Your erotic stories

“Thin” isn’t a word anyone has ever used to describe me. “Beautiful” isn’t either. But “sexy”? Well, that’s another story.

It’s funny how long it takes us to come to a realization of who we really are. For me, it took just over 40 years. My whole life I’d struggled with the weight of my own expectations—always wanting to be fifteen or twenty pounds lighter, to have better cheekbones, to have my hair be a better color or my complexion a little better.

Measured against my friends, I was just plain. “Really nice” was the most common way I heard people describe me in high school. I didn’t want to be “nice,” I wanted to be desirable the way my friends Claudia or Michelle were. Boys dripped off them. Me they hardly noticed.

College wasn’t much better. I did manage to find a couple of boyfriends my first few years in school, but neither of them really excited me. Sure, we had fun and the sex wasn’t bad, but to me it always seemed that my girlfriends had their pick of the good looking and interesting guys while I settled for what I could get.

During my senior year I started dating a grad student named Paul and thought I’d found true love at last. Paul said he loved me for who I was and for years I think he meant it. We were very happy together and got married shortly after he finished his MBA. We bought a nice house in the suburbs and within seven years we had three children, Jillian, Mark, and Alison.

I’d planned on a career when I went to college, but instead my life submerged into the joy of my children. I was a mother and a damned good one, volunteering in their schools, shuttling back and forth to sports, dance classes, movies, birthday parties and everything else on a modern child’s social calendar.

Unfortunately, each pregnancy also added another five pounds that just wouldn’t go away. Paul didn’t seem to mind and if sex became more infrequent, it was still satisfying. He knew my body so well, teasing me when I wanted teasing, touching me in just the right ways. And I tried to repay him in kind, doing the things he told me he loved. I was especially proud of the way my blowjobs could turn him into a quivering mass of jelly.

The first hint of trouble began on my 38th birthday. Among the presents Paul bought me was a vibrator, the first we’d ever owned. It was big, bigger than his cock, and purple. He gave it to me in our bedroom that night after the kids were in bed, pulling it out from under his pillow with a look of triumph in his eyes.

“I got a little something else for you baby,” he said.

Opening the package, which I crazily thought might have been something really romantic like tickets to the islands or a necklace, I know my face showed a mixture of surprise and confusion.

“I…well, I thought it would be fun. That you’d like it,” he stammered, seeing that I hadn’t gone all giddy on him upon seeing a big purple penis in the box.

“Oh, uh, sure,” I said, recovering. Then I hugged him and said, “Thanks sweetie.”

He smiled then, thinking the moment had passed. “Let’s try it out then.”

So we did. I had to admit, I did have a very strong orgasm that night, one that was concentrated almost entirely on my clit rather than spreading out through my entire body the way my orgasms usually did. But it felt hollow. For the first time in our married life, it was as though sex that night was something Paul did to me instead of something we shared together. I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind, but found that I couldn’t. For weeks I kept asking myself if this was one of those turning points you read about.

A few months later, he came home with another present for me. This time it was some very sexy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret—a bustier, garter belt and thong, all very red. To his credit, he’d actually picked the right sizes, God only knows how. I wore them for him that night and was pleased to see how turned on he got, but I felt silly wearing it all. Those sorts of undies were really designed for women a lot thinner than me. And as I listened to his breathing shift over to snoring next to me I couldn’t help but wonder if he was dissatisfied with our sex life. We hadn’t needed vibrators or bustiers six months ago.

The next morning I surveyed my body in the bathroom mirror and for about the one hundred and thirty-seventh time vowed to lose weight, to get sexier for my husband. And then for reasons I couldn’t put my finger on at the time, I started to cry. I had to rest my hands on the sink to keep from falling and for a good five minutes an anguish I couldn’t identify overwhelmed me. Now, of course, I know it was a premonition of what was to come, that I was blocking the reality of my situation, but at the time it just confused me.

My weight loss plan worked—sort of. I managed to drop eight pounds over two months, which for me was a big success. But did Paul notice? Of course not. In fact, he started staying at work later than he had for years. When I asked about it, he put me off by pointing out that his company had been restructuring lately and it was really important to put in the extra hours to avoid being included in the layoffs and buyouts. I believed him, but not entirely. Paul’s job had always seemed very secure before. Why the worries now?

And then it happened, the way those anvils used to drop on cartoon character’s heads. It was never entirely out of the blue, because they knew the anvil was up there, but still a surprise because who would expect the anvil to actually land on your head?

A couple of girlfriends of mine and I had pooled our resources and hired two babysitters to watch those of our kids who still needed a sitter and had gone to the movies. It was a chick flick and we knew our husbands wouldn’t want to go, so we were having a girl’s night out. We’d had to go all the way across town to find a theater that was still showing our movie and afterward we stopped in a bar near where we’d parked for a margarita. The place was dark but festive, the sort of bar adults go to when they want to have fun, but not too much fun.

No sooner had our drinks arrived than I saw him. Paul was sitting in a booth at the back of the bar with a woman, the two of them on the same side of the booth, bodies pressed together, half empty beers in front of them. For just a second I thought crazily that there must be other people in the booth who I couldn’t see, that they were part of a group. But of course they weren’t. As I stared stupidly at them, Paul’s hand reached up to cradle the woman’s head, pulling her face toward his and they kissed. Not the tentative kiss of a first date, but the easy familiarity of lovers.

I felt my margarita surging up from my stomach. I clapped one hand over my mouth, grabbed my purse with the other and without answering the worried questions of my friends, I bolted from our table to the parking lot, where I wretched between two cars, thankful that the streetlights hadn’t come on yet. Cindy, my best friend found me there, wiping the vomit from the corners of my mouth with a used Kleenex I’d located in my purse.

“Megan,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Do you think it’s food poisoning?” she asked.

“No.”

“Well, what then?” she pressed.

I turned then to face her and she stepped back from me. I realized that my face must be betraying the rage I felt. “Look,” I said, trying to calm down. “I’ve got to go. But I need you to do me a favor first.” I grabbed some money from my wallet and pushed it into her hands. “Go inside, give Marny this for the bill and then bring me a pack of matches from the bar.”

“Matches?” she asked. “But why?”

“Just do it for me, okay?” My voice was fierce now. Cindy nodded and walked quickly back into the bar. When she returned a couple of minutes later, I saw that she had a pack of matches. Two, in fact.

“Thanks Cindy,” I said. “I’ve got to go now. Can you get a ride with the others?”

“Sure, but don’t you want me to ride with you. Something’s wrong Megan. Won’t you tell me what it is so I can help?”

For a second or two I considered telling her what I’d seen in the bar, but it was too humiliating. I knew they might see Paul on their own, but I couldn’t be the one to tell them what was happening. I just couldn’t. So I shook my head and tried to smile at her to let her know I’d be fine. “No. I’m fine. Really. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, then gathered me into her arms and hugged me. It took all of my willpower to keep from dissolving into tears at that moment but the rage I felt toward Paul held me together.

On the drive home, I gripped the wheel so tightly my fingers began to hurt. What to do? What to do? I could see it all now, of course. The vibrator and the lingerie were his clumsy attempts to recreate in our bedroom the excitement of his new lover’s embraces. From what I’d seen of her, she was everything I wasn’t—young, thin, blonde, beautiful. She didn’t look a day over 25 and was probably a wildcat in bed.

Home at last, I sat in the car for a good fifteen minutes composing myself in case either of my two oldest children was home. My youngest was staying with Cindy’s son for a sleepover after the babysitter departed, so I didn’t have to worry about her. Once I decided I looked okay, I went inside, only to find both of the older kids still out at their friends’ houses. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have independent teenagers. I left them a note saying I wasn’t feeling well and had gone to bed early.

Upstairs, I tossed the packs of matches on Paul’s pillow, then went to our bathroom, took some of my essentials from the cabinet, grabbed a sleeping shirt from the dresser and went to the guest room, where I sat in my grandmother’s rocking chair and waited.

About an hour later, I heard Paul come home. “Honey?” he called. I sure as hell wasn’t going to answer. I knew he’d find my note to the kids and I hoped he’d take that as his cue to leave me alone. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Instead, I heard him clomp up the stairs and then go down the hall to our bedroom. For several minutes he didn’t move. He’d obviously seen the matches I left for him. Then he came my way. Looking back on that moment, I’m still impressed with how calm I was in the face of disaster. Maybe being a mother does that for you.

“Megan,” he called softly through the door.

“It’s open,” I said, my voice firm.

The door creaked open and Paul stepped in. I could see in his face that he knew he was in the deep shit. He’s never been good at hiding his fear and the realization that he was terrified gave me strength.

“I, uh…”

I shook my head, my eyes never leaving his. “No,” I said. “I saw you with her. It’s over. You’ve made your choice. And I’ve made mine. You’ve got 24 hours to get what you want out of this house and then I’m changing the locks.”

“But honey,” he said, his voice sounding small. “I was…It was…please don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what? Treat you the way you’ve treated me? Fuck you Paul.”

I almost never use that kind of language and something about the word “fuck” snapped his head up. Now he looked defiant. “You can’t make me leave. I’m the one who paid for this house.”

The last refuge of the male—financial power. Only this time it wasn’t going to work.

“I can’t? Well, try this then. When the kids get home, I’ll go downstairs and tell them that Daddy’s fucking an intern at work. At least she sure looked young enough to be an intern. I’ll tell them that I caught him sucking face with her in a bar tonight. I’ll tell them that their father is a scumbag liar who probably doesn’t give two shits how they feel and that he sure doesn’t love their mother any more, or he wouldn’t be fucking some bimbo. You want me to do that, or do you want to move out?”

He considered saying something smart in response. I could see it in his eyes. When you’ve been married to someone eighteen years, you can read them pretty easily. I knew he was reading me too and that he saw conviction. Then his shoulders slumped and I knew I’d won. What I’d won, I wasn’t sure, but it felt good at that moment to win something.

“I never meant to…”

“Shut up, Paul. I don’t want to hear it. I just want you to get out.”

And he did. He was gone by noon the following day, his car crammed with clothes, a few mementos and, of course, his golf bag. If he was going to be single, he’d need his golf bag. I let him explain his departure to the kids. I didn’t really care what he told them, because I was going to tell them the truth. The older two were plenty old enough to handle it. My youngest was 10 and I figured she’d come to understand before too much longer. It just seemed to me that the truth was better than fiction.

That first year was horrible. Paul fought me for everything—the house, the retirement accounts, child support, and the furniture. In the end, I hired a shark of a lawyer and got slightly more than half of it all, even after her fees were deducted. The kids stayed mad at him, both for leaving, and then for making their lives harder with his struggles over tangible assets, and of course they were all terribly confused.

I tried my best to help them see that he was both their father, who they loved, and a man who had made poor choices, but still loved them. This was a difficult distinction for kids, I knew, but I hoped that one day they’d understand and forge a different relationship with him, one that had nothing to do with me. But that was his problem, not mine.

When the divorce was final at last, my friends took me out for a drink to celebrate. After the long slog of the past twelve months, I definitely felt like having some fun and I wanted them to know how much I appreciated their steadfast support for me and my kids.

Somewhere into our second round of Cosmopolitans Cindy turned to me with a very serious look in her eye. “Megan,” she began, “Now that you’re done with Paul, it’s time to start thinking more about you.”

I was about to ask her what she meant, but she plowed ahead.

“Sweetie,” she said, “we’ve all been worried about you, but we aren’t any more. The bad time is over and now it’s time for the good times to begin. You’re a wonderful person, you’re young, and you’re attractive. I’m not saying you need to start dating right away, but we don’t want you to become a nun either.”

“I wasn’t planning to become a nun,” I protested. They were all looking at me with the same look—half expectant, half sympathetic.

“We know,” Cindy continued. “But, well, when was the last time you had sex?”

“Um, that would have to be about a week before I caught Paul fooling around.” I didn’t mention that although I’d thrown Paul’s vibrator out, I had ordered one for myself from an online store a few months ago. I was having urges again.

“My point exactly,” she said. “That’s more than a year. You need to get back into the world.”

“Well,” I said. “I will. But you know how it’s been.”

“Of course we do,” said Samantha. “But now we think it’s time for you to refocus. Otherwise you’ll stay tied to Paul. Don’t let your anger toward him become your best friend.”

“Yeah,” Lilly chimed in. “Do that and he’ll have his hooks in you forever.”

Just to avoid having to say anything for a second, I took another gulp of my drink, feeling the vodka making my throat tingle as it slid down to my stomach. I couldn’t be mad. These were my friends and they were talking sense. And I couldn’t deny that I had been feeling the need for sex again lately.

“Okay,” I said. “I promise. Tomorrow I’ll go pick a guy and have wild, crazy sex with him.”

They all laughed at that. They knew I was kidding, but also knew me well enough to know I was taking their advice.

“Seriously,” I said. “Anyone know a nice guy I could date?”

The way they all looked at each other I knew they’d talked about it and had a candidate or two. Cindy remained spokeswoman for the group.

“Well, you met my husband’s friend Alex a couple of years ago at our house. He’s good looking and, like you, he’s divorced.” Then she giggled, whether from the Cosmos or from the release of nervous tension, “And he thinks you’re cute.”

“God only knows why,” Lilly said, giggling too.

“Aren’t you nice,” I said, sticking out my tongue at her. I conjured up a picture of Alex. I’d talked to him for about half an hour that day at Cindy’s cookout. Our kids were about the same age and we chatted as we watched our boys playing catch in the back yard. He was nice looking and seemed like a nice guy.

“Does Alex have a phone number?” I asked. If I was going to do this, I figured I’d better get going before I changed my mind.

“Um, yeah,” Cindy said, fishing around in her purse. She pulled out her address book and pointed to a name. I snatched the book from her, grabbed my own purse, pulled out a pen and wrote it down on a bar napkin. When I handed back her book, they were all looking at me kind of funny.

“What?” I said. “You thought I was going to call him right this second?”

The looks on their faces were comical. It was obvious that’s exactly what they thought.

“Well, I’m not. But I will call him. I promise.” Then I tossed back the last of my drink and smiled at them to let them know I loved them all.

Alex and I dated three times before we ended up in bed together. He was a careful, considerate lover and I found that I had a lot of sexual energy stored up from a year of celibacy. But as time wore on, I also found that as much as I liked him, I didn’t like him enough to invest much more in the relationship. He was nice, no doubt about it, but I wasn’t planning on getting married again any time soon and, well, to tell the truth, he was good in bed, but not great. After the first few times, he kind of ran out of imagination and I could feel us falling into a routine—a routine that seemed to satisfy him, but not me.

When I told him I thought it wasn’t really working out, he nodded and agreed. That kind of hurt, because some small part of me wanted him to beg me to stay with him, to tell me he couldn’t live without me. But he was an honest guy—one of his better qualities—and like me he knew the spark just wasn’t there. But I did appreciate him getting me into circulation.

At the time Alex and I had started dating, I was down another ten pounds from where I’d been when I tossed Paul—stress doesn’t always make people gain weight. In my case, I had very little appetite for that whole first year and for a long time I ate just because I knew I had to. Since I liked the way I looked with out the extra weight I’d been carrying every since my youngest was born, I joined a health club and started working out regularly.

Before I knew it, I’d dropped another ten pounds and was very proud of the way I looked in the mirror. I’d probably never be thin—I’d never been thin—but now that I was close to 30 pounds lighter, my body had a deliciously curvy look.

One consequence of the loss of weight was that I had to buy all new clothes. I’d have had to do that anyway, because I got a job, my first real job since I was 21. It had been scary going to work at 40, but that lasted for only a week. The advertising agency that hired me to be their receptionist was a pretty casual place, so when I bought my new wardrobe, I went for a look that highlighted my new-found curves while still looking casually professional. I was especially pleased to note that a couple of men who visited our offices were actually stealing peeks at me.

I dated a couple of other men that second year after Paul, but like Alex, none of them was what I was looking for. In fact, I had to admit to myself I really didn’t know what I was looking for. It was something, but I just wasn’t sure what it was. I figured I’d know it when I saw it.

Shortly after my 41st birthday, Christina joined our firm. I’d never met a woman like her. Like me she was tall and a natural redhead, but that was where the similarities stopped. Her hair was a luxuriant mane that shimmered as she walked and she wore the shortest skirts I’d ever seen a professional woman wear.

All the men in the office would turn and stare at her legs and butt as she passed them. That and she wore tight tops that clung to her toned upper body and full breasts. Her cheek bones were the kind Hollywood actresses pay lots of money for and her eyes were a deep rich green. I couldn’t tell if she was even aware of the way the men stalked her with their eyes. She seemed carelessly oblivious to it all.

A couple of weeks after she started, my boss called me into his office and told me he wanted to give me a promotion. Needless to say, I was very happy about that, because I was bored to death with answering the phone and making coffee for clients. And I could use any extra money.

“Christina needs an assistant and she asked for you,” he said.

I was a little taken aback at first. Why would she pick me? But I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. “When do I start?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got a temp coming in to take the front desk. I need you to train her, then you can move your stuff down to the office next to Christina’s.”

“Great!” I said. “Thanks!”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Christina was the one who made this happen. Thank her.”

“I will,” I said and floated out of his office.

Christina returned to the office later that day from a client and as soon as she came in, she came to my desk and asked if my boss had had a chance to talk to me yet?

“He sure has,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

She smiled at me then. It was a warm genuine smile that made her eyes crinkle in a happy way. “Maybe we could go out for a drink tonight to celebrate?”

My face fell. My son had a baseball tournament game that night and there was no way I could miss it. It was his first time on the all-star team. I explained my conflict to her, but instead of looking disappointed, she just smiled more broadly.

“Check your kids’ calendars when you get home tonight then and pick an evening when we can go out. My calendar is wide open except for next Thursday.”

“Okay, great,” I said, trying not to sound like I was sixteen.

The next few days were a hectic swirl of learning a new job and fitting in with Christina’s style of work, which was very intense. I was happy to learn that she wanted me to be a real assistant, not just a secretary with a fancy title, and this included participating in work with clients, something I hadn’t had a chance to do before.

I’d managed to clear my family calendar for the following Monday so Christina and I went out for dinner and drinks right after work. The restaurant she’d chosen was one I’d heard about but figured I’d never eat in, given my meager salary and Paul’s even more meager child support payments. The food was pan-Asian and delicious. I tried not to look too happy, but it was hard.

During dinner we talked mostly about my kids, Christina asking lots of questions and listening patiently as I gushed on about them. Somewhere around the time we ordered dessert and coffee, I realized I’d been blathering on for close to an hour and she was probably bored senseless.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve totally monopolized the conversation. You’re such a patient audience, I kind of got carried away.” Then I laughed and said, “Never ask a mother about her kids unless you want to know way more than you bargained for.”

Christina smiled that pretty smile of hers and said, “That’s why I asked. If we’re going to work together for the long run, I want to know all about you. And that means your kids as well as you.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “You’re nice to say so. But what about you? You’re so beautiful, so successful. But you haven’t mentioned boyfriends or husbands.”

As soon as I said it I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth. What a thing to say! But Christina saved me.

“Nope, no men,” she said. “I guess you could say I’m not the marrying kind.”

Grateful to be rescued from my faux pas, I nodded like I understood.

“Well, you’d certainly have your pick from the guys in the office,” I giggled. “I’m sure you know they all stop whatever they’re doing when you walk by.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding just a little bit. “I know. They’re so, well, predictable.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I said.

Then Christina laughed lightly, “Or you could say they let their dicks do most of their thinking for them.”

I joined her laughter, “No doubt. No doubt.”

The waiter brought our dessert then. I couldn’t help but notice how his eyes played over Christina. As he walked away, I said, “Like him.”

She nodded and took a bite of her Crème Brulé. It was killing me to see her eating it—my favorite dessert—but I’d banned all such things from my life. I was having a bowl of fresh raspberries. Plus, she ate it like she was having sex with it, each bite sensual and slow. I realized I was staring and so went back to my berries.

“Here,” she said, extending her arm and offering me a spoonful. I was about to protest, but decided the better of it.

God it tasted good. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had any chocolate, much less something as sinful as this. I rolled it around in my mouth for a second, savoring the moment, before swallowing.

When I opened my eyes, Christina was looking at me with a peculiar look in her eye.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“Almost better than sex,” I said without even thinking. Then I really did clap my hand over my mouth. I felt my cheeks burning and a flush spread up my neck.

Christina just smiled and said, “That all depends on the sex, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” was all I could think of to say.

The rest of the evening was a lot less exciting. We finished up our coffee, chatted a bit more about our families, and called it a night. When I got home, I lay in bed thinking about the glow that suffused me. I couldn’t remember when I’d had a more enjoyable evening.

Within six months Christina had become almost a part of our family. It started innocently enough, with me inviting her over for a multi-family bar-b-que to celebrate the last day of school for my kids. She showed up before the rest of the guests, wearing cut off jeans and a Banzai Pipeline t-shirt. As soon as he saw her shirt, my son wanted to know if she’d really been to the North Shore of Hawaii.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been a couple of times and I’ve surfed on and off since I was a teenager. I grew up near Malibu.”

“Did you surf the Pipeline?” he asked, adulation in his eyes. This was just too way cool for words.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling. “I want to live a little longer. I’m strictly a small wave gal.”

His face fell, but then recovered. “How big are the waves, really? You know, in the Pipeline?”

Christina took him by the arm and led him out into the yard and started pointing to various branches in the trees along our fence line. I couldn’t hear them any more, but I was impressed with her ease with a twelve-year old boy she’d never met. It made me happy to see them getting along from the very beginning and I realized that I really wanted her to like my family. And I wanted my kids to like her.

I needn’t have worried. At various points during the evening I spotted Christina and each of my children doing something together, sitting quietly and talking, or laughing over some joke. I also noticed several of the dads who were there trying to get an eyeful of her without being caught staring by their wives. She did look amazing in those cutoffs.

At the end of the party Christina and I were in the kitchen cleaning up the last of the mess. I’d tried to get her to sit while I loaded the dishwasher, but she wouldn’t let me treat her like a guest or a boss.

“I can’t remember when I’ve had such a nice time,” she said as she found room for one more plate in the lower rack. “You have such a wonderful family.”

“Thanks,” I said, beaming. “They really are good kids.”

“That’s because you’re their mother.”

I felt a blush starting on my cheeks, so I turned to look out the window for a second. My son was throwing a baseball with his best friend in the light cast from the spots over the deck. I felt so content at that moment.

“That’s a very nice thing of you to say,” I said turning to look at my boss. She had straightened up and was looking at me in a way I’d never seen from her. Usually she’s so intense, but at that moment she looked almost like she was going to cry.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She smiled then, a very broad smile, her teeth flashing. “I’ve never been better.”

Suddenly, I felt flustered. I couldn’t say why, exactly, but I was definitely flustered. To cover it up, I had to say something, so like I often do, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You were so great with the kids. They took to you right away.”

“And that’s a very nice thing of you to say,” she said. “I can see why you love them so much. They’re really wonderful.”

That just made my blush worse, but that seemed okay at that moment. I had an overwhelming urge to hug Christina, but she was my boss, after all. So instead I said, “We’d like to have you over again soon.”

“I’d like that very much,” she replied. Maybe I was imagining things, or maybe it was just the way the light was hitting her eyes, but it did look like her eyes were welling up.

She turned away from me then and picked up a few stray glasses on the kitchen table and loaded them into the dishwasher, closed it up and pressed the start button. The noise it made forced us to retreat to the deck. I was about to say something else, but she spoke first.

“I’ve got to go now. I had such a wonderful evening. Thanks so much for inviting me.”

“I meant what I said about you coming over again soon,” I said, suddenly unwilling for her to leave.

“And I meant what I said about wanting to.”

Before long Christina was at our house almost every other week for some event or other—dinner, a backyard picnic, a pool party—and began to attend some of the children’s events with me—Jillian’s dance recital, Mark’s swim meet, the play Alison’s summer camp put on. It was obvious that she enjoyed being part of our lives and the children all loved having her around, especially Jillian who saw in Christina the glamorous professional woman that her mother would never be.

At first I was a little nervous about my boss spending so much time with us. What would happen if something went wrong at work and it carried over into my personal life? Or vice versa? But from the first week when I became her assistant, Christina had treated me more as a partner than as an assistant and by the time the summer wound down she was even taking me out to call on clients. This made me feel very secure about my job anyway.

The biggest surprise I’d had in a year happened one evening in early September while I was sitting at my computer balancing my checkbook. When I logged into my bank’s online system, there was a $4,000 deposit in my account.

Apparently the bank had made some sort of mistake, so the next morning when I got to the office I called my local branch to tell them about the error. The assistant manager looked at my account and said, “Um, that deposit was made by your employer. Maybe you should check with your payroll office to see what happened.”

So I did. When I called downstairs, the woman I spoke with said, “No. That wasn’t a mistake. That was your commission from the Sanders account.”

“But I don’t work on commission,” I protested.

“Well, it’s a commission payment,” she said. “Check with Ms. Carlson. She’s the one who authorized it.”

So, I got up and went into Christina’s office. She was on the phone, but motioned me to sit, holding up one finger. Sure enough, she was winding up the call, so I didn’t’ have to wait long.

“Good morning,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Well,” I began. “There’s been some sort of payroll error involving me. A couple of days ago the company deposited $4,000 in my checking account and Payroll says it’s a commission from the Sanders account.”

“That’s right,” Christina said, her green eyes twinkling. “I wondered how long it would take you to notice.”

“But…”

“No buts Megan,” she said. “You worked hard for that sale and so it seemed only fair that you get part of the commission.”

“But…”

She held up her hand. “I mean it. Don’t argue with me.”

A wave of pleasure rolled over me then, starting at the top of my head and sending tingles all the way down to my toes. I really needed the money and I had worked hard for that new account.

“Christina,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“No,” she said. “Thank you for all the hard work you put into that account. From now on, you’ll be participating in my commissions. We’re a team now Megan.”

I stood up. What I really wanted to do was hug her, but that didn’t seem professional, so I just put my hand out to shake hers. She seemed nonplussed for some reason. It was the first time I could remember seeing her look that way at work. Then her hand closed on mine and we shared a warm handshake, our eyes locked. Again the urge to hug her surged through me, but I fought it off and broke the contact. Then I waltzed out of her office. Commission!

That night I took the kids out to their favorite restaurant and told them they could order anything they wanted, that Mom was loaded, at least for one night. Then I told them all about my commission. They were almost as excited as I was, because maybe it meant we wouldn’t be pinching pennies every week of the year. I felt like a million bucks.

With school started back up my life got much busier again. But we still invited Christina over at least a couple of times a month and she insisted on being invited to the kid’s events. Mark was playing JV football for the first time and I was very nervous that he was going to get hurt, but Christina soothed me, telling me all about her older brothers and their experiences in football and how neither of them ever got more than a serious bruise. And when his first game rolled around, Christina, the girls and I were all there in the stand cheering him on.

We might have continued that way forever if it hadn’t been for Jillian, my oldest. It was a Friday night in early November and I was sitting up in the living room reading, waiting for her to come home from a party. I’d had a couple of glasses of wine while I waited and was feeling relaxed, despite the fact that she had missed her midnight curfew. When she came in ten minutes past midnight, I scowled at her in mock anger, but she knew me too well to take it seriously.

“Sorry Mom,” she said, trying to sound exasperated as she shook her mop of dark curly hair. “Billy was driving and he gets lost all the time. I swear, he needs to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind him when he leaves home.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, not buying it. Billy was one of only two kids in Jillian’s group of friends who had a car he could drive when he wanted to, so he was very popular. But I hadn’t ever heard that he had a bad sense of direction.

Jillian came and sat down next to me on the couch then, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Mom, can I talk to you about something kind of serious?”

“Sure sweetie,” I said, turning to face her and tucking one foot under my other leg. “What is it?”

“Actually, it’s about you,” she said. “You and Christina, I mean.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering where this was going. I was sure Jillian idolized Christina and so couldn’t figure out what could be wrong. Because it was obvious that she was nervous.

“I hate to be the one to break this to you Mom, but if I don’t, I’m afraid you’ll never figure it out on your own. I mean, you’re being pretty thick, you know.”

“What?” I asked. “Just say it.”

“Okay,” she said, smirking just a little. “In case you haven’t noticed, Christina is in love with you.”

At that moment, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I know my face must have shown my surprise, because Jillian started to giggle.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I haven’t told anyone. But think about it for a minute. Think about the way she looks at you, the way she wants to just sit with you when we’re all doing things together, the way she lights up when you walk into the room. I’m telling you Mom, she’s in love with you.”

“I seriously doubt it,” I said. But my protest was more for form’s sake than anything else. As Jillian had been talking it was like a veil had lifted from my eyes. Everything that had happened the past six months seemed so clear to me now. Christina did love me. I knew it the way you know that your children love you. It was there, a powerful and wonderful thing, and I’d been oblivious to it.

“No you don’t,” she said. “You’re just embarrassed to admit it. Mom, it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with women loving each other, you know.”

“I know,” I stammered. “It’s just that…”

“Yeah,” she giggled again. “You never thought of yourself as being a lesbian, right?”

That word pulled me up short. “I most certainly am not a lesbian,” I protested.

And what was my wonderful daughter’s response to my protest? She snorted at me. “Uh-huh.”

“Now wait a minute. What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Mom. Get real. I can see can’t I? I already told you Christina loves you. And, to be perfectly honest, I can also see that you’re in love with her.”

“How?”

“The same way I can see it in her. Whenever she’s coming over, you get all excited, kind of the way I do before a date. And when she’s here, you seem so much happier than you do normally—not that you aren’t happy normally, just happier, you know? And I’ve watched the way the two of you sit at Mark’s games. Did you realize you sit with your hips touching?”

“Those bleachers don’t have enough room for…”

“Yes they do. You two just touch each other. I know she likes it and I’m betting you do too.”

“But…”

“And when was the last time you were in bed with a man anyway Mom?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” I huffed, trying to sound like a mother again.

“Uh-huh. Think about it. The last time you had a date was just before you started working for Christina. Why do you think that is?”

I had to stop then and think about everything my daughter had just said to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I did love Christina and, if I was honest with myself, I could see the signs that she was attracted to me. Love? I wasn’t sure. But attraction without a doubt.

“So?” Jillian asked, finally breaking into my reverie. “Am I right?”

I turned back to face her again and slowly nodded my head. As I did, a big smile broke across her face and before I knew it, I was smiling too, then laughing, and then we were hugging each other. And as my daughter held me in her arms, tears began to leak from my eyes. The first tears of joy I’d cried since Alison first called me “momma.”

When we’d acted like two teenagers instead of just one for several minutes, I broke the clench and said to her, “Now what do I do?”

“Hey, don’t ask me.” She said. “I’ve never dated a girl before.”

I punched her then. “Some help you are.”

“Just think of me as a facilitator,” she said. “The rest is up to you.”

I hugged her again and whispered in her ear. “I love you Jillian and I’m the luckiest mom in the world.”

She hugged me back, very tightly. She didn’t need to answer with words.

At work on Monday, I was so nervous I thought I might explode. I’d worn what I thought was my best looking outfit and while Christina and I sipped our morning coffee and went over the schedule for the week ahead I was so distracted I could hardly keep track of what she was saying. When we got to Friday, I interrupted her and said, “I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner on Friday.”

I’d meant to say “come over for dinner” but somehow, it came out as “have dinner” which sounded a lot more like I was asking her out on a date. Christina looked up from her calendar and our eyes locked in a way they never had before. She saw it in my eyes and I saw it in hers. We both knew. And what did we do? We both welled up.

I flinched first, wiping at my eyes with my fingers. I was about to say something, but as usual, Christina beat me to the punch.

“I’d love to. Do you think you could come over to my place? I’ve got a new recipe I’ve been dying to try and if it bombs with you, no one will have to know.”

“That would be great,” I said. “Great.”

And there it was.

Just a few simple words, but so much knowledge unspoken. I wanted desperately to blurt out how I felt, but the office was not the place for that. I knew it and she knew it. There would be time enough later. Instead, we settled for closely guarded knowing glances.

Each time our eyes met, I’d feel a shiver run through me, and my nipples would begin to harden. And once I noticed that our game of peek-a-boo had had the same effect on Christina. The sight of her nipples poking against the fabric of her dress caused a dampness between my legs that made me wish Friday would come sooner than usual.

Somehow we made it through the week without jumping into one another’s arms. It helped that she spent Tuesday and most of Wednesday at a client. If it hadn’t been for Jillian, I probably wouldn’t have made it through the week. She kept reminding me that everything would be just fine and helped me pick out and discard about forty different outfits for Friday.

In the end, we settled on simple—a newish pair of jeans that fit my slimmer figure nicely and pale blue satin blouse that Jillian swore highlighted my eyes in an alluring way.

“Trust me Mom,” she’d said. “You’re hot, okay?”

I didn’t feel hot. I felt scared. Especially by the thought of Christina’s perfect body compared to mine. To be honest, as excited as I was by what I could imagine would happen, the thought of being naked in front of Christina terrified me. I looked better than I had in maybe twenty years, but as good as my curves had seemed to me a few months ago, now I just felt, well, fat.

On Friday Christina and I avoided one another as much as possible. It was just too hard to be around her. And I suspected she felt the same way. At quitting time, she breezed into my office, her cheeks just a bit flushed, and said, “Seven o’clock, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

“I can’t wait,” she said and left me to watch her legs retreating down the corridor.

When I got home, I felt like I was vibrating as I walked into the kitchen and I had to concentrate on breathing normally. Jillian was waiting for me. She’d agreed to babysit her younger sister and to make sure her brother came home on time.

“Hi Mom,” she said, sounding a lot perkier than I felt. “All set for your big date?”

“I need to breathe before I can go anywhere,” I groaned.

Jillian stood up, went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine and poured me a glass. “Drink this. It’ll help you breathe.”

She was right, of course. As soon as I took a sip, I felt calm begin to wash over me—clearly a psychological reaction rather than a physiological one.

“Go get changed,” she said. “Don’t want to be late!”

I stuck my tongue out at her, but followed her advice. I took a shower, shaved my legs and armpits, put on just a little of the only expensive perfume I owned, and dressed in the outfit we’d agreed on. I must have checked myself in the mirror five times before I could bring myself to go downstairs, but finally, it was time.

“Wow, Mom. You look great,” my very supportive daughter gushed. “If I was into older chicks, I’d ask you out.”

I slugged her in the shoulder for that one. Then, just as I was about to go through all the things I wanted her to do, she cut me off.

“I know. Allison needs to be in bed by 10:00 and Mark has to be home by 11:00. I’ve got Christina’s number and your cell number programmed into my phone.”

“Okay, Miss Smartypants, that seems to be it then.”

“Not quite,” she said, looking at me sideways. “There’s one more detail.”

Then she stood up, wrapped me in her arms and hugged me. Jillian takes after her father and so is close to two inches taller than me, which puts her just under six feet. It felt good to be hugged at that moment, so I hugged her back hard.

When we broke our clench, she put her hands on my shoulders and said, “I don’t expect you to come home tonight.”

“What?”

“I mean it Mom. I’m 18 years old, remember. I can control the punks. You have absolutely no reason to come home tonight and so you better not. Seriously.”

I was about to protest, but she was right. I didn’t want to come home. Tears started from my eyes and ran down my face. “I love you Jilly,” was all I could say.

“I love you too Mom. Now get the hell out of here!”

I’d been to Christina’s house a couple of times and had cruised it the night before just because I couldn’t stop myself, so I managed to get there without getting lost. But when I pulled into the driveway, I was a wreck. I hadn’t felt this way when I’d started dating again and the reason was pretty obvious to me. I hadn’t cared that much about Alex. And, of course, I was about to turn a corner in my life and go to a place I’d never imagined I’d go.

Christina must have been waiting for me to pull up, because she opened her front door, stepped out onto the stoop and waved. Okay, here goes nothing, I said to myself.

“Hi,” I said as I walked toward her door. She was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt with several of the top buttons undone and a pair of low-rise jeans. Her hair was piled up on her head with a couple of antique looking chopsticks. A single diamond was suspended just below her throat by a chain so thin it was almost invisible. God she looked beautiful.

“Hi yourself,” she said. “Glad you remembered how to get here.”

“I printed out directions,” I lied.

“Well, come on in. Dinner’s almost ready.”

We stepped inside and I had to suppress an overwhelming urge to grab her and kiss her. If she’d wanted to do that, she would have turned on me as soon as we closed the front door. Instead, she led me down the hall to the kitchen.

“That smells delicious,” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s Thai. A shrimp and scallop curry. It’s not too spicy. I know you don’t like things too hot.”

From the kitchen, I could see the dining room. The table was set for two with candles already burning. Very romantic.

Christina handed me a glass of wine and looked where I’d been staring. “Cozy, isn’t it.”

“Yes,” I said. “I just love that about your house.”

“Mmm,” she murmured into her wine glass. “Have a seat over there,’ she said, motioning toward a barstool at the counter, “and let me finish up.”

I sat as directed and watched her. Her green eyes were so captivating against her pale pink skin, her deep red hair.

“What are the kids up to tonight,” she asked.

“Mark’s out with friends and Jillian’s babysitting Allie. I think they’re going to watch a DVD.”

“You’re so lucky to have Jillian as your oldest,” she said. “My mother always wished I’d been the oldest instead of the youngest. Of course, it meant I didn’t have to babysit my brothers.”

“I think you got the better end of that deal,” I replied. “And yes, I’m very lucky to have Jillian. In fact,” I took a deep breath, “I wouldn’t be here tonight if it weren’t for her.”

“Oh?” Christina’s eyebrows arched.

“Well, um, yes. You see, Jillian was the one who,” I couldn’t say it just that fast, so to stall, I took another sip of my wine, a gulp actually.

“Who what?” Now she was teasing me, I was sure.

“Who sat me down and told me that it was as plain on the nose on my face that you and I, well, that we feel more for one another than just friendship.”

It was the moment of truth. I was sure there was no way I was wrong, but there was always that very slim chance and if I was wrong, my whole life—my job, my self-image, everything—was in shambles.

I guess I must have looked pretty vulnerable at that moment, because Christina put down the knife she was using to chop the scallops, wiped her hand on a towel and stepped to me. The whole time her eyes never left mine.

She took my head in her hands, tilted it sideways just a bit and leaned down so close I could feel the heat of her lips before they touched mine. When she actually did make contact with me, I thought I might faint right there on the spot. Never in my whole life had I wanted to kiss someone that much.

Her lips were as soft as velvet, but her kiss was anything but soft. She pressed us together hungrily, her tongue darting between my lips and sliding over my teeth, then withdrawing. As she pulled back, I pressed forward, rising a little from my seat. I didn’t want the contact broken now that we were touching at last. Now it was me who was on the attack, devouring her mouth, probing with my tongue, reaching up with my hands to pull her to me.

We kissed like that for several minutes, my excitement, my need building. And then she broke the clench, stepped back and gasped. Her nipples were poking against the fabric of her shirt so that I could see them even through the floral print. Her chest was heaving in time with mine.

“Does that answer your question?” she asked.

I couldn’t speak. All I could do was nod.

“Good. Now let me finish this, or we’ll never eat it and I’ll have wasted an hour of prep time.”

“Okay,” I said. “But can you go just a little faster?”

Then we both smiled, a knowing smile of pleasure postponed.

Dinner was delicious and I’m glad we didn’t waste it. We also managed to polish off a bottle and a half of some very nice wine. By the time we’d cleared our plates, we were both feeling sated—at least as far as our stomachs went.

In the kitchen, I was about to reach for Christina to resume where we’d left off before dinner, when she slid her hand into mine and said, “Come with me.”

She led me down the hall to her bedroom and to the edge of her bed, where she turned and gathered me in her arms. Christina and I are both tall, so we were well matched, our bodies pressing together in all the right places. The feeling of her breasts against mine was heavenly and I was already very damp with anticipation. But I was also a little nervous about being naked in front of her.

Before I could worry any more, she released me from her hug and kissed me again. But this time, her hands began to roam over my body, sliding down my rib cage to my hips, then over my butt and up my back to my neck, then down my front where she tweaked my nipples and cupped my breasts in her hands. I sighed involuntarily and followed her lead, letting my fingers investigate the body I’d been dreaming about every night for the past week.

Then she was unbuttoning my blouse. My nipples were so hard they hurt pressed against the inside of my bra and I felt a desperate need for her to kiss them.

I didn’t have long to wait, because she skillfully slid me out of my blouse and unsnapped my bra. As my breasts swung free, she gasped, leaned down and her mouth was on my nipple, her tongue swirling in rapid circles. With a shock I realized that I was very close to an orgasm. I clasped her head in my hands and pressed her against my breast as she devoured me.

And before I knew it, my legs began to shake, my breath came in short little gasps and it hit me, an orgasm that began in her mouth, entered my breasts, and washed over my entire body. I cried out and collapsed backward onto her bed. Her mouth never left me as I writhed beneath her, feeling the waves of pleasure rebound from my feet to my head and back to her mouth. My nipples have always been zones of intense pleasure for me, but in my whole life I’d never cum from nipple stimulation before.

“Oh my God Christina,” I moaned, “That was unbelievable.”

She looked up at me then, a look of pure animal lust in her eyes. “You are so beautiful Megan. So beautiful.”

Then I felt her hands begin to work at the button at the waistband of my pants. I began squirming to help her. I wanted to be naked in the worst kind of way. From the way she was tugging at my pants, it was pretty clear she wanted me naked even worse.

Once she had my jeans off, Christina stood next to the bed and slid easily out of her own clothes. I watched, mesmerized, as her body appeared before me. It was everything mine would never be—perfect breasts, a flat stomach, a thin waist. I stared at her with a mix of longing and envy.

“Christina,” I whispered. “You’re perfect.”

“You don’t get it do you?” she asked me.

“Get what?”

“You’re the one who’s perfect Megan. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

And then as if to silence any dissent I might utter, she bent down and began to kiss my toes, sliding her tongue between each one, then sucking a toe into her mouth and swirling her tongue around it like it was a tiny cock. No one had ever sucked my toes before and I liked it. A lot.

When she’d visited all ten of my toes she began kissing her way up my calves, across the tops of my thighs and then down to the insides of my knees. She was driving me crazy. Christina knew where I wanted her tongue, but she was going to make me suffer first, that was clear.

As she kissed and nibbled her way up closer and closer to my pussy, I began to lift my hips off the bed to give her better access, but distressingly, she passed her target by. Instead, she kissed her way through my pubic hair and up to my navel, where her tongue probed for just a moment, before bathing its way across my belly.

“You are so sexy,” she moaned. “I love your body.”

“And you’re killing me,” I moaned back at her.

That made her chuckle. But it didn’t make her go where I wanted her to go. Instead, she began kissing the undersides of my breasts. My nipples were still very hard and before long they were back in her mouth, but this time she nipped them playfully. The twinge of pain from her teeth just increased my need. She seemed to know me as though we’d been lovers for years, not minutes.

From my breasts her tongue slid up my neck to my ears. My ears have always been my most erogenous zone after my breasts and crotch and her hot breath, the smell of her hair as she licked and nibbled my earlobes, sent me into a series of gasps and full body twitches.

“Mmmm. You like that?”

“God yes!”

“Mmmm,” she murmured into my ear, the vibrations of her hum just making it worse.

With one hand I began to stroke her back, while I tried worming the other one under her to begin my own investigation of her body. But she pushed my hand away.

“Not yet,” she said. “Not yet.”

So I lay back and let her love me. At last she began to kiss her way back down toward my waist. By this time my entire body was on fire, every single nerve ending inflamed. I was writhing and moaning like some kind of animal. And my greatest fear was that she would bypass the place I needed her to go and continue my torture.

Fortunately for me, she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she pushed my legs open and her face descended. I was soaking wet and could feel how swollen my pussy was with desire for my lover.

“You are so incredible,” she murmured.

And then her breath was beating down on the outer lips of my sex. I needed her touch so badly I wanted to scream for it. She knew it and didn’t make me wait another moment. The tip of her tongue danced out and began tracing the edges of my outer lips and as it did, I could feel another orgasm approaching.

Desperate now, I begged her, “Please. I’m so close. Please. My clit.”

As slow and deliberate as Christina had been for the past ten minutes or so, she suddenly attacked my body, thrusting her face down into me, her tongue playing roughly over my clit, driving me up and over the edge.

This time I really did scream. Well, scream is not exactly the right word because that implies something high pitched and wailing. My scream was more like a shouted grunt. My hips bucked up off the mattress, crashing into her face as the most powerful orgasm of my life surged through me. I felt as though her tongue was yanking me up and down on the bed, making my body dance as though I was a puppet on a string.

Best of all, Christina knew better than to stop. Instead of slackening her pace, she drove two fingers into me, pushing my folds open, and began strumming on my g-spot. Until that moment, I’d never known what “multi-orgasmic” meant, but I found out right then and there. A second and then a third orgasm took me as I gave myself over completely and totally to my lover, letting her have all of me, wanting nothing more than to be the feelings that assaulted me.

I have no idea how long I kept cumming. I had ascended into a timeless place where the only things that existed were my body and my lover’s ministrations.

But all good things must come to an end. I don’t know if it was my body giving out or Christina getting a tongue cramp, but she eventually began to slow her pace and as she did, the aftershocks of my pleasure began to space themselves out, until at last I flopped on the bed, my body completely spent.

I couldn’t have moved if the house had caught fire at that moment. Fortunately, I didn’t have to move, because Christina squirmed up toward me, covering my body in hers, our breasts crushed together, our pelvic bones touching, feet entwined.

I wrapped my arms around her, buried her head in the hollow of my shoulder and then did something very unsexy. I began to cry. Not little sobs or anything like that. I cut loose with gut-wrenching moans and I clung to Christina like my life depended on it. She wormed her arms under me and clung back.

After a few minutes of blubbering, my sobs turned into laughs, or at least a kind of sob-laugh that must have been funny to listen to, because it made Christina start laughing too. She slid her arms out from under me, raised herself up so she could look into my eyes, and said, “I love you too.”

That just made me start crying all over again. She knew. She knew just like she’d looked inside my heart, just as easily as she’d taken control of my body. I was deliriously happy.

I grabbed her face with both hands and dragged her down to my lips and we kissed just as passionately as we had there in the kitchen a couple of hours earlier. Only this time it was me who wanted it all. I wanted to love her the way she’d just loved me, to join her in that glorious passage from excitement to fulfillment. She sensed my need once again in a way no lover ever had, and rolled over and off of me, lying back and offering herself to me.

And I worshiped her just as she’d worshiped me. I wanted to know every inch of her skin, every cleft, every wrinkle, every smell, every taste. Nothing had ever felt so right to me, so natural, so loving. I tasted her and I roughed her skin with the back of my tongue. I drew her nipples into my mouth and loved them just as I had been loved. I smelled the perfume she’d dabbed behind her ears and I twirled her shimmering hair between my fingers as I trailed my nose along the nape of her neck.

As I approached her waist at last, I could smell her, a smell of passion much like my own but subtly different. It was a Christina smell, wild, untamed, dominating. More than anything I wanted to taste the juices that made that smell and so I forced her legs open and kissed my way closer and closer to the object of my desire. Her red pubic hair, trimmed back from her pussy, was damp with sweat and excitement as my lips burrowed in it. Her hips were rising off the bed now, her need urgent.

My tongue became the locus of my love, of my own need, as it dipped between the folds of her pussy, the sweet tang of her spreading up and over my taste buds. I wanted more. I needed more. I drove my tongue into her, lapping up her passion as it poured from her.

And then I found it. The spot to which all her nerve endings were connected. And as I sucked it between my lips, her clit quivered and jumped as if it were a thing alive, separate from her yet intricately connected. Christina cried out then and grabbed my head, grinding me into her and as I had done, she came and came hard.

Her legs wrapped around my face, thighs clamped over my ears and she began to ride my lips, driving herself against me, moaning, cursing, grunting. I held on for dear life, my hands wrapped over her pelvis, my lips locked on her clit as my tongue rubbed over it relentlessly.

Suddenly, her legs flew apart and she pushed me away violently, “Stop. Stop.”

“No,” I said, a feeling of power coming over me. “I want more.”

“No,” she said, weaker this time. “Can’t…”

I pushed her legs open again and began working my fingers into her, finding her g-spot just as she’d found mine. It was swollen, inflamed, and I began strumming on it, crooking my fingers back toward my own face, as my tongue rolled her clit back and forth, up and down, forcefully, then as softly as the wings of a butterfly. My chin was slick with her. My own body was on fire again.

I could tell she was rising again, gaining momentum. It was as if her body had become mine and I was driving us together toward an orgasm we would share, our needs the same, but our roles different. I wanted that orgasm the way I wanted my own. I needed her pleasure to pour into me, to fill me up.

Then it happened. I had her thighs pushed back onto her stomach and suddenly they jumped, crashing her pelvis up and into my face. I drove downward to meet her thrusts, pushing, mashing, then sucking her clit into my mouth again. I felt a new wave of wetness gush over my fingers and heard Christina crying out, but she seemed so far away. I was only my tongue, my fingers, her clit.

As before, she shoved me away, hard. Only this time, she rolled to her side so I couldn’t continue, clamping her legs together to keep me out. Just as she had known my needs before, I knew hers this time. So I slid up the bed and cradled her in my arms as she came down from her orgasm. Our breathing meshed, our sweat merged in a hundred different places.

And when she was all the way down, she rolled back to me and kissed me, a soft, gentle kiss of love.

“I love you Christina,” I murmured into her mouth. “I love you so very much.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

As I drifted off to sleep in my lover’s arms, I knew for sure that I’d come home at last.