Chapstick

Last night was not the success I had hoped it would be. A situation such as this must be watched over and plans of action must be subtly laid. Subtlety, however, is something difficult to conjure correctly. Slip to one side and you have become ham-handed and you have blown what affect you were trying to achieve, slip to the other side and you have ended with a mist of missed opportunity. Such was my fate as I waited like a child fishing--watching the buoyancy of a bobber, trying to discern if the motion was simply the turbulence of the water or the equally subtle tug of the target. The feeling I have, however, is that this game is being played two ways, B. being a clever partner in sparring of all sorts.

Otherwise I purchased today another tube of chapstick, as my lips have been uncharacteristically dry, despite the warm weather over the state. My lips freshly sealed in tempered beeswax (an unflattering comparison, but that is how I feel of the stuff) I was suddenly struck by a memory of a time long gone in a way that would give old Marcel a knowing smile. I shall tell you the story, but first let me warn you. This story, being true as memory can be trusted, is more porn than erotica, more brag than recounting and more fun than most great times can be.

I once knew an S. of the platinum blond variety. The kind of hair that is striking when natural and telling if not. I caught up with her not too distantly and she now negotiates contracts and manages million dollar accounts for an L.A. company. This is to say her personality didn't change. A dresser even in those lazy days of our recently acquired adulthood, she could startle a room into attention and order with only the presence of her personality and the titanium gleam of her hair.

One winter day we unraveled our coats and scarves just inside her apartment and re-raveled into each other on her bed. Such is the outcome of a long cold walk laden with innuendo, promise and dare. Her hands on my head she kissed me with a force to flatten a penny and I pressed into her body almost defiantly. It was a competition of passion that had nothing to do with competitiveness. What I noticed, however, after the headiness of the rush of blood and the force of our exertions, was a single raw jab from the chapped skin of her lower lip.

I pushed her down and she pulled me on top of her, pulling on my t shirt with her hands and on my lips with her own. Wet and hot against my still chilled face, her mouth was a hearth and I was home. As we breathed past the first rush of excitement she pecked and pulled more softly, more sweetly, in a way that was almost more passionate and I felt as if my own lips would melt into hers. But it was there still, that jab of chapped skin. It gave me the clarity to see in my mind's eye the position of our bodies, still mostly clothed on the bed and to remind me of the soft and smoothness of the rest of her.

While reluctantly, I broke our kiss momentarily to pull at our layers. I nearly tore her bra and we laughed a brief moment before we found other occupations. My hands, comfortable as they usually are--on the neck, on the breasts, on the magnificent inward swoop of the waist as it leads into the elegant curve of the hips, on the thighs in the shadow of the v for victory--were like gluttons at a feast, touching everything, wanting everything, being everywhere. I kissed her harder, my heart racing, the chapped skin jabbing me even harder and I loved it.

S. pushed me off with a staggering force. I was stunned by the act, wanting to pull her by the legs into me and me into her and partly afraid I had hurt her. But no. There was a look on her face as animal as the beating in my chest. Like a magic trick I was suddenly fully naked and on my back. S. was on her knees, left hand holding her weight, right hand wrapped around my cock, her back arched and her face peering into mine. Then she took me.

The pleasure of the moments following are obvious. The wrapping of the lips, the twirl and slither of the tongue, the stroking of shaft and balls and the movement of taking in and sliding out--both fast and slow.

What was not obvious was the chapped lip. The way it dug in with the pressure she applied, the way it scratched its way across the underside of me right up the sensitive pink strip above the white of the shaft and below the swollen purple of the head. It punctuated her breathing, her swallowing, her shifting and turning; it amplified her heat and her vigor.

I have never had an orgasm from a blowjob, but this moment was the closest I have ever come. It brought me up to a brink that I have never balanced upon so long, the exquisite pleasure of the moment brought into full height by the pain of the jagged skin. S. looked up to me while she did this, while I sighed and stroked her hair, when I leaned forward to rub her tits and she only broke eye contact when I leaned forward further to bring her legs up to me so that I could impart to her clit even just some of the pleasure she was giving me. It was like the gentle use of teeth, that sharpness and pain and pleasure of them, only more painful and more minute. I had no concept of the time that had elapsed, but in my mind it was nearly eternal and perfect.

When I could take no more from her, I urged her up and she slid off the bed and prepared to come around the side to join me laying lengthwise. I rushed off of the bed after her. She laughed a single small laugh before I had gathered her legs into my arms and crashed us both into the bedroom wall in a gentle way that still shook the pictures on the wall. We fucked like that in an urgent and frantic way until my arms grew so tired I was a little afraid I would drop her in my ecstasy. I remained on that brink she had brought me to and could go no further. She climbed from a rise to a crescendo but balked when she reached my own heights. We grunted loudly in a way that signaled the frustration and utter joy that is a prolonged orgasm. We collapsed into the bed, her on top and made love slow and exhausted. Our movements were more grinds than thrusts and our breathing didn't slow. I came first, and she soon afterward.

S. smiled at me from where she had laid her head on my chest. "Been saving that one?" she said. "Especially," I told her. We sighed.

There were two more times with the chapped lip, following a similar course, though in wildly different circumstances. The first time after was the next morning: our passion was reserved and warm, culminating in a spooning that rocked across the bed and was like a heavy comforter on cloudy day. The kind of sex that is amplified in pleasure because of the subtle sweetness of the act. The second time we had been arguing politics and we were tired and drunk. Her teeth were a constant companion that night to the jagged edge of her lip, her satisfaction in causing me to wince as great as my reveling in her technique. We received a note from her neighbors complaining about the noise that night. We mixed our pleasure and our pain freely. Hair was tugged, bite marks and scratches persisted for days and I lost a belt loop on my good pair of jeans. When we came we just kept on fucking, only sated when we could go no more. It was a story I would tell my friends to awe them, when I was younger, but truth be told it was the least of the three occasions.

Of course I never told her what the secret had been those times, though they were certainly set apart. Not so much that they were better but that they were unique. It is one of the things you do not tell a girl. Once I thought of telling her about how fantastic that time had been but I remembered a girl I had dated before who had stated flat out that chapped lips were the biggest turn off she knew of. I didn't feel like risking it. We broke up soon after, our relationship one casual and brief.

I know that I would tell W. about the chapped lip thing and she would be embarrassed, but not morbidly so. We share everything like that. Sometimes I wonder if that is part of the problem--the details we do not hide--or if it is a blessing.

Nevertheless there is my story, and now I must tend to my plans and hopes and fantasies for and of B.