Elliot Mabeuse (23 page)

The dreams formed a feverish collage, almost sappy in its procession of TV

images of clichés—misty beaches and flower-strewn fields, forests, a shot of us strolling

through an open air market, the piles of fruit and vegetables representing the domestic fulfillment that lay ahead.

But then there we were in my old Pontiac slowly idling down the dark industrial alley behind my loft, the harsh light from the flickering sodium-vapor lamps revealing my hand as it worked between her spread and naked thighs, her pants pushed down to her knees. This was something I hadn't seen on TV or in any cultural dream—the delicious wickedness of what we did and how we loved, the way she held tightly to the rain gutter of the car with one hand and to the edge of her seat with the other, trying to obey my order to keep absolutely still as she let me ravish and use her this way, insanely excited by the way I shamed her. What kind of dream was this?

"Do you like it, Emma? Do you like it like this?" With dream logic I knew we'd been going out to a movie but we hadn't gotten far. We were already headed back to my place.

"Oh God, Conner! God! Stop!" She turned her head to the side and buried her chin in her chest, but at the same time she thrust herself out at me, clenching her buttocks. Again, it's like she's two people, the lady on top and the whore on the bottom.

"Come for me, Emma. You're not getting out of this car ‘til you come on my hand!"

"Oh Conner! Connerrrrrrr!"

Her head snapped back, eyes open and glazing over, her lower lip trembling as she bit off her cry of orgasm. I felt her internal muscles snap at me like an angry dog's,

fierce in her pleasure. Her tits shook as her whole body trembled, and then she gasped great lungfuls of air, rude, indignant, shocked by the way I treated her.

This is the Emma I want—desire that's almost violent, love that's almost violation.

All my emotions are tied up in her, the sweet and the bitter, the scared and profane.

I wake up slightly and look at her breathing softly, the sheet stretched over her breasts. Salsa's playing from some bar with a four o'clock license, the vainglorious stubbornness of an exhausted night when all the ghosts have gone home. Those trumpets won't rouse any more hot blood tonight and they sound lonely in the cavern of the night. Solitary egos will sink in the murk but here I have Emma beside me, mystery of the night, of the heart, the darkness. All the little lights that dance over the lake whisper above her head in her dreams.

What is a woman but the beauty of the human form, the hard edges removed, the restful darkness, the wet entrances to warm comfort and acceptance? I knew in my dream that Emma was not your bootlicking submissive, nor did I want her to be. I loved her pride and her vanity and I could envision the way she'd use them to arouse and manipulate me. I'd have no desire or need to start giving her orders just so I could feel like I was in charge. I already knew from listening to her in class that I wanted her opinion and admired her wit. I knew that accepting who she was would give her a sense of place and identity, and with that would come confidence. I could see how this all would work out. I could see it so well.

We were different, and yet at the core we had the same hunger, the same thing brought us together and held us. Emma had grown too big for her world and was looking to expand beyond what her job and her fiancé could offer her, while I was trying

to shrink away from mine. . I was looking to contract, to withdraw from things. We were passing each other at just the right time.

I could see all this in my dreams. I could see how we'd slip easily from one mode of being to another, instantly closing the distance between our social relationship and our sexual one, and when we entered that sexual realm there was no telling what would happen. It was like sailing into terra incognito, always a bit scary for the both of us.

I pictured a typical hot July night as we sat on the sofa and I graded papers and watched the news. I was wearing gym shorts and a tee shirt and felt wilted in the heat, sweating beer as fast as I drank it, but Emma managed to look fresh and cool in her crisp brown shorts and light cream top, behind which her breasts rested in generous repose as she leafed through a magazine, not even breaking a sweat. The windows were open but there was barely a breeze, and maybe it was the heat that did it, or maybe the news, the sense of futility, watching scenes of the war and trying to make sense out of the essays I was grading.

Emma paid no attention to the news, turning her dark eyes away. She sat curled on the sofa playing idly with her hair, the light spilling over her shoulder as she turned the pages of her magazine one by one, grasping each between manicured nails. She was looking at an article on the Greek Isles. The pages were all of cool greens and blues.

Since she'd come over, she'd hardly said a word, just sat and waited while I finished my work to see what I wanted to do with her tonight, and that thought stuck with me, gnawed at me—she was waiting for me, with that inviting coolness, that smooth, tanned skin. She'd come straight from work, still fresh from her office air-conditioner and

the tedium of her daily grind and now she was waiting as the darkness gathered outside the windows and the sweat gathered on my chest.

I put down my papers and lapboard and stretched. She looked at me, not exactly quizzically—more like a challenge, still holding the magazine—and I knew she'd been thinking about me, sending thoughts my way and provoking me. She'd do that sometimes.

I stared at her and smiled.

"What?" She looked at me from beneath her hair and she couldn't hide her smile.

She knew she'd been found out.

"Come here."

"What?" Complaining now, protesting her innocence.

"I said, come here."

I got up and leaned forward, and before she could respond, I took her under the arms and pulled her over on top of me as I sat back down. I was sitting, slouching low in the corner of the sofa and she was on her knees leaning over me, her hair falling forward, swinging like a bead curtain as I slid lower and pulled her down for a kiss, her heat immediately enveloping me, her mouth opening.

Just like that we were ready—just that quickly, that easily. One instant we were at separate ends of the sofa, me with my lap board and papers, her with her magazine, and the next we were like this, me almost lying on my back, she on her knees above me, hovering over me, her breasts grazing me, mouth locked to mine, the sweetness of her perfume spilling over me.

This is what she'd been waiting for all evening, so patient on the surface—my call, the evidence of my desire. Just this little push to start the ball rolling, the avalanche, something she couldn't do on her own but now here it comes, here it was, and God it was so good, unstoppable

I held her face and kissed her, suddenly frantic for her and I don't know why. My cock was already hardening, and it was as if I licked some sweetness from her mouth which fed me but only left me hungrier. That hunger kindled some seething anger inside because I could never get enough and so I bit her lip and Emma gasped, pulled her lip from me and kissed me back, tender, conciliatory, her kiss trying to calm me and placate me and beg me not to go too fast.

This is how things were between us—dangerous, explosive. One minute sitting on opposite ends of the sofa lost in our own little worlds, the next in danger of fusing together in some sort of puddle of molten sexual slag, a nuclear reactor gone critical.

And yet we loved that acceleration—going from normal people in full possession of their faculties to these lust-crazed sexual beasts. It was a physical sensation, not just some metaphor. It was a physical rush, an injection of testosterone or adrenaline I could feel in my stomach and shoulders and balls when Emma kissed me or melted in my arms. I could feel the beast rise up in me, just like taking a drop in a roller coaster.

I knew she felt it too, and that was the game she played—arousing me, provoking the beast, then trying to control it, or maybe not, maybe throwing away all control and facing the consequences. She liked doing that too. And sometimes she had no choice.

Like now. Her sweet kisses were nice but they lied. They were hungry too, and they were too deep, too long, too provoking, her soft lips sliding along my rough skin as if looking for comfort but I knew it wasn't comfort she wanted. The way her tongue played against my face was designed to provoke me. I knew what she wanted, and it was what I wanted too.

I closed my hand on her hair and pulled her face away and she winced with pain.

"Up."

I pulled her up and she rolled to the side enough so I could lift my hips and push my shorts down. I wasn't wearing underwear. I'd known she was coming over and hadn't bothered. I worked my shorts down with one hand while I held her head in the other like she was some trophy, held her so she could see my cock as it flopped loose against my belly.

"Come on." I pulled her down to it. "Suck it!"

Of course it was crude. You had to see her to appreciate how crude it was—how fresh she looked, how clean, the delicate line of her jaw, her complexion in the brownish light of the apartment as I brought her face down to my straining cock.

Emma opened her lips and took me inside as I thrust up into her mouth. Her hands formed around my cock as if she were praying and I held the back of her head and thrust viciously towards the back of her throat as she began to make those soft swallowing sounds she does—somewhere between protest and contentment. I picked up the remote and turned off the TV, put one arm under my head and watched her. I wanted to be able to hear the sound of my prick in her mouth, churning up her saliva.

"Do it, Emma. Suck it, baby. Harder. Harder. Get on the floor. On your knees.

Get on your knees."

She was too beautiful. I didn't know what to do with it, with her beauty. I wanted her kneeling by me sucking my cock. I couldn't touch her beauty and it drove me nuts.

Couldn't dent it or dirty it and it drove me crazy.

Emma got down on her knees and threw her hair back impatiently, eager to get my cock in her mouth. The chain around her neck glimmered and she held my dick in her manicured nails as she went down on me, delicately, being sweet, waiting for me to get rough. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to grab her hair and mouth fuck her, so I did, pushing her hands away and sliding mine through her soft hair and pumping her head up and down on my dick until she dug her nails into my thighs in protest. This was what she liked. She liked it rough like this. This was when she felt it.

I stopped moving her but I didn't take her mouth off me. "Take your clothes off," I said. "Keep sucking but take your clothes off."

She looked at me dubiously for a moment but did as I said. It wasn't easy. She opened her pants and unzipped them, worked them down over her hips, then had to stand and bend at the waist, keeping her mouth on my cock as she skinned the slacks down her legs and stepped out of them. I could tell it bothered her that she couldn't fold her clothes. It made me smile, but she finally just threw them on the sofa, one leg inside out. Her panties followed.

"That's enough," I said. "Just get the top and bra off. Enough fucking around."

She stood up and stripped off her top, unhooked her bra and slid it off. She liked this part, undressing in front of me, even if she was bent over like this. She knew what it did to me and she had a way of doing it as if she were alone, as if it were natural and her body weren't something beautiful and provocative, ripe with sinuous curves and tight involutions, her tits high and luxuriant, but she gave herself away after she was naked.

When she was naked she stood up straight and pulled her hair back with her hands in a way that brought her breasts up and pushed out her hairless little pussy and all but shoved it in my face so I had no choice but to grab her wrist and pull her down into my lap and twist her around until she was draped over my knee.

"Jesus, Emma! Jesus Christ!"

"Ow! Conner!"

That silly complaint, as if she wasn't expecting it, as if she didn't know what she'd done to be treated this way.

I swacked her ass hard, the firm flesh under my hand heavy like clay but warm, alive, flexing with muscle. I hit her again and she reached back behind her and grabbed at me, grabbing my tee-shirt with her nails. She wasn't the passive little sub she'd been when we'd first met but a fine piece of American ass and she didn't sell herself cheap.

When I hit her again she put a good rip in the old tee shirt I wore.

"Bitch!"

I grabbed for her wrists and there was a confused struggle, a ridiculous sight, both of us naked but for my ripped tee-shirt, her smooth hip pressing against my dick.

She started to slip from my lap and I pulled her back, got both of her wrists in my hand

and wailed on her ass, hitting her hard and Emma screamed. It felt good to hit her, the flat sting of her flesh against my hand was solid and satisfying, the sharp smack was thrillingly loud in the room.

I have a problem, a real problem. I respect women. I stand up for them. Equal rights, equal opportunity. But I need this too. When we're in the bedroom, when we're making love, I need to feel my strength. I need to use it, like another erogenous zone. I hit her ass ‘til I was sweating and she'd stopped jerking and fighting me . When she was lying there, pushing herself against me, I wasn't hitting her so hard anymore. I was rubbing her instead, squeezing her, shoving my hand against her. My hand slid between her legs and she spread them for me. I bent down and pressed my face against the back of her neck and bit her. I held her like that, like a tomcat holds his tabby as I rubbed her ass and her pussy and felt her heat, the warmth where I’d hit her. She was on fire.