Sapphic Voices Erotica

NEPENTHE

This Story is rated 'Adults Only' for its sexual content.

Main Entry: ne·pen·the
Pronunciation: n&-'pen(t)-thE
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin nepenthes, from Greek nEpenthes, neuter of nEpenthEs banishing pain and sorrow, from nE- not + penthos grief, sorrow; akin to Greek pathos suffering -- pathos
1 : a potion used by the ancients to induce forgetfulness of pain or sorrow
2 : something capable of causing oblivion of grief or suffering


Stepping into the throbbing, under lit bar is bracing, like diving into cold water. Audrey feels the adrenaline tremors in her fingers and toes and bites back a tiny cry of frustration. It feels too good. Her blood, rushing and pulsing along with the eye-watering bassline of the music, sings at the sight of so many eligible women. In so many ways, it is a relief to be single again. The dance floor beckons, the music burrowing under her skin, impelling bones and muscles in spite of her iron control, but she turns her back to it.

Not tonight.

The sight of the crowded bar is as welcome as an oasis in a desert and she pitches her body forward, weaving through the tangled humanity, riding the waves of undulation like a pro, until it deposits her at the farthest edge of the long stretch of scarred wood and brass. She holds up two fingers at one of the harried bartenders, scowling until a bouncy blonde with prominent cleavage scoots her way.

“Uh huh?” Cleavage shouts, gum smacking audibly, like gunshots in the din.

“Jack and Coke.” Cleavage nods and then moseys away and Audrey despairs at ever seeing her, or her drink, again. She settles in for a good, long wait.

Here, all motion is concentrated, reduced to its most basic and well-rehearsed forms, an intricate rhythm nonetheless. Audrey is surprised her body remembers how to seduce without trying, lapsing into the relaxed, seductive and yet slightly bored stance with practiced ease. It was not a skill she’d used often in her four-year relationship and she wonders for a moment if that had spelled its eventual demise.

Stop it! Less analyzing. More drinking.

Yes, a nice whiskey haze would soften the razor sharp edge of her thoughts. She leans into the bar, resting a hand lightly on the sticky surface, letting the curtain of her chestnut hair swing forward, brushing her shoulders and chin, only to flick it back into place with a haughty sigh.

One more minute and I’m out of here.

Cleavage works her way back to Audrey with a slow and deliberate saunter. Audrey’s Jack and Coke sloshes across the bar past several thirsty-looking patrons.

“Eight fifty.”

“For one drink?” Cleavage pretends that she can’t hear the incredulous note in Audrey’s voice and cracks her gum again. Audrey shoves a ten at her and then deliberately waits for her change instead of leaving it as Cleavage expects.

Cupping her glass, she pivots and then wades into the tidal pool of milling bodies, keeping her face carefully bland. She enjoys being buffeted back and forth, grasping the flotsam of conversation as she moves. It’s almost like she’s a part of it, trolling with hope, netting possibilities.

And then the beat hooks her.

She finds her hips twitching, head bobbing before she can control it. Raising her glass to her lips, she empties the contents in one open-throated swallow. The alcohol swats ineffectually at her hyperactive reflexes.

Her foot starts to tap.

No. I can’t stay.

She tries to remember going to bars, searching faces for the one. It wasn’t so long ago. Vague recollections surface, but they don’t sustain. She knows she’s not that girl on the inside anymore.

Another drink would be heaven, but as she glances over her shoulder, she accidentally makes eye contact with a compact, muscular butch who is openly checking her out. She turns away without acknowledging the gleam in the woman’s small eyes. Her throat becomes unaccountably dry.

The bar is small and narrow, the ceiling low. The floor is slanted, rolling down from the stairwell leading into the main area peppered with tables, dipping toward the bar and then bottoming out at the dance floor. The blue lights are on and pulsing. Hands rise above the bobbing heads on the dance floor, twisting, a snake charmer’s dance. Audrey watches them, fascinated. Inside, her emotions are tepid and flat as glass. She shakes off the welcome pull of lethargy, of numbness, sheltering the tiny twinge of excitement inside like a lit match in a strong breeze.


I should just go, she thinks as she plants her glass on a ledge littered with dozens of empties.

“Would you like to dance?” Humid gust of breath at her ear. Audrey turns. Her stomach plummets and the palms of her hands start to tingle.

Taut tanned skin, sweetly displayed by a tiny white half shirt is a definite lure. Audrey catches herself before she smiles. How can someone look so innocent and still be barely dressed? Glossy dark hair and a lopsided smile make the shouted invitation that much more seductive. Something stirs. Audrey is not quite sure if it is her slumbering libido or her flight instinct.

“No,” she shouts, allowing her smile to show to take the sting out of the flat refusal.

Mistake.

“A drink then?”

Pain. Brief and white. All pain is white. White hot flash of the strobe light glinting on the girl’s glowing white half-shirt… White car driving away, getting smaller in the distance… White walls and empty rooms…

White is the absence of color and absence is something Audrey understands intimately.

“No. No, thank you.” She chokes on the words, thinking ‘Some whims are best left ungratified.’ Mentally, she flees, past the bouncer to the streets she had been aimlessly wondering, but her body is penned, mired down. She doesn’t have the energy to fight. Not the crowds, not herself.

“Just one drink?”

“Fine,” she breathes. The girl does not hear as much as see Audrey’s surrender. The lopsided smile straightens, shows teeth.

“My name is Lou!” she offers, extending a hand, a gift for a gift. Audrey eyes it, then takes the slender fingers in her own and receives a gentle squeeze before the girl takes full possession. Her hand closes over Audrey’s and suddenly Audrey is being towed, back toward the bar, back to Cleavage, back toward temptation. She watches the girls back muscles flex as she trails behind her, sees the grapevine tattoo on her tailbone peak out from the low waistband of her snug jeans. This moment is too real. Audrey has been to this place… knows what will follow, but she can’t let go of the girl’s hand.

Lou reaches the bar, dances around the fringes of supplicants vying for Cleavage’s attention, and inserts herself into the fray at the exact right moment. Within seconds, she is floating back, a drink in each hand, another, deeper, inviting smile on her lips.

How many types of smiles can one person have, Audrey wonders? She wants to explore this possibility, take its measure.

Lou thrusts a tumbler at her. Amber liquid laps at the rim. “What’s your name?” she shouts, leaning in closer. The satiny feel of bare abdomen brushes Audrey’s arm, and her body wakes briefly, lightning flash in a clear sky. She takes a sip. The liquid burns as it goes down. Somehow sharing her name seems too much to ask.

“You know what,” Audrey declares with false brightness, her face in profile, always turned away from prying eyes. “I do want to dance.”

She glances from the corner of her eye, lids lowered and Lou’s eyebrow arches in return. The lopsided grin is back. “Great,” Lou says, bouncing slightly, already starting to take up the rhythm. Audrey feels a tickle at the back of her throat. It swells, crawls down her throat and into her belly. She gulps her drink, hoping to drown it, but the feeling remains. Intrigue. Lust.

Lou has a dancer’s body, perfectly proportioned. She is young, no more than twenty-two. She waits expectantly while Audrey finishes her drink, tilting her head to the side, appraising. She does this with an innocence that Audrey envies.

What does she see that makes her smile like that?

When Audrey finishes, she takes the glass from her, gives it to a passing waitress, and takes her hand again. All of her movements are effortless, airy. She takes Audrey’s other hand and then moves in front of her, hands behind her, clearing a path to the dance floor. Her hips sway and Audrey must fight herself not to focus on this. Audrey feels seasick and when Lou turns, she lurches against her.

“Whoa,” Lou laughs. Audrey rights herself, hands on Lou’s shoulders, but flails about in her mind, trying to understand what about this girl is throwing off her balance. She decides it is the mischievous gleam in her soft green-gold eyes.

Lou begins to move. One hand snakes around Audrey’s waist, inviting her to join. Audrey’s hips slide into the beat without thought and Lou pulls her closer, sealing the gap between them. Together, they curl into the music, a sultry rumble of bass and throaty vocals. As one, hips grind, rippling. Lou twists in her arms and now she is facing away. Her neck arches, pressing into Audrey, intentionally erotic. Tiny bursts of heat explode within Audrey, taking her breath away. Her face is almost buried in Lou’s thick hair. She wants to touch it, wants to feel its heaviness in her hands. She raises a hand but then forces it back down. Too much temptation there.

Her eyes cast about for a distraction, a way to disconnect from the moment, but she sees the same pattern playing out with other couples, other bodies.

Why do we do this? Why do we play coy and then reveal, without words, our deepest desires?

She inhales, starved for air, and only catches the sent of Lou, a commingling of earthiness and musky cologne. It’s so personal, an unsophisticated seduction. Audrey is powerless against this kind of offensive.

Lou leans her head back against Audrey’s breast. Audrey’s nipples pebble at the gentle friction. Lou feels it, her shoulder blades deliberately grazing the hardened peaks. Audrey groans, low in her chest, barely audible. She realizes she is in shock, that she cannot be accountable for her actions and this thought frees her. The arch of Lou’s neck is beneath her lips. It’s almost religious, the way it curves. Audrey is quite certain she could learn to worship it. With the flow of the music, Lou’s head inclines to one side, her hair sweeping across her back, exposing the elegant curves of her collarbone and shoulder, both begging to be tasted.

And so Audrey does, allowing the whim that had brought her this far to carry her further, lips brushing Lou’s skin, feather light.

Lou stiffens and then melts against her with a sigh. She is so warm. The heat of her makes Audrey dizzy. Her hands flutter, seeking escape, only to come to rest on Lou’s bare waist. Moved by the rushing of her blood, they skim forward, tingling, trailing the planes of Lou's abdomen until her palms are pressed flat against the girl's stomach, possessive. Testing, her hands move, gliding over Lou’s gyrating ribcage, fingers splayed. She stops as her fingers encounter rounded softness. They linger there until Lou moves, bending and twisting against her again, her breasts surging into Audrey’s hands.

The throbbing between her legs is not just the beat of the bass. It aches. Audrey can imagine taking Lou right there, on the dance floor, and she nearly laughs out loud. She can remember feeling this once upon a time, too. Lou moans, eyes closed and Audrey caresses the softness beneath her hands. Palms abrade painfully hard nipples. Audrey finds it mesmerizing that a stranger would literally bare her throat and make herself vulnerable in front of hundreds of other people. But even as she realizes this, she also knows that in giving, Lou is taking some power for herself. All sex is power.

She turns again in Audrey’s arms, her own snaking around Audrey’s neck. “You’re so hot,” she coos in Audrey’s ear. Her lips are tender, smiling but pouty. Her eyes are wide and subtly pleading.

Audrey squirms away, eyes cast to the floor. She can’t see their feet move. The floor is a puddle of darkness. Audrey wants that, all black. No talking.

She glances up, fleeting, flickering, taking in the confused crease in Lou’s forehead, her dilated pupils.

Maybe she believes she has earned the mantle of cynic? Audrey considers. Perhaps she’s had one torrid and petulant affair, or even two. Maybe in college, but it hadn’t scarred her soul. That much was obvious. Lou couldn’t know that when your dignity is ripped out of you, it leaves a numb, hollow place in your mind, just behind your eyes. A raw place that your mind explores, over and over, the way your tongue probes the empty space in your gums after a tooth has been pulled.

“What do you want from me?” she whispers, knowing that Lou will not hear.

The girl looms closer, trying to catch Audrey’s words. “Do you want to go somewhere? To talk?” she shouts, squinting as if a bright light were shining in her eyes.

Audrey feels something dark within her expand, an awful yearning that borders on hatred. To want again…

She shakes her head just as an explosion of aggressive house techno thrashes the air. The bodies surrounding them quickly morph from the fluidity of the slower, sensual music, hardening now into the erratic and percussive thrusts of hip, shoulder and elbow. The change is palpable. Lou and Audrey stand immobile, eyes locked, in the midst of this frenzy. Dizzy again, Audrey’s vision doubles, her thoughts careening through her head.

No… I can’t be here…

She’s so young…

It’s just one night…

And then what?

Audrey can see the embodied chain reaction of her thoughts taking shape all around her. It all begins with a dance.

“I can’t do this.” She staggers, gripping Lou’s arm with white fingers.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” She swipes at her hair, which has spilled onto her sweaty brow, and approximates nonchalance for Lou’s benefit. “No, I mean, yes, I’m fine. Excuse me.”

She turns to escape, panic whizzing through her now, eyes still turned away, but Lou bends low, sweeping into her range of vision, snaring her with a solicitous look. Audrey expels a frustrated sigh, her body a hive of conflicting needs. Lou’s face is annoyingly free of worry lines. Her eyes are so round and innocent. Audrey wonders if life has ever scooped out her insides like warm ice cream. She can’t have known real pain, not with a face like that.

“Do you need some air? We could go outside?”

The smell of sweat, thousands of pores oozing alcohol and nicotine, assaults her nostrils and Audrey chokes, her throat closing up.

“Uh, no. No. I’m going to just… The restroom… I’ll be right back.”

Spinning away, she plows ungracefully through the dance floor, leaving Lou to stare after her.


In the perpetual twilight of the bathroom’s fluorescents, Audrey waits for the crowd of women preening before the streaked mirrors to clear out before she splashes her hot cheeks with cool water. She leans her elbows on the chipped porcelain and then buries her face in her hands. Her breathing is the shallow, gossamer whisper of grief held at bay by a thin thread of control.

A toilet flushes. Someone clears their throat in one of the stalls and Audrey straightens guiltily.

There are eight stalls, all of scratched and defaced red metal. The floor is a greasy sheet of concrete, scuffed by the tromping of high heels and combat boots. The stall in the corner has a hand written ‘Out of Order’ note taped to the front of it.

Audrey turns away as a woman emerges from the third stall. She tears a thin brown sheet from the dispenser and pats her dripping face with it. The woman, a stocky bottle blonde with bristling short hair, gives Audrey a flickering smile as she washes her hands. Audrey blinks and then hides her face in the paper towel again. She doesn’t look up until she hears the whoosh of the door opening and then snicking shut.

She crumples the paper towel and swallows hard. The blond is gone but Audrey isn’t alone.

“I… I thought I should check on you… You looked so pale.”

In the unforgiving violet light, Lou’s beauty blazes forth with a clarity impossible to imagine on a darkened dance floor. She looks even younger, so very trusting. Her cheeks are ruddy, impossibly tight and smooth, her pupils smaller, irises more jungle green than gold now. A delicate and barely visible map of blue veins lines her forehead. Audrey traces them hungrily with her eyes, notes the smattering of freckles on the girl's upturned nose.

The paper towel flutters to the floor. Audrey’s hands are still raised, hovering in front of her face. Her mouth hangs open. She can’t think of a single response. Lou’s lips, pink and ripe, exert the irresistible pull of a gravity well. Audrey cannot tear her eyes from them.

For about the thousandth time since pale strips of salmon shaded dawn had invaded her abandoned apartment that morning, Audrey thinks of death, of how easy it would be to let this defeat be the final cut, the killing blow. In her mind, she sees the endless circuit of hope and ruin, love and obsession, conquest and then utter loss… Pamela, Catherine, Lindsay, Julie, Barbara, Rosa, Sherry and Danielle.

But Lou’s lips, her limpid eyes, the biscuit colored skin of her flat stomach, the tiny gold hoop winking silently from her belly button, all plead for life, for the rush of blood and hormones, the thrum of delirium, the beautiful lie.

Audrey takes a tentative step forward and Lou moves to meet her.

Audrey’s lips are dry. They hesitantly brush Lou’s plump lower lip and all Audrey can think about are the red, gold and dusty brown leaves blowing down the streets outside. Old, dead, corrupt. She is ashamed how much she needs this.

But even this thought is banished when Lou begins to return her kiss. She stumbles backward until the cold concrete wall is at her back and the warm length of Lou’s body is pressed against her.

The kiss is like a dream; easy, sweet, promising. Audrey is careful not to devour or to show the ugly yearning that threatens to swallow Lou whole. Lips wet, slide against each other now, learning the choreography of a kiss with slow, deliberate steps. Audrey hears, as if from a distance, a low, tortured groan and realizes with horror that it is coming from herself. Lou gasps, a tiny breathless confession, and her arms reach around, drawing Audrey closer.

Audrey is terrified to touch. Lou feels sugary and fragile, like marzipan. Audrey is afraid she will scorch her with her urgency.

And then Audrey’s hands, impatient petitioners, discover Lou’s skin, awestricken at first, like timid pilgrims touching a scrap of the Shroud of Turin. Quickly they become feverish, fanning out, memorizing every silken curve. They travel up, find the glorious weight of her hair and bury themselves in its softness.

Lou’s sweetness soon ignites and then crystallizes, becomes more elemental. No longer timid, her tongue darts boldly, teasing, coaxing. She laughs huskily against Audrey’s lips, and the sound shivers up and down the arch of Audrey’s spine. Her pulse thuds in the most intimate places. She opens her eyes as Lou draws away just slightly and is awed by what she sees.

Passion has transformed her. Her hair tumbles in bedraggled mermaid waves, framing her flushed face, her bruised lips. But her eyes… they are so fierce and confident they take Audrey’s breath away. Lou understands now. A silent accord has been made. She lifts a finger to Audrey’s lips, traces the outline of her mouth.

Control.

Stunned, Audrey stands passively as Lou’s cool fingers tug at her t-shirt. It pulls free from the waistband of her jeans and Lou’s hands slide underneath. Her lips demand and receive Audrey’s surrender as her hands grapple with the buttons on Audrey's button-fly jeans. Cool fingers burn a hot trail on her belly. And then…

A burst of laughter precedes three women who push through the door to the bathroom and enter on a cloud of whiskey-scented air. Audrey and Lou recoil from each other like teenagers caught petting in the back seat of a car on Lovers Lane. They pant at each other, adrenaline singing, and then attempt detachment, failing miserably. Audrey’s skin tingles where Lou has touched it. Lou backs away toward the sinks, threading a hand through her disheveled hair. Audrey slumps against the wall, a hand on the paper towel dispenser to steady her.

“… the hell she did,” one of the women, a pencil thin goth with floppy black hair, is saying to the other two. She sees Lou and raises a contemptuous eyebrow at Audrey’s guilty blush. She passes into one of the stalls, smirking slightly at her friends, one of whom occupies a stall to the woman’s right. The other stations herself in front, pseudo-guarding the doors as she chatters on in response.

“She said she didn’t care, but I could tell she was just pulling the same old shit. I mean, hello? I’m not stupid.”

Audrey reaches down to button her pants, thoughts of escape storming through her spinning top brain, until Lou smiles another smile and shakes her head. 'Be patient' this smile tells her.

“She’s a bitch,” the woman in the first stall answers. “Just ignore her.” She sounds as if she’s talking into an empty coffee can.

The flick, flick, hiss of a lighter echoes off of the tiled walls and then the acrid tang of smoke intermingles with other, more pungent odors.

“Give me one of those,” the girl guarding the stalls demands and a hand holding a cigarette appears at the bottom of one of the stall doors. She wobbles drunkenly as she picks up the cigarette and purses it between her lips.

Audrey releases an irritated sigh, kicking the wall as the girl fumbles lighting her cigarette.

“Fuck,” she seethes.

“Come here.” Lou takes her hand, tilting her head toward the stalls. Her voice is resonant. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and full of promise. Hand curling at the small of Lou’s back, Audrey follows, moving furtively past the smoking woman to the end stall. Lou pushes the door open and then steps inside.

Lou doesn’t wait until the door clangs shut before her mouth finds Audrey’s, sucking her lower lip. “God,” she breathes, frenzied hands pulling down Audrey’s jeans and nudging aside soaked cotton underwear. Audrey bites the inside of her cheek but Lou shakes her head. Those jungle green eyes say ‘Don’t hold back.’

“I want to hear you,” Lou whispers against her neck. Her tongue dances across Audrey’s collarbone as her finger dips into quivering heat.


“Ohhhhhhhhhh”

“Yesssss,” Lou hisses, “Tell me.”

At first Lou’s exploration is teasing, delicate, almost cruel in its subtlety. Straining, mouths enveloping, Audrey’s hands clutch at the back of Lou’s shirt, the waistband of her jeans. Lou slides her hand under Audrey’s shirt, and one-handed, plies nimble fingers to fastening of Audrey’s bra.

And then suddenly one finger becomes two and plunges deeper, the rhythm more insistent, brushing Audrey’s clit with every thrust. Audrey emits a strangled whimper as the violet light all around her diminishes, fades to gray, starts to shimmer and then deepens to violet again.

Lou’s tongue finds the curve of Audrey’s jaw, her earlobe and the sensitive place behind as her fingers encompass a breast, cupping it and then tugging gently at the nipple. A deep, primal moan erupts, spilling out of Audrey’s mouth. Her hands desperately seek purchase on the slick metal walls as her body starts to hum and shudder. She feels her soul empty and then fill up again, relentless, like a riptide during a full moon.

“Come for me,” Lou murmurs, lowering her head to flick her tongue over Audrey’s taut and exposed nipple. It is too much. Too intense. She cannot hold it down, inside of her anymore.

“Oh god, god!”

The women in the stalls next to them are giggling and snorting like wicked schoolgirls but Audrey doesn’t hear over the roaring in her ears. Convulsing, fragmenting, shattering, Audrey blinks, breath caught in her throat. The small confines of the stall become a chiaroscuro of velvet shadows and blistering light. Lou arches with her, tanned arms a living buttress, supporting Audrey’s keening body until it collapses against her.

For five perfect seconds, the uncertainty plaguing Audrey’s soul resolves itself, coalescing into a solid orb of warm conviction and her body hums contentedly, her mind pleasantly languid. And then the fragments of herself gradually reassemble. Welcome disorientation evaporates, leaving the dry husk of reality, like a splinter in her mind. The air conditioning claps on with a tremendous grinding whir. Distant voices squawk. Music streams in through the vents. The squeak, whine and splash of a faucet turned on adds its note to the motley patchwork of sounds.

Audrey opens her eyes, focusing first on the graffiti etched into the red walls—“REMEMBER, EVIL SPELLED BACKWARDS IS LIVE” and “FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS TAKE HOME UGLY WOMEN” and “JULIE IS A CUNT!”

She looks away from this, eyes darting everywhere but at the face right next to hers, discomfort rising to alarming levels. Lou’s fingers are still inside her, and worse yet, she sighs and rests her head guilelessly on Audrey’s shoulder. Audrey suddenly can’t breathe. The red walls are too close.

“Well,” quips a girlishly acerbic voice from outside the stall, “That was quick.”

Audrey’s cheeks burn as hushed giggles spill into whispered conversation. “Oh god,” she moans, a pale and mortified echo of her cry moment’s before. Lou only chuckles, lifting her head from Audrey’s shoulder.

“Who says we’re finished?” she calls out loudly as she gives Audrey a confidential wink.

“Oh, and by the way, the first five minutes are free, but after that it’s 3.99 a minute.” The girl outside the stalls harrumphs. She turns back to Audrey, smirking, and then, glimpsing Audrey’s strained white face, the grin slides from her lips.

“Oh no… I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That was stupid. I’m such a bonehead. I shouldn’t have said it.” She disengages, putting perfunctory space between them, head hanging, hands fumbling about, useless. The absence of her is a shock, an arctic chill that frosts Audrey’s bones, her mouth, her mind. She yanks her t-shirt down over too vulnerable flesh and musters a hard smile.

“Don’t. It’s nothing.”

“No. It is! I’m such an idiot.” Lou doesn’t bother to whisper as a toilet flushes and the door whisks open again, whispered voices rising as the tide of noise beyond sweeps them up like flotsam on a foamy wave.

Audrey stares at the toilet bowl as someone jerks at the paper towel dispenser and then they, too, exit. The ensuing silence is like a spotlight, glaring and obvious.

Lou continues, shuffling her boot-clad feet. “I have a gift for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. I really do. And you looked so… frozen… so upset… I thought…” She rakes a hand through her tousled hair. “God, I’m rambling now. This is not good.”

Her chin dips and Audrey can detect a very delectable blush staining her cheeks. “I tend to talk when I get nervous. Well, I wouldn’t say talk; it’s more like non-stop chatter. Not an endearing trait, I’m told. It’s terrible… and annoying… at least that what people tell me. Well, not people… my ex… she said that a lot… I…”

Audrey, sensing it is the expected appropriate thing to do, leans down and stops the girl’s unraveling skein of words with a delicate, questioning kiss. It is returned with such gratitude and force, the silent pendulum inside Audrey swings back, away from cold panic. Her blood heats and she reaches out, clutching Lou’s shoulders.

“Let’s get out of here,” she challenges, mumbling against the ceaseless probe of tongue and convergence of lip. Please don’t let this be wrong. The thought becomes a litany, a justification for appeasing gnawing hunger, for needing this so much. Her body recognizes the anticipation, cries out for it joyously. She promises herself this time will be different.

Her knee nudges Lou’s gently apart and the girl presses against her, searing warmth chafing her thigh.

Lou nods, breathless, dreamy. She breaks contact long enough to rasp, “Where? Your place?”

Audrey involuntarily stills. An infinitesimal shudder vibrates through her. Bringing Lou to that emptiness would be like showing her an open wound.

“No,” she utters a little too vehemently. “Yours.”

Lou nods but the feverish movement of her hips doesn’t diminish. She leans close, her hands snaking through Audrey’s hair, tilting Audrey’s head back. Her lips move along the curve of Audrey’s neck. "But, I want you now," she breathes into her ear. "Jesus. I want to… taste you. I need to…"

The reaction of Audrey’s body is elemental in its certainty, the systolic motion of muscles, bunching and releasing, synapses sizzling, breath evaporating as soon as it is drawn into her lungs. It is a primal surrender and Audrey understands this. She knows that Lou could take her, again and again in this filthy bathroom in front of hundreds of witnesses and she would let her. She would abandon everything but the pleasure of submitting to those hands and that mouth.

Audrey has never been robbed of the power to say no until this moment. It is terrifying, and still she cannot speak it.

Latching desperately onto her last reserve of detachment, the inner voyeur, the cold being locked away in that ivory tower behind her jade green eyes, she is able to summon the ghost of herself, able to put her hands around Lou's tiny waist, to gently lift her up and set her down again, inches away.

Lou looks drunk, woozy on kisses. Like a swimmer treading water, her arms swirl. She sways, eyes unfocused. She stares at Audrey's lips hungrily as Audrey whispers, "Not here."

She nods again, not really hearing, obedient as Audrey straightens her t-shirt and zips her jeans. Audrey reaches past her, unlatching the stall door and pushing it wide.

"After you," she offers gallantly, attempting a smile that doesn't quite quench the wolfish glint in her eyes.

After a moment, Lou understands, nods yet again and then drifts past, arms and hands flowing over Audrey like scalding hot water.

"We... we need to… to get outside," Audrey says, breathing heavily. "And we’re not going anywhere if you keep touching me like that."

"Mmmm… okay." Lou sighs, pulls her hands away.

"Right." Audrey feels her mind slipping gears, losing purpose and so she turns and strides toward the door, leaving Lou to follow. The hallway is almost blanket dark. Curling multi-colored flyers announcing the appearances of various bands flutter, hastening her step as she breezes through the narrow passage, emerging near the south edge of the bar. The blast and clamor that greets her buffets and nearly drives her back, but she sets her chin high and moves through the tangled crowd, trusting that Lou is just behind her.

Near the stairs, Lou place fingers lightly on her shoulder and she halts, the hair prickling on her arms.

"My roommate," Lou shouts over the music. "I came with her. I need to tell her I’m leaving."

Audrey inclines her head in acknowledgment but doesn’t turn. She cannot make herself look at Lou, though she pictures her weaving through the clustered tables, finding her roommate, bending low, hair swinging forward as she whispers in her ear. Her roommate’s eyes will widen, of course. Roommate might even laugh and tease, hinting at lewdness. But Lou will be too distracted to notice. Once she has whispered her apologies and a warning not to come home too soon, she will turn and her inner compass will guide her back in Audrey’s direction.

Audrey has closed her eyes, imagining this. Women jostle her as they climb the stairs.

Disorientation has made Audrey fragile. She feels bruised by the contact. A draft of cool air caresses her face. She inhales sharply. She can hear street sounds, engines accelerating, wind tossing about leaves in the gutter, the shrill bleat of a car-alarm.

Lou is too far away. Her absence is like a rubber band pulled too tight. When she finally returns, Audrey can feel the tension slacken, even as she feels Lou’s fingers clasp her own.

"Ready," Lou softly declares as Audrey starts up the stairs. She breaches the sidewalk and then her momentum slows and sputters.

Lissome, yellow-fingered smokers huddle against the random gusts of chill wind. The smoke wreathing their heads is snatched up, pulled away on the wind like ghostly kite tails. Lou coughs delicately as a plume of smoke wafts her way. The sound wakes Audrey from her reverie. She starts forward, raising two fingers to hail a taxi.

A battered yellow cab idling on the opposite corner performs an illegal u-turn in front of oncoming traffic, and crawls to a halt in front of her.

Audrey grasps the door handle, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Lou. The girl’s tumescent pink lips distract for a moment. Her eyes are dazed, looking at Audrey with what is uncomfortably like adoration. Audrey pulls her toward the open door and she starts giggling nervously. Crouching low, she slides across the sticky vinyl, swallowed by the narrow darkness of the back seat.

Audrey edges onto the seat and then shuts the door, plastering herself against it. The dingy partition is so scuffed and clouded by fingerprints it is nearly opaque, but the jovial, thumping Rastafarian music and the framed license hanging on the back of the seat proclaim the driver's presence very clearly. His patient silence is a question.

Hands in her lap, Lou is staring out the frosted window, thoughts faraway.

"Lou?" The name feels foreign and heavy on Audrey's tongue.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Lou shakes her head, scoots forward and speaks loudly at the partition. "Seventeenth and MLK."

With a neck-snapping jerk the taxi inserts itself into the flow of traffic. Soon the tessellated landscape is a shiny blur and the driver cranks up his music, chanting along with the incomprehensible lyrics in a deep, scratchy baritone.

About fourteen inches of split vinyl separate the two women, but no more so than the thick, almost tangible tension, as heavy as the overheated, incense-laden air inside the cab. Lou traces tiny designs in the condensation on the window. She appears calm, but the rapid rise and fall of her chest belies this. Audrey is staring straight ahead, stoic and grim. None of this seems real to her.

Interminable minutes later, the taxi slows to something below light speed and then, brakes squealing like the pistons of a freight train, comes to a full stop.

A break in the partition slides back and an ashy brown hand with long yellow nails, pushes through, palm up.

“Thirteen sixty-five.”

Audrey hoists herself from the seat, digging in her front pocket. She fishes out a twenty and thrusts it into the hand as she opens the door and then slides out. Lou alights beside her, breathing deep of the night air and looking up expectantly at the tall brick building before them.

“I’m on six,” she explains with a grimace. “And there’s no elevator. Sorry.”

Audrey shrugs, her face blank.

“Right. Okay.” Lou takes a key from her back pocket and goes to the outer door of the building. It is thick glass, very clean. The stoop is freshly painted a cement gray and all of the call buttons are neatly labeled. Audrey checks out the neighborhood, gleaning what she can from the surroundings. It is pleasantly quiet. All the buildings are a uniform brick and very well-kept, quaint but nondescript. No ethnic flavor to their structure; no dilapidated menace in their appearance. The sidewalks are free of debris. The cars neatly lining the curb are in the moderately-priced and sensible range, Toyotas, Kias, Hondas, the occasional SUV.

It takes a moment to register, but Audrey realizes she is disappointed in this understatedly normal neighborhood. No threat is apparent in the narrow alleyways between the buildings; only the shadowy outline of a cat lurks, thrown into relief by the sputtering streetlights.

Actually, the street is empty of all human forms. For no reason she can name, she had expected danger here, had been drawn taut like a bowstring waiting for it. But the only danger to her here is embodied in the slight figure holding the door open for her.

Lou smiles as Audrey slips by. It’s a frightening smile, full of possibilities. Audrey’s heartbeat accelerates. They mount the stairs. After the first flight, Lou takes two at a time, reaching the landing on the sixth floor barely out of breath. Audrey arrives shortly thereafter, panting heavily.

Gotta cut back on the chocolate and Big Macs.

Lou unlocks the third door on the left, wrestling with the door until finally she kicks it open.

“It sticks,” she explains ruefully. Again, she stands aside to admit Audrey.

Audrey passes over the threshold and is immediately confronted with a commingling of scents; an oily hint of last night’s dinner, the perfume of scented candles. It strikes Audrey as terribly intimate and as Lou marches past her to flick on the light switch, she files these impressions away in her mind, another brushstroke coloring the pencil outlines of the girl’s personality.

With the light comes another flood of information. Small apartment, sparsely furnished, a lone Chagall print adorns one white wall. A squat blue velour sofa occupies most of the tiny living room. The kitchen is so compact it is almost nonexistent. A small countertop bar divides the space. Empty glasses and plates spattered with food crumbs litter its white formica surface. Magazines clutter the floor in front of the sofa.

On each side of the room, an open door leads to a bedroom. One of these looks orderly, bed made, shoes lined up carefully at the end of it. The other is chaotic, sheets and blankets tangled, clothes strewn about on the blue shag carpet.

“So,” Lou says, arms opened wide. “This is me.” She blushes slightly, rushing to the counter, tidying the dishes, sweeping crumbs into the sink. “Sorry. My roommate… She’s kind of a slob.”

Framed in familiar surroundings, Lou takes on a complexity that is intriguing, though it's also overwhelming. Audrey can picture her, quite clearly, lounging on the sofa on a Sunday morning, thumbing through magazines in her pajamas or maybe after work, work clothes rumpled, with feet propped up on the pillows, channel surfing. Here, she sleeps, sniffles through the flu, shuffles through her days while dreaming of the future. Audrey is so caught up in the absolute reality of this vision she doesn’t notice when Lou sidles up to her.

“Do you want something? To drink?” Her hands come to rest on Audrey’s shoulders, fingers twining strands of Audrey’s hair. "I have beer, I think."

"Um sure. A beer would be great."

Lou circles to the fridge, pulls it open, and the ambient light from inside throws her face into part shadow.

"Let's see. I have Budweiser... No, but that's Trisha's... two Corona, a Fosters and a Hard Lemonade. What'll it be?"

Audrey shrugs. "Surprise me."

Lou pretends to deliberate, then fishes out the two Corona with a clink and an impish grin. "I'm kinda partial to these." She offers a bottle to Audrey who takes it gratefully, happy to have something to occupy her hands.

"Do you want to sit?" Lou indicates the couch, her smile encouraging and sweetly open. Like a Cocker Spaniel puppy, Audrey thinks, but she shrugs again and trudges to the sofa, sinking down onto its lumpy cushions. Lou plops down beside her, taking a pull on her beer.

“You never did tell me your name, you know.” She props a foot up on the sofa and twirls the beer bottle on her knee.

Audrey shifts her sitting position a fraction, putting a tiny sliver of space between them. “No, I didn’t, did I.”

Lou processes this, frowns slightly and then hitches a grin on her face. “Not real talkative, are you?”

Audrey answers with a blank stare. It is not intentional, but she does not know how to answer such an obvious question. Does the girl really want to fathom such things? In her mind, Audrey pictures Lou with a crowbar, cracking apart her skull like a pistachio nut to peer inside, only to be instantly repelled by the black and pernicious ichor of her thoughts.

What would she think if I told her everything?

She inhales softly, scrutinizing the girl with a raptor’s intensity. She imagines speaking the words, watching them take shape, the reactions on the girl’s face as they drift and float like balloons above them, slowly expanding, filling the room, cracking apart the walls and upsetting the furniture, before finally exploding with an ear-splitting pop.

Audrey dismisses the idea as an indulgence, selfish and weak. She won’t pollute this place with her problems. Better just to play here, like children play in those giant pools of plastic, multi-colored balls, taking nothing with her when she leaves, leaving nothing behind.

No one really wants to know everything. This caresses her mind, lingering and comforting, as she leans forward, taking the beer bottle gently from Lou’s hand and placing it carefully on the floor. She watches Lou all the while, telegraphing her intentions with silent authority. The playful grin melts, leaving Lou’s face bare of artifice. Audrey turns, pushes the girl’s knee down, pulls it behind her so that Lou is now open, legs apart, facing her. As she leans forward, Lou surrenders beneath Audrey’s weight, reclining, welcoming.

Audrey closes her eyes. The darkness behind her lids is scarlet and shot through with stars. She imagines she can hear a train whistle, the most forlorn sound she can think of at that moment. The loneliness is roiling, bitter, even when sweetened by the girl’s presence.

None of this is real.

When she opens her eyes again, she is slightly surprised when Lou reaches for her, smiling, hand cupping the back of her neck, pulling her down. She can feel heat on her belly as Lou arches up to meet her and then she melts into Lou’s softness, giving in to it. The girl’s legs reflexively tighten around her as their lips touch. Lou whimpers softly, her hips rising and falling, beseeching. Audrey falls into the rhythm as her tongue teases until Lou’s lips part.

She drinks in Lou’s eagerness, hands bracketing the girl’s face so that her mouth sets the cadence of the kiss. Her tongue invades as her body pinions the wildness threatening to engulf them both, held in check by a tiny kernel of calm, like the icy blue at the center of a hot flame.

Slowly Audrey’s hands cascade from face to shoulders and then breasts, gliding over them with the feather-light touch of thistledown alighting on a blade of grass. Swollen nipples strain against the thin material of the girl’s t-shirt, but Audrey deliberately ignores this, ignores how hot and swollen and wet she herself has become. She slides her almost clinically noncommittal fingers underneath the white cotton, skimming smooth muscles that convulse and contract as she touches. Lou sings against Audrey’s lips, a moan that is a sigh, and her torso arches, demanding attention. Her tongue dances in and out, tracing Audrey’s lips, a wordless plea that Audrey appeases by slipping the tight elastic of her bra aside and cupping generous flesh. Nipples pebble, grazing the palm of her hand and Audrey’s breath goes ragged. So smooth. So soft and it had been so long.

Lou begins frantic movements which Audrey belatedly realizes are attempts to unbutton her own jeans. She surprises herself by allowing the girl to unhook the buttons, to untuck her t-shirt. Lou’s face is flushed, glowing. Her fingers miss a button as her eyes find Audrey’s.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” she whispers, hands leaving the buttons to caress Audrey’s cheek. Audrey swallows hard. “It was the first thing I noticed about you, in the bar, those big blue eyes.” The full, round flesh under her hands tightens and swells, teasing Audrey’s willpower. Audrey’s breath grows slippery now, pouring down her throat until she chokes, sputtering, heart racing. She leans forward, fumbling for the threads of control, capturing Lou’s full lips again. But now the pace is all wrong; hurtling forward, rocketing out of reach.

“Mmmmmmmmmm” Lou hums, head pulling back, languorous, heavy-lidded gaze, like a cat drowsing on a warm windowsill. “Wait.”


Audrey watches, stunned, as Lou sits up, grabs the hem of her t-shirt and pulls it over her head.

Balancing on the heel of her hands, Audrey tries to keep her gaze high, but it wavers and once it falls, Audrey cannot look away. Lou breasts are still firm and high, her waist slender, stomach muscles taut but long and striated.


“My god,” Audrey murmurs. For a moment, she feels a dizzying, breath-stealing rush, like she is swinging, one-legged, from trapeze high above a three-ringed circus. But then she realizes Lou is fumbling with the buttons of her own jeans, worrying at them like a child with a Christmas present wrapped with too much scotch tape.


Rash, heady, exhilarating. Any moment, Audrey knows she will become a congealed and darkening spot in the sawdust ring below but she doesn’t care. Her body belongs to someone else now. Thoughts are not needed. Breath tears through her and she makes a decision, rocking back onto her knees.

“Hang on. Let me.” Hands free, she helps Lou unclasp the buttons. The sofa rests underneath a window, blinds drawn. Audrey tries to stare beyond, through the slits in the blinds to the lights peppering the darkness as she works the buttons, but she can’t disconnect now. The smooth granite wall has softened, become soft impressionable red clay. This night will leave its mark.

Lou wiggles, moving until her pants are at her ankles and then struggles with her boots. She kicks them off and they land on the carpet with a soft thunk.


A soft wisp of icy air strokes Audrey’s nakedness. She feels raw and tender and cold, like a peeled grape, but this wanes, all but forgotten when Lou pulls her back down, skin rasping against skin, inch by inch. Lou’s sex, slick against her thigh, wakes her with its blooming heat, and her body responds as if it belongs to someone else.

She reaches down, fingers touching the heat, confirming. Lou sucks in a quick breath, hips lifting, tightening around Audrey’s hand, urging her to explore. But Audrey pulls her hand away reluctantly, fingers glistening. Fashioned by purpose, Audrey's will hardens and she ignores Lou's pointed sigh, drawing away enough to look down, allowing her eyes to cover territory already conquered by her mouth and hands.

Flawless.

It is not a word that Audrey uses lightly, nor does she often think it. But no other word applies. Audrey has never seen breasts so perfect, skin so incomparably smooth. She squashes down the other images that swim into her awareness, white, blurred flashes of pain, other warm sighs exhaling as her mouth explores, the woman who will never writhe at her touch again. Shaking it off, she blinks and focuses on the girl beneath her. As she watches, the smoothness is suffused by gooseflesh, and her nipples, pink and puckered, grow rosy and stiff. Lou gestures feebly with her hand, her lips parting.

"Don't stop."

Audrey's lips curl into an unconscious smile. There, on the girl's face, sweetness, vulnerability and a subtle ferocity that controls even as she begs for more. Audrey reaches out, heart hammering, touching the curls of Lou's hair splayed out like a dark halo on the sofa cushions. Her fingers stroke the silky curls, the outlines of her chin and cheeks.

"Don't worry. I'm just getting started."

At the base of Lou's neck, Audrey's fingers stop, finding the throb of the girl's pulse beating madly. The rhythm of her breathing increases twofold and Audrey's own shallow gasps fall into sync as the girl turns her head, taking Audrey's fingers into her mouth.

That is when the burn truly begins and Audrey both welcomes and fears it, the subtle key that unlocks her self control. As Lou suckles her fingers, she feels it take her, flaring in her fingertips, scorching her spine, branching out, smoldering between her legs.

She turns her head away and growls. In an instant, her mouth captures Lou's lips, punishing and hard. Her hands bury themselves in her hair and Audrey tightens her hold, jerking Lou's head back, leaving the girl’s throat exposed. Lou gasps as Audrey's mouth blazes a stinging trail, sweeping down, teeth and tongue making Lou cry out again and again, but it isn't enough.

Lower.

The scene fractures into poetry, bursts of sensation that melt away only to reform, solidifying with every touch.

Skin meeting lips and tongue.

Teeth closing over nipple.

Ribcage.

Belly.

Abdomen.

Dark, velvety hollow of the inner thigh.

Arms and legs twining and then opening like rose petals. The susurrus slide of torso skimming over abdomen. Nipple touching wetness as shoulders fit between thighs.

Scent. Sweat and perfume and humid, musky desire.

Jolting breath in tatters.

First taste, honey sweet, tentative.

Spasm. Ready for me. Oh yes.

Hips arching. Ruby red, glistening, swollen; welcomes, beckons. Charting, testing.

Reactions register and are elicited again.

A game. What makes her hum? What makes her scream?

There, just there. A peak sculpted by pleasure. Folds of slick flesh that triggers such sounds.

Tongue flickers and then plunges and then teases, a dance.

Deep and hidden recesses, exposed.

Eyes close.

The narrow world is red and wet and sweet.

Liquid heat. In her mouth. On her fingers. Between her legs.

Need this. Tremors building.

Muscles cord and bunch.

See her ankle turn as her hips lift.

More? You like that? Fingers join tongue and lips, seeking, delving, the rhythm unmistakable now.

Musical cries, muffled, grow louder, plaintive, accented by little sighs, tiny yelps.

Hands grip hair, driving mouth and tongue.

Muscles stiffen, lengthen.

Breath penned in, held like a corralled beast straining at the gate.

God. Oh god. Triumph.

“No. Not yet.” Audrey lifts her head, surfacing, smiling. “Not until I let you. Not until I say.”

Though it nearly cleaves her in two, she leans back, separating herself from the trembling and lush, warm flesh that cries out for her touch. A frustrated moan ripples through Lou, and Audrey feels it reverberating in her own chest, in her whole body. Her fingers are tingling, and she flexes them experimentally, realizing too late that her body is actually in shock. Atrophied emotions, now released, have flooded her system, a surfeit of pleasure that leaves her dazed and greedy for a fresh infusion.

Lou's arms are wide, her hands still clutching the sofa cushions. The expression on her face is the quintessence of unfulfilled need and it takes Audrey’s breath away. Lou lifts her head, tangled hair framing her flushed face, eyes so dark, there is only the tiniest hint of jungle green rimming the irises. Audrey’s throat closes and a sibilant whisper invades her mind.

Who are you?

As soon as the question is understood, it gains momentum, ringing out with painful clarity.

God help me, I really want to know.

Struck dumb, Audrey does nothing as Lou shifts, propping herself up on her elbows. A lazy grin meanders across Lou’s face and she stretches, reaching out to Audrey.

“Well, well. I knew you were dangerous,” she says, puffing at hair that has fallen into her eyes. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No.” Audrey answers flatly, failing to respond to the girl’s playful tone. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Lou sits up a little further, full lips frowning just slightly, a look of concern erasing the mischievous grin from her face.

Don't do it. Don't ask me what's wrong.

But the question is poised on the edge of the girl's lips. Audrey can see it suspended there, like a single droplet of water ready to trickle from the end of an icicle.

Don't do it.

Instinct has two voices. One shrieks run and don't look back. And the other, a sly insinuating ribbon of thought, suggests a different form of defense.

"Roll over," Audrey says, voice tight and husky, "onto your stomach."

Lou's breath hitches audibly and her eyebrows shoot up.

"What?"

Audrey doesn't reply.

Lou stares for a moment and then the glimmer of a smile dances across her lips.

"Okay,' she whispers.

You don't know me... Too trusting... Was I ever that trusting?

Her hair cascades over her shoulder like a dark velvety shawl, contrasting richly with the sculptural curves of her shoulder blade and hip. Audrey places a possessive hand on Lou's hip, enjoying the way it fits neatly into the bend between thumb and forefinger. Drawing their gazes even, her eyes reassure and Lou draws in a deep breath, lashes darkening her cheeks, submitting. Audrey slowly guides her onto her stomach, both hands fanning out now, caressing the finely delineated muscles of her back, the irresistible dip where buttocks and tailbone meet.

And there, artfully coiling up her spine, the tattoo Audrey had only glimpsed. Delicate leaves of blue and green vividly unfolding. Red roses blossoming on bronze skin. The design is complex and oriental and Audrey can't fight the sudden urge to trace its lines with her tongue.

She tastes the tang of sweat as she kneels beside her, tongue meticulously duplicating the twining loops and graceful arches.

Lou's hands clench at her sides. Enthralled by her small tapering waist, the slope of hip and buttocks, the silky texture of her skin, Audrey's hands cannot stop their ceaseless wanderings and nor still her chaotic thoughts.

So smooth... How many hands have touched this skin?

Another moan. Another abbreviated breath.

Oh fuck, she feels so good.

Body curling over and around Lou's, her right arm moves down the smaller woman's body and then slips underneath to cup Lou's breast in her hand. Her own desire mounts and yet her patience holds merciless reign over her actions. Slowly, she presses her own aroused tips into the girl's back and then strokes the girl's nipple with her thumb, circling it until it peaks. An incendiary breath fans the back of Lou's neck, the tender depression hidden behind her earlobe, and she whimpers, turning her face into the cushion.

"I...I can't... I need..."

Audrey knows it's time to deliver on her implicit promise of release. Her own body feels relentlessly alive with an animalistic serenity, a ceaseless yearning. Tearing herself away from the girl's warmth, she straightens and then her arm slips to the girl's waist, simultaneously lifting her and restraining her movements.

"I know what you need," she whispers.

Pulling her close, she tucks her elbow around Lou's waist and then her hand snakes across her belly, fingers seeking and finding her clit.

"Lean forward." Tiny curls at the base of Lou's neck flutter as she speaks. Lou obeys instantly and, without prelude, Audrey places her leg between Lou's, pressing her thigh against the girl's hot center, spreading her legs wider.

"Ohhhhhh..." Lou begins to rock against her, . Audrey matches the slow grind of Lou's hips with her thigh. Stroking and circling, she applies intense pressure to the sensitive node of flesh beneath her fingertips. Lou throws her head back and it lapses onto Audrey's shoulder. Sighs chase the moments, blurring them together, as if they were both in a speeding car, looking out the window, watching the scenery melt into a seamless haze.

Even white teeth gnaw at Lou's lower lip. "Oooooh yeeeeees," Lou moans over and over, as Audrey fingers quicken. The girl begins to shudder and Audrey tightens her hold, arm taut across Lou's abdomen. Lou nearly weeps. Her cries are pitifully ardent . But the hard, measured cadence of Audrey's fingers does not relent. She doesn't know, nor care, if the wetness dripping down her leg is Lou's or her own.

"You want this?"

"Yessssssss," Lou hisses, head lolling back and forth on Audrey's shoulder now.

"Or do you want more?"

"Yes, yes... God... yes..."

"Then say it." Audrey demands, free hand roving over Lou's breast, fingers alternately pinching and massaging. "Tell me what you want me to do to you."

A tiny mew is her only answer. And then fingers halt, motion arrested. The mew becomes a moan that soars through several octaves.

“Say it.”

Lou strains against her, body demanding what her mouth cannot. And the words, when they finally break from her lips, are charged and hoarse with want. “Do it. God.” Her head drops forward and the words are muffled but clear enough for Audrey. “Fuck me. Oh God, please.”

Audrey’s chest and throat tighten even as she sucks in a shaky breath. They bow forward, pliant, as one, Audrey’s breath intermittent and hot on Lou’s neck. Lou’s hands fall to the sofa, palms flat against the soft blue fabric, elbows locked, bearing her weight. She rocks against the hand that smoothes over buttocks and thigh, tensing as it ventures between.

Tenderly, Audrey both rises and sinks into her. Silky warmth surrounds her fingers, gripping them with an urgency more eloquent than the girl's softly muttered exclamations. Her hips undulate and her head follows, hair swishing back and forth, fanning the sofa cushions one moment and flipping back to blanket the curve of her back the next.

And as she moves, the light around Lou's prone body crystallizes, shimmering with the perfect clarity of delirium. Audrey inhales the sharp scent of Lou's arousal and physically feels the harmonics of her soft cries resonate through her own bloodstream. The blood roars in her ears but her mind is as transparent as glass, clean and direct. She knows just how to thrust, when to slow, when to change rhythm. Her fingers are drenched with sweetness, like honey, clamped tight with every thrust. She knows she is panting a little too hard, leaning into the motion, cheek lying against Lou's back, but her head feels like a balloon attached at her neck. She can't connect with her body, can't respond even though she feels the pulse, maddening and powerful, between her legs.

Lou's cries are distant and she heeds them, like traffic sounds with all the windows rolled up.

"Unnh"

"Ah"

"Oh"

"Oooo... ah yes."

Even as Audrey savors them, the sounds fall flat. It isn't enough. And then her mind fogs, tingles, awareness prickling, reaching out with illusory arms... Yes... Please... give it to me... be like me... know me... love me... need me... take me with you... Like tentacles, the tingling reaches out, licking her spine, climbing up and up and up. One hand falls away, sliding from Lou's smooth skin to her own, descending with hypnotic purpose. And when contact is made with swollen, aching flesh, the sensation bursts behind her closed lids, sucking up the oxygen within, like a match lit inside a glass bottle. After that, the rhythm is easy, taken up with effortless intensity and Lou's cries collide with her own, not mixing, but bouncing off, rebounding and gaining momentum.

"Yeeeeeeees!" Lou screams, the word splitting the air as the muscles in her back go taut and her arms give out, elbows folding in. Audrey feels the muscles inside tremble around her fingers, clutch, and then relax over and over. And then, almost in concert, Audrey finds her own release, sudden and shattering, like a champagne cork pried loose, a shower of white-hot sparks shuddering over and through her.

And then she exhales, a shallow echo in her throat. Lou is quiet, but trembling. Graceless, leaden, they collapse, slumping forward with soft huffs of breath, limbs sweaty and splayed. Face pressed into Lou's back, Audrey abruptly smiles and is surprised. It is a true smile, winged, careless and euphoric. When she closes her eyes, her facial muscles stretch even wider, effortlessly and, at the same time, the hollow ache around her eyes recedes. A fragile tranquility laps at her nerve endings and she yields without thinking.

Lou makes a tiny satisfied noise, shifting, arm curling under her chin, cradling her head. The sanctuary of sleep beckons but Audrey resists, savoring what she know is only a fleeting absolution. A legion of minutes, fluid, perfect, is quantified only by the matched rise and fall of their breath... seamless.

Until Lou sighs.

It is a preamble. Worse than trumpets blaring and so recognizable even her involuntary reflexes are attuned to the subtleties at work. The smile flees from Audrey's lips like a herd of gazelle before a brush fire. Her eyes snap open and she unconsciously curls her fingers into a loose fist.

No. Not yet.

Too late. Lou rolls over onto her side, head still cradled in her hands, sheaf of hair spilling over her shoulders and a bashful smile budding on her lips. Audrey steels herself, suddenly weary.

I can’t do this.

“You okay?” The clean temerity in her voice shames Audrey.

Life shouldn’t be about things like this. Don’t make me do this.

Audrey replies woodenly from her crumpled position on the floor next to the sofa.

“Disintegrating, actually.”

Audrey tilts her head, looking down on Audrey who stares forward.

“What?”

Audrey leans her head back, throwing a hand over her forehead, effectively hiding her eyes.

“I’m wiped out,” she says, knowing this will easily be misinterpreted.

“Poor thing,” murmurs Lou, hand tentatively stroking Audrey’s hair. For a brief, mindless second, Audrey leans into the caress, squeezing her eyes shut and holding her breath.

“I have to go.” Audrey stands too quickly, expelling the breath and all possibility for salvation, wobbling, a horrible rending sensation in her gut.

“What? But… but why?” Lou sits up, hands defensive, automatically covering her breasts. Audrey is grateful for this. It makes it easier to avert her gaze, to reach for her jeans and shove legs into them.

“I just do.”

She succeeds in forcing her arms into the sleeves of her t-shirt and then pulling it over her head, praying all the while that she can find her shoes and put them on without having to say another word.

"Stay."

Audrey halts in mid-stoop, one hand arrested above her boot. Her knees sting... carpet burn. And now her mouth is sticky and dry. She considers. Something about Lou's skin invites lazy contemplation.

It would be so easy to forget for just a little while longer. Slide an arm under her. Pull her close. Fit legs snugly behind. Maybe even move into the shadowy realms of her bedroom. Let the outline of her body be a blueprint of the hours to come... just until morning.

Dammit!

Her faculty for lying, to herself, to others, has somehow been skinned back, shed with her inhibitions, a dry husk lying on the dance floor in that club.

Audrey knows she can’t pull it off. Not in the cruel, white light of day. Not when she feels this pink and tender.

Pretending is a nighttime exercise, she reminds herself. Happiness cannot be mimicked convincingly with knotted hair standing up in clumps, morning breath and the unpleasant suggestion of expectations perfuming the air. Lying there... nestled in those curves... allowing the guilt and insecurities to fester, to coat her tongue with lies that must be hastily given as she gathers up her clothes, lies that will drop out of her mouth with ridiculous ease... It is intolerable.

But even more so is the flare of hope, that tiny light she would detect in Lou's eyes, like the final tragic climax in an opera, the sweet glissando as the heroine warbles about the inevitable triumph of her lover when the audience already knows he is doomed.

Yeah, I'll call you. Tomorrow. Sure.

She would believe whatever Audrey told her.

How long would the torment last? Days? Weeks?

Would she return to the club in a few days, disconsolate and jittery, dressed to kill. gambling that Audrey might wonder in again? How often would she go back? How long until the hope tasted like ashes in her mouth?

Better to take the raw shreds of her vulnerability and hide until they scabbed over, wait until this night is just a distant memory that twinges just a little too much when she thinks about it.

It’s always worked before.

“Just for a little while?”

Audrey rams her foot into first one shoe and then the other. A penitent shake of the head is all she can offer.

You’ll wish I didn’t.

She almost says it but it sounds so whiny and apologetic in her head.

Cruel to be kind.

Her hands are shaking. Hard. She stuffs them roughly into her pockets, grazing knuckles on the coarse denim and the little metal snaps at the edge of the tiny useless pocket above. It's imperative she leave before she starts hemorrhaging comforting lies, before Lou begs her to stay, before she loses the power to choose.

"No. I'm... I'm sorry."

Her body is halfway across the room, muscles moving of their own accord.

Almost free and clear. Her hand reaches for the smooth, cold door knob and gives it a quick turn.

Her heart starts resisting... pushing back, furiously fighting this forward motion, inciting one last lacerating glance over her shoulder.

"Please don't go."

If you have enjoyed Angelrad's "NEPENTHE", then please be certain to e-mail her at  angelrad[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Angelrad's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.