Alma Marceau: From Lofting

I calmed myself and managed to regain some perspective on my situation. What made Sharon 's behavior so disturbing, I knew, was that it bore no resemblance to what I'd supposed "sex" would be like; it lay beyond the range of even my imaginative understanding. Yet just as I was reconciling myself to the limits of my comprehension, I was suddenly forced to acknowledge that part of me knew exactly what to make of my condition, for I now realized that without consciously intending it, I had responded to the insistent pressure of Sharon 's leg by parting my thighs.

With her knee wedged firmly against my groin, Sharon raised a hand to my face, then gently swept my eyelids closed with the tips of her outstretched thumb and index finger: the same formal gesture, I recognized with a shiver, that one would use on a corpse.

There was a sudden rush of movement, and in a fraction of a second my hands were seized, slammed together, and immobilized. I opened my eyes to find Sharon spinning loops of leather rein around my wrists with the practiced motions of a rodeo cowboy hobbling an upended calf. Satisfied that my bindings were secure, she took up the free end of the rein, turned this round a nail that projected from the wall above me, and then pulled it until my hands and arms were drawn forcibly up and over my head. All at once I felt her tongue dart across my teeth and lips; desperate for physical contact, I tried to suck it into my mouth, only to be balked at each attempt by its slippery, teasing surface.

Breaking our kiss, Sharon fixed me with the same sly, objectifying squint as before, and I watched as her mouth formed itself into a slight pout, heavy with lower lip, but louche and self-consumed rather than beckoning. She extended her tongue for a moment in order to moisten a middle finger with saliva, and then lowered her hand to my sex. Before I knew what was happening-for there was neither verbal warning nor the least prefatory caress-she thrust a finger deep within me. Strangely, I felt no pain other than a negligible sting; I only knew that my hymen had been torn when a tiny trickle of blood began to cool against the inside of my thigh. With a gloating smile, Sharon raised her stained hand to my face, then put her fingers in her mouth to suck them clean. Her pride at having robbed me of my virginity was obvious, but so far out on my own erotic current had I ridden that I registered her "crime" almost dispassionately, as though it were a bit of third-party gossip, or an event in the life of a fictional character, instead of my own.

After once more kissing my lips-chastely this time- Sharon dropped to her knees before me. Her hands, palms held together like those of a supplicant, slipped between my thighs and then canted from the wrists, coaxing my legs apart. She paused for a moment, staring at my half-exposed genitals as if in contemplative devotion, a votary before the oread's shrine. Then I felt the wet heat of her breath suffuse my vulva, an advance signature of the soothing conflagration that immediately followed when her mouth, feverish to the touch, was pressed to my pussy. After a flurry of dispersed kisses, she took my clitoris between her lips, at first merely holding it with her teeth abutting its tip, like a sunflower seed about to be hulled, then mildly sucking at it, then lolling it about with soft passes of her fluttering tongue. Soon, however, I began to crave bolder attention: for no matter how they were actually intended, Sharon 's delicate pressures and gentle insinuations were becoming a tease. I wanted satisfaction, and notwithstanding my youth and inexperience, I somehow knew that under the present circumstances tenderness-even prolonged tenderness-would never suffice.

I wanted to be devoured, but I'd been ratcheted to such a debilitating pitch of arousal that even had I dared to ask-and such daring was decidedly beyond my power-I would have been unable to articulate my wishes. As if intentionally to compound my frustration, Sharon again pulled away without warning, leaving me to buck my pelvis in a vain attempt to press myself against her mouth, now held just beyond my reach. Then, while looking in my eyes to gauge my reaction, she extended her tongue tip until it barely touched my clitoris, then quickly retracted it away, her face beaming with delight at my travail. I was in an excruciating bind: unable on the one hand to satisfy a white-hot need; precluded, on the other, from releasing any of the crackling tension which gripped my body.

Sharon continued to flick at my clitoris with her tongue. Once or twice when she applied increased pressure, I felt the muscles of my abdomen tense preorgasmically, but she always relented at the very moment when the next touch would have vaulted me into the redeeming abyss. I tried to force the issue by rubbing my thighs together, but this proved ineffectual. A profound despairing shame overtook me: a feeling of humiliation, aggravated by a sense of impending failure at my inability either to satisfy myself or to make Sharon satisfy me.

Apparently sensing the advent of my emotional crisis, she abruptly changed her tack.

"Claire," she asked, "are you okay?"-her voice now filled with loving concern. "What's the matter? I thought you liked what we were doing. I'm so sorry if I made you feel bad… we can stop. Do you want me to stop?"

I couldn't answer her. Although I was dying for release, I worried she might use any reply I gave to further her cruel game of denial, which-notwithstanding her gentle words and soothing tone-I was not convinced had ended.

But then Sharon broke the impasse by posing another question, one that for all purposes was rhetorical since I could respond to it in only one way.

"Do you want me to make you come?" she asked. "Is that it?"

"Oh, yes!" I cried, desperation overcoming prudence and fear.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Sharon, please-I'm sure. Please make me come, please…"

I knew by her smile, which was both approving and victorious, that I'd at last hit on an adequate reply.

Sharon circled my waist with her hands, then slipped them under my T-shirt. Her fingers strummed across the corrugations of my ribcage before coming to rest on my bare breasts. Finding my nipples, she forsook preliminary caresses, and instead began directly to roll the points between her thumbs and forefingers, applying vicelike pressure until the sensitive flesh was tender-raw and reddened. Both the roughness of the treatment and my tolerance for it surprised me, for I'd no idea as yet that sexual arousal could elevate the threshold of pain. Sharon increased the torsion on my nipples, triggering a pre-critical disgorgement: suddenly my pussy was so wet that for a moment I feared I might have peed myself in my excitement. Smiling with satisfaction, she lowered herself to her knees and began to lap at my vulva, painting it slowly with stripes of saliva, barely touching the tip of her tongue to my clitoris at the end of every upstroke.

This was more than I could stand: I pushed myself down upon her mouth, but this time, thankfully, instead of evading my motions she actively met my thrusts. With her hands on my buttocks, mauling their flesh as she pulled me violently onto her tongue, she at last treated me to that severity which in sexual extremis is the only true kindness. Half a minute more of blissful friction and I came-thrashing, moaning, biting my lips-my pussy shuddering against Sharon's ravenously sucking mouth, all my senses-of time and place, of sound and motion-jumbled and confused, running together like colors, until the border between self and the world dissolved, and for one numinous instant my "I" was absorbed into the purest of imaginable pleasures, and I knew, even before it was over, that I'd tasted something I would no longer be able to live without.

Alma Marceau, the author of Lofting , is a homemaker and entomologist living in Los Angeles, California. When not on the hunt for very small game in the tropical forests of Mexico and Costa Rica, she may be found tending her backyard Weber (she's partial to a hickory/applewood combination for ribs and brisket) or playing hockey (she's capable on defense, but her stickhandling could use some improvement). Lofting is her first work of fiction.