Flesh and Bone Read online

  “You’re so beautiful,” Helen whispered, lowering her hands to tear the rest open. She pushed the shirt off Catherine’s shoulders and tossed it aside. Then she fastened her mouth to Catherine’s neck while her hands held and massaged the bare breasts.

  The sensation was like being lost in the ice and snow and then coming upon the grandest, hottest fire that ever burned. Hands so soft they had to be an angel’s. Mouth so hot and hungry it had to be the devil’s. Both loved her and touched her and devoured her. She rocked in a heavy rhythm, caught up in a luscious purgatory. And then Helen moved her mouth lower to where her hands had been, taking in each breast for a long, generous kiss, sucking madly while sweeping her tongue graciously over her nipples.

  Catherine cried out and pushed up on her arms, pelvis thrust down and onto Helen.

  She arched powerfully, offering herself to Helen, loving the way she feasted and bestowed pleasure upon her aching breasts. Each hot, slippery caress traveled quickly to that spot between her legs and grew there, pulsing with the beat of her heart.

  Catherine pressed into her a few moments longer and then she dropped and pinned Helen’s arms by her side. Panting for breath, she lowered herself along Helen’s body and released her arms to shove her dress up hurriedly. She found her bare legs and kissed them eagerly, gliding along her upper thighs to her center.

  Helen gripped her hair and squeezed. She hissed as Catherine moved to her cotton panties, using her mouth to kiss through the moist fabric.

  “God in heaven,” Helen said, knotting her hair tighter and tighter. “Uh! Oh sweet God.”

  Catherine urged her tongue along the cotton, her face heating with wild desire. She could feel Helen’s wetness, feel the firmness of the peaks and valleys of her collected flesh. She kissed her harder, knowing it was where she herself was dying to be touched. Where they both began and ended, their middle, their center. Their most sensitive, sensual place.

  When she caught the hot, moist, tangy scent of her, Catherine growled and felt that elemental stirring raking across her insides. Having Helen in her mouth was her sole objective, her reason for breathing. She often imagined someone coming upon them as she fed, and she envisioned how she would tear her mouth away to bare her teeth at them and snarl as she swung her clawed hand. Like a beast protecting its kill. Helen was hers, if not for all of eternity, then for at least an hour every Wednesday afternoon. Nothing was going to take that away from her.

  With frenzied hands, Catherine tugged down the panties, stripping them from around Helen’s ankles. Dropping them upon the golden hay, she stared at Helen, mesmerized by the dancing dust particles sprinkling over her. A noise caught in her throat and her breathing came in quick rasps.

  Helen’s beauty was beyond anything Catherine had ever witnessed. Simple, slight, sweet. Yet complicated, emotional, and passionate.

  She kissed and bit back up the pale legs, running her tongue over the light downy hairs on her upper thighs. Helen tensed, fingers intertwined into Catherine’s hair, her own head held off the hay, watching her closely.

  Catherine kept licking and kissing and nibbling, relishing in the scent of her, the feel of her, the quick tightening of her muscles beneath the skin. Her tongue hit the thicker hair and skimmed over the top of it, seeking the bare flesh. She found it in an instant and licked the length of it firmly.

  “Uh, ah, sweet Jesus,” Helen called out softly, gripping Catherine’s head harder, holding her to her.

  She licked again, up and down and up and down. Then she opened her further with gentle fingers and licked her some more. She paused between each lick, savoring the taste of her. Tangy sweet and heavy like honey. Enough was not fast coming, and she continued, focusing on the small cleft in the upper center. She licked it hard and firm at first and then quickened, flicking it from side to side, sending Helen into a small fit of jerky motions and unbelievable sounds.

  She panted and begged and called Catherine’s name. She trembled and shook and groaned deeply, head thrown back, neck arched and flexed, veins prominent like thick strings of thread. Her reactions were like the sweetest of music and the sound of dying prey. They lifted Catherine’s soul and yet drove her to latch on and devour further. She took the elevated flesh into her mouth and sucked, using her tongue to thrust against the flesh with each tug inward. Helen reacted at once, nearly sitting up off the hay.

  “Oh God, Catherine. Yes, oh God, yes.”

  And then she howled into the dancing dust particles and swayed back and forth, eyes shut and fingers clenched in Catherine’s hair. A warm, slick rush of liquid pressed into Catherine’s chin and she savored it, rubbing it along her face and lips as Helen’s cries softened and silenced.

  Loving the taste, Catherine ran her tongue along her own lips and swallowed. She flicked at the cleft once again and Helen yelped with sensitivity, pulling her up. Catherine crawled atop her.

  Helen looked at her with wide eyes. She raised a quaking hand to her face. “God help me, I can’t get enough of you.”

  Catherine knew that line all too well. Helen often fought internally over their affair, questioning herself and her devotion to her husband and God.

  “I can’t understand it or describe it,” Helen said.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No. I don’t ever want you to stop.”

  “Do you want me inside you?”

  There was a gasp and she closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  Helen readily spread her legs and Catherine lay on her side next to her. Then, finding her slick hole easily, she thrust two fingers inside. Helen called out, not in words at first but in sound. And then, soon after, the words came.

  “I can’t control how bad I want you.”

  “Then don’t try.” Catherine went in harder and deeper, rocking her own body along with each thrust. Helen was wet but tight. So tight it almost hurt her fingers. It only drove her desire further. Beyond human need.

  “It feels so right,” Helen said, opening her eyes and gripping Catherine’s arm. “Dear God, you feel so right.”

  Catherine kissed her, mouths open and pressed together, tongues and lips teasing. They breathed together, inhaling and exhaling each other’s breath. When Helen moaned, Catherine took it in. When Helen tensed, Catherine fucked her harder.

  “Please,” Helen breathed. She fumbled hurriedly at Catherine’s blue jeans, loosening them and shoving them down a bit. Catherine watched and waited with bated breath, and she almost screamed in rapture when Helen found her bare flesh.

  Helen’s eyes grew wide with wonder and then narrowed with desire. “You feel so good. So wet.”

  “It’s what you do to me,” Catherine rasped. Helen had never touched her there before and the control she’d tried to hold on to quickly rushed out of her body, forced by her racing blood.

  “Oh God,” Catherine whispered, climbing to her knees.

  “Oh, yes, darling. Look at how beautiful you are.” Helen watched her closely, her eyes searching, brimming with heat.

  Catherine shoved into Helen harder, bending her fingers. Helen cried out and then bit her bottom lip as she too slid her fingers inside.

  They both groaned in unison at the full, tight, burning sensation. And they fell into a quick rhythm, fucking each other with ardent fingers.

  “Do you like it?” Helen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It feels so good,” Helen said amidst more groans.

  “Yes.”

  Catherine clenched her eyes and rocked. Then she opened them and stared into Helen’s eyes.

  “Watching you take pleasure…it’s so different,” Helen said. “I want to give it to you so badly. I would do anything to give it to you.”

  Catherine couldn’t speak. She knew all too well.

  “Oh, this is heaven, this is bliss, Catherine. Oh God, I can’t take much more. Kiss me. Kiss me now.”

  Catherine bent and kissed her. Lips finding and taking right away, tongues adamant and demanding. With tightly
squeezed fingers Catherine pummeled into her. She pumped as hard as she could and tensed as Helen did the same back. They grunted and groaned and sweated. Fucked like animals in the hay, madly giving and taking, allowing the raw desire for each other to overcome their minds and their bodies.

  Catherine’s small breasts swayed in the rhythm, puckering in the golden light. She wanted desperately to tear away the pale green dress, but she didn’t dare. Just like she didn’t dare to leave any marks along her neckline. This was their time and she needed their time like she needed air to breathe. She wouldn’t do anything to risk that.

  She bent again and took Helen’s mouth with her own. They both came then, fingers fucking hard and firm and fast. They moaned into one another, eyes tightly closed, bodies tight, centers clenched.

  Harder and harder Catherine went, rocking into her and pressing down on her. For an instant the hay felt and looked like a golden cloud. Way up high in the light of some distant sunset. Catherine could taste Helen’s skin, feel it in her mouth, feel her wet muscle like walls around her fingers. She consumed it all, knowing she could never get enough.

  And then she fell back down, rushing back to the barn floor, nestled in the hay. Their bodies stilled, save for heavy breathing. Catherine removed her fingers slowly and Helen sat up and did the same. The hay glowed in the sunlight and it smelled warmer and sweeter than before. Ma Bella mooed from her stall nearby.

  Helen pulled on her panties and crawled to her knees. Her hands and eyes swept over Catherine’s bare chest. Catherine inhaled sharply at the touch.

  “Stand up,” Helen said, her voice lower but thick with strength.

  Catherine stood and reached for the waistband of her blue jeans. But Helen stopped her, grabbing her hands. She looked up at her from her knees. “I want you in my mouth.”

  In the far distance Catherine heard the old Chevy sputtering back down the road toward the house.

  “No, he’s coming back. He’s early.”

  “I don’t care.” Helen held her hands and pressed her face into Catherine’s open jeans. Her tongue found Catherine quickly where it began a hurried assault of her clitoris. Catherine jerked and hissed, but the truck sputtered closer.

  “Helen, we can’t. He—he’s coming.”

  But Helen kept on, holding firm to Catherine’s hands. She groaned into her flesh, whispered words of lust and desire. She flicked her tongue harder and heavier, begged Catherine to climax in her mouth.

  “Let me have it, Catherine. I want it so badly,” she said, looking up as her jaw worked and her tongue vibrated.

  Heart pounding, flesh craving, Catherine gripped Helen’s head and shoved herself against her. Helen moaned with further delight and Catherine swayed into her, loving the feel of her head bobbing between her legs. The climax hit just as the truck pulled next to the barn, engine sputtering loudly. Catherine cried out hoarsely, fucking Helen’s mouth.

  Helen extended her tongue and moved her head from side to side slowly, relishing every last bit.

  “Oh God, Catherine.” She smacked her lips. “You must let me do that again.”

  She stood and straightened her dress while Catherine hurriedly buttoned her jeans. Loose strands of brown hair fell clumsily along Helen’s face. There was hay stuck in various places. Her lips were dark and swollen, her dress wrinkled. Outside, the truck engine died and the door squeaked open and closed. The boss man went toward the house, hollering for Helen.

  “Meet me here again tonight,” Helen whispered, still trying to smooth herself free of hay and wrinkles.

  Catherine scooped up the remains of her shirt and held them in front of her chest. Luckily, her sack full of clothes was stashed in one of the empty stalls. But her attention went at once to Helen’s request.

  “It’s too risky.” She’d seen the boss man’s temper and she wouldn’t be the cause of him laying a hand on Helen.

  “Then when? I can’t wait until next Wednesday. I’ll—I’ll die.”

  Catherine touched her face and kissed her swollen lips. “I know.” God, did she know.

  The door to the house slammed and the boss man was walking toward the barn, still calling for Helen.

  “You better go,” Catherine whispered.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Go.”

  “What’s happening to me?” she called out, her voice soft but frightened.

  Catherine moved away from her and hurried into Ma Bella’s stall. She crouched there, back near her swatting tail as the barn door opened.

  “I’ve been calling you,” she heard the boss man say.

  “Have you? I’m sorry. I was just busy with Ma Bella.”

  There was a brief silence. Then he spoke again.

  “What’s wrong with you? You look like a wild animal.”

  More silence. Then softly. “I am.”

  But the boss man didn’t seem to hear it. Instead, he moved back out the door, saying, “I need my work boots and they’re not in my truck.”

  Helen seemed to linger a moment and Catherine heard her say softly again, “I am.”

  N is for Never

  I went to her that evening, when the entire sky was a pale yellow, fresh from a driving storm, set out to dry in the setting sun. She was sitting in her Adirondack chair, hair piled loosely upon her head, blue eyes flashing with contrariety. She was astonished to see me, yet knew at once why I was there. Thumb in her book to mark her place, she folded the corner of the page and set it aside. The words “What are you—” jumbled out of her just before I reached her. Quickly, I straddled her on the chair and watched as her eyes went wide with something that looked like fear and wonder mixed together. I took her face in my hands, and there in the cool damp setting of the sun, I dipped my head and kissed her.

  Professor Susan Abbot lowered the page, hands and heart trembling. Her mind went back to five hours before when the very same words had caused a commotion in the roomy lecture hall. Whoops and whistles had rung out; a young man named Julio Garcia had stood and pumped his fist.

  “Sit down, Mr. Garcia,” she’d said, after clearing her tight throat.

  After a long “what did I do” look, he sat with a defiant grin, high-fiving the young man next to him.

  As the class quieted down, all eyes refocused on the lone figure standing in the back, holding her papers with long, elegant fingers.

  Susan had spoken again, though barely able to. “Thank you, Tia.”

  “But I’m not finished.” Her voice was as calm and as even as ever. Her aquamarine eyes focused on Susan as if there were no other person in the world, much less the roomy lecture hall.

  “That’s enough for now.” Susan had been unable to handle hearing any more. And even now, in the quiet of her own home, she wondered just how much more she could take. She drew another long sip of her wine and curled her legs beneath her. She studied each word and ran her fingers over them as if they were raised and made of soft velour.

  How could someone so young write the words that sang to her heart? It was impossible. Tia was only expressing her own feelings; it had nothing to do with her. And yet she couldn’t help but wonder…

  She rested her head against the chair and allowed her eyes to drift closed. Tia’s face came to her. Pale like a cold winter sky with piercing blue green eyes. Thick dark lashes that fanned when she blinked. Her lips were the color of crushed pink velvet, a warm smile forever teasing at the corners. There was depth in her gaze, an ease in her movements, a calm in her soul.

  Susan breathed deeply and her heart rate accelerated a little more as she imagined what it would be like to take those lips of crushed pink velvet into her mouth. Would they feel like the finest of satin, warmed by the rays of the sun?

  She had asked herself that very same question five hours ago when her students had all hurried from the lecture hall and Tia had approached her desk to turn in the paper. Susan had been frazzled by her stare, knocking her own satchel off the edge of the desk, spilling papers and folders al
ong the floor. She and Tia had both bent to retrieve them at the same time, knocking heads. And as Susan had examined Tia, ensuring she was okay, her gaze had fallen upon those lips and the thoughts and late night fantasies had come suddenly and relentlessly. And in the next instant, in the complete acceptance and understanding she saw in Tia’s eyes, tears had threatened to come.

  She opened her eyes back to the present. As she reached for her wineglass, her eyes skimmed the framed picture illuminated by the lamplight.

  Her heart leapt to her throat and then plummeted to her stomach. She winced. The pain was still so great. Oh God. Tears pooled in her eyes, not enough to run over, but just enough to sting. She gulped at the rest of the wine and rose to pad into the kitchen.

  I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry.

  When would the pain go away? Sometimes she felt so lost she found herself wandering about the house, aimless and numb.

  She knuckled away the brimming tears and pulled the cork from the wine bottle. The dark liquid chugged into the glass and she took a sip quickly and then inhaled deeply. She made her way back to her chair and had just set her glass down when the doorbell rang. Straightening, she looked to the clock on the fireplace mantel.

  It was after eight. And she wasn’t expecting anyone.

  The doorbell rang again and she crossed the room to the front door. She tried to peek through the side window, but she could see nothing. Thinking that it might be Dora from across the street searching for her cat, she opened the door.

  To her great amazement, Tia stood looking back at her. Susan blinked, not quite sure if she was real.

  “Hi.” Tia smiled slightly.

  “Uh, hello.”

  Tia had her hands in her coat pockets and she was rocking back on her heels as if to keep herself warm in the cold.