Brian Hodge - Prototype

And when they kissed, she was so deep and forceful; Adrienne had never been kissed like that by another woman, not even by Sarah in the past, a brutish kiss that she had thought the ploy of men. It weakened the knees, and then Sarah tore away with wet mouth and a wild back-toss of her head, and swept across the room to collapse upon the sofa.

“They told me this happens to some people, they’ll get this incredible endorphin rush for the next three or four hours, it’s just like a drug, and wouldn’t you know, I’m one of the lucky ones! ” She laughed and drummed her fists upon the sofa, her feet upon the floor, then parted her legs to slide both hands down along her inner thighs. Eyes focusing back on Adrienne, alight with an all-consuming hunger. “There’s still time, let’s go to bed, we have to go to bed, if we don’t I’m going to explode.”

So they did, and Adrienne went into the bedroom and undressed as if half-outside herself: This isn’t me, this is just a shell, and the real me is across the room watching. For the first time in their relationship the sex reminded her of nights in her marriage when she had submitted not out of any genuine desire, more that she didn’t have the will to say no, because there was nothing else she had to do.

Their lips and tongues and fingers lacked for no heat, but five minutes in she knew what the problem was: She had been left behind. Sarah was soaring, on a high all her own, and both the blessing and the curse was that Sarah was too far aloft to notice. They had to be careful not to grind upon her stomach, but still Sarah was electrified and wild, so sensitive a feathery touch could turn her convulsive with rapture. Her head would thrash side to side, its cascade of thin braids became whips. And with Adrienne’s mouth buried between her thighs, never had Sarah’s legs felt more powerful as when they clenched together, as if to crush the head that had brought her so shudderingly far. She had become more than mortal; it was like making love with a force of nature. To deny her anything she wanted would be to risk death.

Somewhere in the shadow of it Adrienne lay exhausted. There might not even be enough air in the room for them both. How sore she would be tomorrow. This would be how the servants of savage deities would feel: beloved meat, knowledgeable and privileged, but meat nonetheless.

In the interim, one tiny misgiving had grown, and burst from her mouth before she even knew it would.

“If you didn’t want to go through that piercing alone,” she said, “then why didn’t you take me along? I didn’t even know you were planning on doing it.”

“I don’t know. Nina was there, and…” She turned onto her side, facing inward. Calmer now, what a relief. “I didn’t want to bother you. You had a session with Clay earlier.”

“You couldn’t have waited until I didn’t?”

“You had your work, and… and I had mine.”

Work. She’d really said that.

Adrienne’s hand stole over to Sarah’s belly, touched the hot red skin around her navel. The ring. A bit of clear fluid was oozing from the piercing. For weeks, Sarah would daily have to doctor this with antiseptic until it healed.

“This was work to you.”

Sarah nodded. “I wanted to know what it was like, getting a body piercing. Ears don’t count, everybody does their ears, that’s nothing.”

“Your thesis.”

“Yeah.” Sarah grinned, salacious and heavy-lidded. “There’s no rule saying I can’t enjoy it, too. What, don’t tell me you don’t like it. You like it, don’t you?”

Her gaze tracked to Sarah’s navel again. It drew the eye naturally, and part of her wanted to lower her mouth to it, trace her tongue around the little folds, like tiny pudenda, taste the metal. Too soon, though, let it heal. Yet the ring felt intimidating. Neither of them wore a thing at the moment, yet it seemed as if Sarah were more naked, somehow, her bared body all the more emphasized. Naked and strong.

“I like it,” she whispered. “I just wish I’d been there.”

“Don’t be mad" — stroking Adrienne’s hair — “I had to do this for myself. For them , too, it’s so much more prevalent a part of their culture. Graham has nipple piercings — I bet you didn’t know that about him, did you? Nina told me that Twitch went in twice to get his cock pierced and chickened out both times.” She laughed. “Erin was there too. This afternoon. I had her tape it.”

Videotape, too. Why hadn’t she just sent out invitations?

“I understand why they do it now,” Sarah said, the carnal beast sated for the time being, the inquisitive Sarah emerging. “It’s an experience you just can’t compare with having your ears done. These people — Nina and Twitch and Erin and Graham and Clay, and the others I’ve met at the clubs and all around — they’re so low in the social strata, they’re forced to assert some control in their lives in other ways, and this is one of them. You never feel more alive and in control of yourself as when you trust someone else to run a piece of sharp metal through you. I never would’ve believed how strong that feeling comes through when you’re lying there if I hadn’t done it myself.”

Adrienne tracked a finger through the sweat between Sarah’s breasts. “It sounds like a rite of passage.”

“That’s exactly what it is. You know what they are out there? I mean, think about them all, at the clubs, and on the streets. It’s tribal. They don’t formalize it, but it’s still a tribal society.” Sarah rolled onto her back, staring upward. “I miss the ceiling fan from home. That always feels so good now.” A shrug. “That’s all most everyone is these days, just a collection of isolated tribes, finding more and more reasons to be suspicious of each other. In primitive cultures there’s only room for one view, really, just to survive, but ours… hundreds, thousands maybe. And we’re not any different back home in Tempe. All our friends, just about, are just like us. You, me, them, we’re this little tribe of muff-divers.”

Adrienne frowned. “Don’t confine me like that, all right?”

“No, I guess I can’t, can I?” Sarah propped herself up on her elbow. “Because you can’t make the commitment. You’ve still got one foot on the other side of the fence.”

Her voice sounded hurt all of a sudden, and angry, and where was this coming from?

“And you tell me I have trouble making up my mind?”

“I —” Adrienne tried. Anything she could say would be wrong, but silence would be worse. “I never pretended to be something I wasn’t. It’s the way I am. My inclinations just didn’t fall exclusively one way or another.”

“Oh, that’s so analytical,” Sarah groaned. With her hair still in those braids, she looked feral and wounded. “You know, there are times you seem one step removed from your life.”

And it didn’t bear arguing about, for there was no right or wrong here. Each of them was what she was, and true to that; made differently, and perhaps only half-compatible, and it was that other half that could potentially bring so much pain. Pain over what one might long for, that the other could never be.

As quickly as she had launched into it, Sarah drew back out. With downcast eyes and creased forehead, she squirmed in closer to Adrienne’s side, radiant with body heat and sheer presence, one arm thrown across Adrienne’s shoulders, one leg draped across Adrienne’s knees. She might have no words left; her body would say all. That was the thing about arguing naked: There was nothing behind which to hide, only raw truth.

So Adrienne lay in her possessive embrace, even returned it, but felt alive with questions. What will happen to us? — this was the big one. How will we see each other in a year, or two, or five? It could work between us, always, but will our hormones let it?