I've had enough orgasms in my life, what she gives me is of a different order. Resting my forehead against hers I trace the side of her cheek with my fingertips. "Not here," I say. "I'll come in a story for you. You'll read it someday."

She chuckles lowly. "Promise," she says, so I do.

I pull the rough sheet over us. In a few minutes she'll get up and go to the bathroom to shower quickly and then back to her room. I will be up half the night grinning and replaying every moment half-a-dozen times, curling my hand against my chest and imagining it is inside her still.

In the morning, our silence won't work. Her partner will wake up and know something has changed. She'll ask Giovanna what happened and Giovanna will pause too long with her answer. I'll get hit, hopefully not in the face, and thrown out of the house and Giovanna will let me go for good in order to preserve her relationship. But right now, tonight, in this bed with her, I enjoy the safest place my heart has found. If I'm never in Julia's room again, this feeling will follow me and show me how to come home to life again. On my way back to my city, I will buy flannel sheets and Giovanna's perfume.

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