I wanted to look effortlessly pretty for Miriam. I put on a little black skirt and tank top, blotted makeup, no shoes, as though I were just lounging casually in my apartment after work. I shrouded my lust in softer feelings of romance, giddiness, which made me feel less guilty about wanting her. At its core, though, the feeling was undeniably lust. It was all wet.
I still didn’t know exactly how to be the seducer, the one who moves assertively toward another person or teases them fearlessly to the point of action. In my seduction fantasy of Ana, it had been so easy. She was a ghost, and ghosts were static. It was much scarier to be confident when engaging with the warm, vacillating body of another human being who could reject me at any moment.
I’d worn the skirt and tank on purpose, because I knew that I looked thin in the outfit. I wanted to accentuate this feature, to remind Miriam of what I was and what she was in that old competition between women. I felt more comfortable seducing from this place. If I was going to be vulnerable, express that I wanted her, then I needed to already be some kind of victor. I needed to win elsewhere in order to be vulnerable here.
But when Miriam walked into my apartment and told me that I looked “really good,” I regretted my little competition. I felt admiration for her then, for the courage it took her to say that. I’d wanted to hurt her with my body, with our differences. Now I just wanted to help her feel comfortable.
I offered her some kosher wine, something called Baron Herzog California chardonnay, which the tag at the wine store said was “sure to titillate.” Then we sat side by side on my sofa and she told me about her day at Yo!Good.
“It was slow. I spent most of the time out back smoking cloves,” she said. “Oh, but of course we ran out of s’mores yogurt because the schlemiel cousin forgot to place the order.”
“You’re a s’more,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.
I felt strangely protective of her—motherly, even.
She surprised me by taking my face in both of her hands and kissing me on the lips. She looked me in the eyes just before she did it. We kissed slowly, making tiny smacking sounds. I let my tongue wander into her mouth, heard her swallow. Then her hands drifted from my face to the back of my head. She pulled me to her harder, and I felt like I was now the daughter—protected—and she was the mother. No, we were both daughters, equals, and I liked being equals. Together we had power. I felt that our kissing could sustain the ritual of women loving women for eons to come.
I went to her breasts and rubbed my face over her blouse, firmly, so she could really feel me. Her nipples hardened beneath the cotton. She didn’t stop me when I unbuttoned the top button, then the next and the next until her blouse was open and I could see her body, full of gravity, pale and momentous. Her bra, a modest beige, strained to contain her breasts. Below that rolled the waves of her belly, her navel wide and deep, moving up and down with her breath. I was so grateful for everything I got to see, that she was letting me gaze at her like this.
I hugged her and we swayed a little. Then I climbed on her lap so that I was straddling her, my legs spread wide, feeling strong and powerful in my thighs as I kissed her wet mouth, unhooked her bra from behind. I took off her bra slowly, and her breasts spilled out: magnificent, weighty pendulums, nothing like mine. Her nipples were as big as silver dollars, tinted the palest pink. Beneath her areolae were a network of veins, blue and purple, bringing forth the blood that sustained her.
I sucked on one nipple, tickling, squeezing, and giving little pinches to the other, wishing I had two mouths with which to suck her. No, I wished I had more than that: one for each breast, one for her neck, one for her navel, her mouth, her pussy, her eyelids. At any moment I thought that something wondrous might come out, deeply sweet: butterscotch topping, warm caramel, honey. I moved to her other nipple, kissed it, then lapped there ever so gently, as though it were her clit. I got overexcited and nibbled a little, and she gave a squeal. But when I looked at her face, she was smiling.
Everything was pink. I slid down and came face-to-face with her belly, kissing her there all over, gentle little kisses, tiny soft love bites. There were three rolls of fat, and I covered all of them with kisses, imagining the rolls as big lips, my upper lip falling between two of them at a time, my tongue extended just enough to taste what was inside. Then the space between her rolls became like pussies to me, and I thought, How incredible, she has so many pussies, so many places to explore.
She moaned, giving off deep sighs with quickened breath, no self-consciousness, as though she knew each part of her was worthy of pleasure. I wanted to hump her calf, right between my legs, but I was scared to rub against her, so I rubbed against the air in front of her, imagining feeling her leg between my thighs, fucking her psychically.
She reached down and put her hands on my chest, rubbing my sternum and clavicle, the way Ava Gardner might do to Clark Gable. She did not touch my breasts, only stroked the bones above them. I tried to move up, so my breasts were in her hands, but she stayed at my chest, then migrated to my shoulders.
“Strong,” she said.
“Not really,” I said.
“Do you want me to do anything to your tummy?” she asked suddenly.
“My tummy?”
“Kiss it? Like you did mine.”
“Okay,” I said, laughing.
“Lie down on the sofa,” she said.
We switched positions, and I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes.
She lifted up my tank a little, exposing only my stomach. My abdominals were no longer flat, but I still had muscle. She kissed me there, up and down. Then she nuzzled me in a circle, nipping the top of my skirt, the sweetest torture. My pelvis jerked. Her kisses slowed. My nipples got hard. I put my hand on hers, guided it to my breast. She moved away quickly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Was that too much?”
Of course, I knew that it was.