gave up and over, repairing to the queen-sized bed she shared with her
sweetheart. She hoped he wouldn't come home. He had caught her
once when they were going through a rough patch; Lana thought for
sure he was having an affair but Malachy wasn't like that. Malachy
lived in the world of ideas and there were times he simply needed
convincing sex could be as purposive and rewarding as a trip to a
museum or a brick-and-mortar bookstore.
But now she had her stock characters in play and an urgent need to
get off. She pulled the curtains and shut the bedroom door but even
one splinter of daylight could spoil the mood, so she built round her
head a bulwark of pillows and let the louche kaleidoscope of her
imagination filter through the byzantine maze with a prize of fruition.
She saw first a woman getting spanked – Lana would never go for this
in real life, real life having throttled her aplenty – because in her
11
imagination, these resolute thwacks always lead to a woman becoming
wet, and then the scene shifts to a dressing room in a department
store. There are other fantasies she could explore, but Lana settles on
this tableau vivant so she can hurry up and come.
A woman is encouraged by her lover to try on all manner of
lingerie. Every time she emerges from the dressing room in a slinky
state of dishabille her lover has her model for a different salesman.
Finally, lover man says she can keep the entire wardrobe but she has
to perform fellatio for one of the salesmen first. She is not given a
choice. Instead, she is told to apply a thick layer of lipstick to her
luscious mouth. This done, she is told to apply a smooch to a torn slip
of paper. This slip is added to a hollow gift box containing blank slips
of paper. The salesmen take their chances. The one who draws the
smooch gets the girl.
The salesman and the girl recede into a dressing room. There are
no preliminaries. No sweet talk. He unzips his fly and tells her what
to do. There is a brocaded cushion conveniently placed for a kneeling
accomplice and, flush with excitement, she inhales the cock in the fug
of the room, not bothering with all the licks and darts her tongue
normally performs for her lover, focusing more on cause and effect,
suck and hopefully she will get fucked.
The silk pressure of her lips is still attached to the base of the
stranger's shaft when she feels the raucous roil of carnal fluids tickle
at the back of her throat and then the man roars, pulls his cock away
as if she were trying to steal it and swiftly fills her cleavage with his
semen.
The curtain swings open and the lover pulls her into another room
where there is an armless couch and she is on her knees again, this
time getting fucked from behind. The lover cantilevers her hips so he
can shove his cock in deep, thrusting fleet and sure from the start,
knowing she'd be wet and ready and she is, agonizingly so, wet and
wanton from another man's cock pulsing down her throat so thick and
satisfying, wetter still from the phantom sensations of fingers raking
her skin as the feminine frippery was torn off her back, her vulva
aching to be taken to its furthest depths, aching like a tender heart.
12
A bead of light pokes through a tiny chasm of the onaninst's pillow
fortress and Lana immediately snaps to a sitting position.
"Malachy, oh. Oh, I'm in trouble now."
Malachy laughed and shook his head. She forgot this was the day
he taught two classes instead of three. Forgot too, she was supposed
to pick up something for dinner. Why did she have to be so sex
crazy?
"Remember what I said would happen the last time I walked in on
you masturbating?"
"Yeah," she said, averting her eyes from his intense, sexy gaze,
"you said I'd have to clean up after you for a month."
"And what happened to that plan? It seems to have inverted so that
I'm always picking up after you instead."
Lana shrugged. "Cleaning really isn't my thing."
Mal sat next to her on the bed. "Babe, when I first met you, you
said you'd paid your dues working every sort of thankless job,
including housecleaning."
Lana shrugged again, this time a little more abashed. "Well, it was
topless housecleaning. There wasn't much actual cleaning involved
refrigerator."
Mal held her in his arms and kissed her. Then he grinned and said,
"Here's yet another fascinating difference between the sexes. When I
need to get off, I don't turn a stack of pillows into a Stonehenge
display."
"Very funny," Lana said, massaging his shoulders before getting up
to dress.
"Hey, how come you never wear lingerie for me anymore?"
Lana had pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, her uniform for writing
ad copy and doing the factotum work that pays the bills.
She placed her hands on her hips and regarded him from the very
pith of her feelings for him. "Malachy, I love you so much. With
every breath I take, I come to you naked with need."
Mal reached for her then and kissed her fully and passionately for
the first time that day.
13
"Come on," he said, jiggling the keys in the pocket of his jacket.
"I'm taking you lingerie shopping."
14
INVITING TROUBLE
Lana and Malachy had been living together a little over two years
when a gradual subsidence began to erode the beautiful garden the
lovers had worked so hard to cultivate. So much had begun to
unravel, Lana thought she too might decompose for without Malachy,
the man of her dreams who filled her every waking moment with joy
and hope, what was she but a filament pulling a cauldron of foibles, a
slimsy skein of what life could hold?
Their favorite restaurant had changed hands and so their brasserie
as haven in the city's storm was no more. Books went unread and
bottles of wine uncorked. It was a sere period that put their
relationship to the test with the lovers coping in their own loose,
idiosyncratic ways. Malachy had been promoted from an itinerant
"staff" position which perforce had him teaching at various charter
schools and community colleges to a full-time professorship at the
prestigious Emerald City School of Fine Arts on Capitol Hill. He and
Lana had both been excited about the promotion but after a weekend
of celebrating and lovemaking, Malachy took a twenty thousand
league nosedive into his work. He was drifting away incrementally
but steadfastly into the ivory tower world of ideas.
Lana retreated into a fantasy world. She went through a phase
where she masturbated constantly, rewarding herself with orgasms the
way other women treated themselves to lattes or sugary desserts. She
had a fetish for fellatio and part of the warp and woof of her loving
union with Malachy was how grateful she was to have finally found a
man who appreciated her oral fixation. Sure, most men would never
turn down a b
low job, but they secretly think women who are good in
bed are dirty in the head. It's just another double standard and double
standards served only to bore Lana straight to the boudoir where she
had no qualms whipping off her panties to pleasure herself.
She was doing just that when the phone rang interrupting a reverie
which included lots of bondage and blindfolds. She stayed her hands
for a moment, hoping the caller would give up and leave a message.
15
Then, she became worried it might be Malachy calling to say he got
picked up for soliciting a hooker but it was all a big misunderstanding.
"Hello," she intoned, trying not to sound like a woman caught
masturbating.
"Lana! It's Casey. Hope I'm not calling too late. I know you and
Mal are night owls."
Lana sat up straight and checked the clock. She and her boyfriend
were night owls but it was close to midnight and unusual for even
relatives to call so late. "Casey? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, sure. It's just ... well, ever since Carrie and I broke up, I've
been taking stock of things and asking myself what I'm doing here. I
miss San Francisco. It's hella expensive to live there but I've got a
friend who wants to hook me up with a job in Berkeley. I'm leaving
next week."
Lana sighed. Casey and Carrie had been together a year longer
than Lana and Mal; the two couples often dined out together or just
invited each other over for drinks and laughs. Then Carrie got
accepted to grad school in Boston and decided she didn't want to be
tied down anymore. And that, as Lana's distaff Italian relatives would
say was that.
"Oh, Casey. I'm sorry. And I know Mal will be sorry to see you
go, too. We'll stay in touch, though. It's not like you're moving to the
moon." She said that knowing once her friend crossed the state line
she'd probably never see him again. Lana and Malachy drifted from
couples who moved twenty minutes away to the suburbs, let alone out
of Washington altogether.
"Well, ahem. Reason why I'm calling is, I wanted to invite my
closest friends over for dinner Saturday night. Think you can make
it?"
Lana's mouth began to water. Casey had trained at a well-known
cooking school and worked for a year as a personal chef to a minor
celebrity. One simply did not turn down an offer to sample his wares.
"We'll be there!"
16
Malachy came home shortly after the phone call. When Lana told
him about the invitation, he simply shrugged and said, "Sure, why
not?"
"Try to show a little more enthusiasm when you say farewell to
your good friend."
The busy English professor slipped into bed beside his girlfriend,
kissed her goodnight and promptly fell asleep.
"This relationship definitely needs some spicing up," she said to the
snoring Hibernian hunk beside her. She nestled into the space
between his neck and shoulder, breathed the fine familiar scent of him
before falling asleep herself.
The days passed quickly and then Saturday night found the couple
crossing a garden courtyard to lean on the bell-push of Apartment C in
the departing friend's brick apartment house.
Casey greeted his guests effusively, and begged they turn a blind
eye to some of the boxes already strapped and taped so tightly as to
appear to be wearing straightjackets.
They drank champagne then switched to an excellent Sauvignon
Blanc, talking over old times and swaying to the barely perceptible
classical music playing for ambiance.
For starters they had cheese risotto and Fagiolini Verdi – green
beans in olive oil and lemon – then rosemary chicken and oven-
roasted vegetables. And for dessert: chocolate soufflé.
Lana noticed Casey let his fingertips laze on her skin a little longer
than necessary when he passed her a dish or gentled her elbow to
point out something she might have had the folly to ignore.
"Did you try these almond cookies, Lana?" the good host asked,
pointing to a cut-glass dish on a nearby mantel. "There's just a hint of
anisette in them. I remember how you said you liked anything with
anisette."
She licked her already moist lips and nodded. "You know how to
spoil your guests, that's for sure."
Casey raked his fingers through a bramble of wavy brown hair then
said, "You know the old saying about substituting sex with food."
Lana laughed. "In that case, can I get a To Go box?"
17
Malachy shot his girlfriend a look, a glancing measure not lost on
the chef. Casey pressed more wine on his guests and the evening
began to unfurl. You could cut the sexual tension in the room with
the string of Lana's thong.
In an expansive gesture, Casey put an arm round each of his guests
and said, "Why don't we pretend we've just shipwrecked on the island
of Lido. We know there's a search party looking for us, but until then,
we need to entertain ourselves."
Lana smiled without a trace of rue and said, "Well, we are all
friends here. And I've always fantasized about going down on two
guys at once."
Malachy's eyes widened then sparkled with something like hope.
He had always known his girlfriend harbored such horny thoughts but
never thought she'd act on them.
Casey chuckled good-naturedly and said to Malachy, "Would you
be okay with that, man?"
His friend, opening his arms wide enough to embrace the world,
said, "What Lana wants, Lana gets. I'm just glad she still wants me
after all the ups and downs of living together."
"Come into my office, you two," Casey said, meaning his bedroom.
He sat on the edge of his bed and looked up into Lana's eyes. "I'm in
your hands, Lana, if you're sure you really want to fulfill a fantasy."
"Consider it a bon voyage present," she said, leaning over to unzip
his fly. Casey's cock was fully erect as if already anticipating its good
luck.
She sat next to him, caressing his maleness in her hands, packing
her palms with his heat before jauntily maneuvering her body into a
prime phallic serving position.
With rapt attention, Lana let her tongue flutter over the tip of
Casey's penis while Mal stroked her back and played with her quim.
Her pussy was so wet, he couldn't resist finger-fucking her vulva the
way she liked it, the rhythm of thrusting reverberating through every
cell of her body as Malachy pumped and Casey bucked his hips so his
cock could seek greater purchase in the blond's mouth.
18
When Mal brought her to orgasm, she consumed Casey's penis,
letting it ride an oral carousel as her tongue skipped and played up and
down his vibrant shaft.
Casey pulled out of her mouth gingerly, stroking his own cock until
he came with an expansive groan, his semen so hot and copious,
Lana's chest could have doubled as a griddle.
The host used his undershirt to pat her chest free of his signature.
Meanwhile, there was Mal, waiting his turn. He had left his shirt
on but he was naked from the waist down. He took her face in his
hands, and kissed her flush on the mouth. He kissed her deep and
hauntingly, saying with his tongue what he wouldn't say with his lips:
he expected the better blow job.
When her boyfriend was sated, Casey took Lana by the hand and
said, "What now?"
Mal pulled Lana's hand away and said, "Now, we go home. Right
now, Lana and I really need to go home. It was nice visiting Lido but
the search party has arrived; Trooper and I don't want to miss the
boat."
Trooper was a nickname Mal gave his girlfriend after he took her to
Mount Rainier for what turned out to be a hiking fiasco. After 400
feet, Malachy's partner was out of breath and seriously jonesing for a
cappuccino.
"C'mon, Lana. Just another fourteen thousand feet!"
"No, way," she said, stumbling back to the safety of their car. "The
only thing I ever want to climb is you."
Later that night, they went out for drinks and Mal wassailed his
lover with a gentle toast. "To Lana the Trooper. You'll try anything
once, even if it means braving the outdoors."
"Just remember: your hiker manqué is good in the hay." When they
got home, Malachy sequestered his hiking boots to a giveaway bin.
Casey began shuffling his feet. "We could go out for a nightcap
somewhere."
"Nah, we need to get home," Mal said again, his voice steady but
firm.
19
Casey took the hint and thanked his guests for making his last days
in Seattle memorable. He saw Lana and Malachy to the door then
waved to them from his living room window.
On the ride home, Malachy was silent but held Lana's hand the
whole way back to Belltown, so she knew he wasn't angry.
Her handsome Malachy. Did they really have enough in common
to stay together forever? Or was it all about sex?
She asked him. "Do we have enough in common, Mal? Or is it all
about sex?"
"I'll answer that question later," he said, taking her by the hand as
they walked the short distance to their condo. The garage was full so
they'd have to park on the street and hope to find their vehicle intact in
the morning. Their car was nothing fancy; no one gave it a second
look, ignoring it like a turd. Belltown was not the place to park your