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Fifteen minutes later, Joanna answered Hale's knock. They were both still damp from showering, but neither could help grinning foolishly. "What would you like to drink?" she asked.
"What've you got?" he riposted.
"A little bit of everything."
That could mean multiple flavors of wine coolers or a fully stocked bar, mused Hale. Rather than risk asking for something, then negotiating alternatives, Hale turned the decision over to her. "You pick. Make me your favorite drink."
Joanna's eyebrows shot up. "That's a hell of a risk you're taking. For all you know, my tastes run to fruit salad mixed with alcohol and topped with a small umbrella."
"Then I'll entertain myself with the maraschino cherry stem," he challenged lazily.
"Hmmm." She turned to go into the kitchen.
He sat at the bar and watched her. She knelt at a cabinet under the bar, and pulled out a bottle of Knob Creek. Standing, she set it on the counter where he could see it clearly. "I like." Hale had a hard time imagining anyone who liked whisky not liking Knob. For any reason other than the price, that is.
"I've barely started." From the refrigerator, she retrieved a lemon and two bottles of Boissiere vermouth, one dry, one sweet. From a corner cabinet filled with spices came a bottle of Angostura bitters. Another cabinet gave up a cocktail shaker, a shot glass and a pint glass. From a drawer she produced a knife and a cocktail strainer. Opening the freezer, she pulled out two martini glasses and a bucket of ice. The ice went into the pint glass, followed by two shots of the knob, then a quarter shot each of the two vermouths. Last, a dash of the bitters.
Hale mused over the many times he'd watched Brad build some variant on the martini. This particular variation he recognized as one ordered by very few people on the West Coast. He was surprised that Joanna would choose to make a perfect manhattan. He was even more surprised that she had all the ingredients on hand to do it, down to both kinds of vermouth and the bitters. She did not use a maraschino cherry, he noticed, choosing instead to zest a lemon. That was the only note of awkwardness in Joanna's procedure. It was a bit thick, and wavy. He found that what annoyed him at a bar was charming after a long soak in a hot tub with an attractive woman he enjoyed talking to. A few shakes, and she offered him one of the glasses. In turn, he offered her a toast. "To the perfect woman, who makes a perfect manhattan."
"I can't drink to myself!" she exclaimed. "But I will drink to the witty man who makes such a perfect toast." They sipped.
"And you claim you aren't witty. Lies, all lies." Hale sighed. It was a great drink, and one hard to order in this area. She'd done a great job. "Why is it I can never bring myself to make a drink like this? I grab a beer and it isn't as satisfying. How'd you learn to do this?"
Joanna took another sip of her drink and giggled. "My parents. My mom, in fact. The more I talk to people about what they learned from their mothers, the more I suspect mine was a bad influence in the best possible way." Hale cocked an eyebrow at her and waited.
"My parents always drank when I was growing up. Sometimes a drink before dinner. Sometimes one of them would open a bottle of wine to cook with, then they'd have the rest of it with dinner. Sometimes it was port, or a liqueur or a coffee drink after dinner. My mom never had more than two, and as long as she was around, my dad never had more than three. I think that was typical for their age group, or at least their friends. A ritual they all had when they got home. And when you grow up with it, you pick up things. You know how kids are. What's that? Why do you do it that way? Can I try?"
Hale laughed, thinking of Brad and Elaine's oldest daughter, Kate. "Unending questions, most of which are some variation on, 'Can I help? Let me!'"
She remembered watching Hale play with the two girls in the office the other day. A worry Joanna hadn't known she had dissolved. Hale enjoyed being around children. She wondered if he had nieces or nephews. He was old enough to have children of his own. Unwilling to think about that right now, she returned to her story.
"When we had pizza, my parents would drink beer, but that was the only time, unless mom was away on a business trip alone, or visiting relatives. Then dad would grab a beer when he got home, have another one with dinner, and another one while we watched TV after. Or maybe two each of those times instead of one. When I got older, and counselors at school did those drug and alcohol programs, I wondered maybe if dad had a problem, but it only happened when mom was gone. Then I thought, maybe there's some codependency thing going on, but that didn't make sense either. Finally I asked her how she got him to cut back when she was around."
His interest piqued, Hale asked, "What did she say? Had they cut some sort of deal that couldn't be enforced when she wasn't around?"
"That's what I wondered. I hated to ask, because I felt like I was betraying dad. Eventually I did anyway. It turned out she hadn't even known he drank differently when she wasn't around. They'd never even talked about how much either of them drank."
"You're kidding," Hale said bluntly. Too bluntly, he thought. "Really?"
"Really. And in classic mom fashion, well," seeing Hale's disbelief, Joanna qualified, "for my mom anyway, that was the end of it. Since she didn't even ask him about it, I did. He said that before they met, he never ate at home. He always ate out, and drank a lot more beer even than when she was out of town. When he met her, and they started eating at home, he didn't want to drink as much, and she got him interested in cooking, then hooked him on wine and mixed drinks. He says he cut back even more then. He said there was something about drinking better alcohol that made him not want to drink as much. Or need to drink as much." "But when she wasn't around, he backslid."
"Not entirely. He'd cook dinner for me, and after we talked about it, I had mom teach me how to mix drinks. When mom was out of town, I'd make him a drink. When I got a little older, I'd have one of my own, or we'd open a bottle of wine. They both thought that if parents introduced their children to alcohol early on, in a controlled way, kids would get into less trouble. One of the things I took away from all that was that even if I lived alone, I'd always cook most of my own meals and make sure I drank things I really liked, not just what was easy."
"Admirable," Hale commented, contemplating the last third of his drink. She poured a bit more from the shaker into his glass.
"I'm not so sure about that any more," she said, twirling her glass, careful not to spill any. She sipped it again. "I've eaten alone a lot, when I could have been out with friends or coworkers. I've had a lot of solitary drinks over the years, when I could have been at a bar surrounded by people. It's a tradeoff, and I think it works best when there's someone to share it with. I may have learned the wrong lesson from my parents. I thought the important part was eating and drinking good food and good drink, prepared with one's own hands. Now I think it was sharing it with people you love that was the lesson." Her story ended, she thought back over what she had said. She felt again that she had wasted a lot of time these last few years, ignoring her social and romantic needs to focus exclusively on her career and her own personal health.
Joanna's gloom was contagious. Hale thought back to his own parents, and family dinners when he was a child. He'd eaten a lot of frozen dinners growing up. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Wonder bread was the closest he got to home cooking until he got old enough to make friends of his own. Friends he could hang out with. Friends whose mothers cooked, and didn't mind another face at the table, at least once in a while.
He hadn't ever really thought he'd get more than those glimpses of real family life, and real family dinners. But Joanna's story made him wonder. Had her dad grown up in a family like his? Yet he'd found and married Joanna's mother, and as far as he knew, they were still happily married. Maybe this was his chance.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, he finished the drink, enjoying the last of its cool, tart, smokiness, feeling its gentle burn. "It must be hard to date, knowing what your parents found. It sounds like a hard act to follow."
Hale's perspective made her feel better about her choices. He didn't think she was a failure for not dating, for not being married already. For not having a child. For losing faith for a few years, and focusing on her job and the parts of her life she could control. For a brief, disorienting moment, he reminded her of her father. He always had a way of describing what she had done that she thought was a failure, yet make it sound like a success. Not as a challenge, or an opportunity, but as a great success. "We're going to get along just great," she said.
The pause stretched as they stared into each other's eyes. Joanna was afraid to let the moment continue. He made her feel like a tingly, hormone- drunk teenager right now, simultaneously inspired and nervously euphoric. She didn't want to frighten him off by making foolish moon eyes at him. She might be younger than him, but she wasn't that young. "Come look at my liquor cabinet," she invited with a wink.
"That sounds a lot like, 'Come into my parlor. . ." replied Hale, as he dropped off the barstool and walked into the kitchen.
"And still you enter willingly. Very brave!" she commended.
Kneeling next to her, he contemplated the array of bottles in the cabinet before them. Some small batch Canadian whiskeys he'd never tried. A bottle of 18 year Macallan. Glenrothes. Glen Goyne. Blanton's. Tilting out an anomalous bottle of Maker's Mark, he asked, "Do you give that to the dates you don't like?"
She laughed. "I hate to admit it, but I kinda like it sometimes."
He nodded. "So do I." He thought the vodka must be in the freezer. There were bottles of wine, a nearly full bottle of Bombay Sapphire, a series of liqueurs and an expensive bottle of Remy-Martin brandy. Unopened bottles of tonic and soda. "You've spent a lot of money here. Top flight, all the way."
"I don't drink much, and it's cheaper to make drinks for friends at home than it is to buy a round at a bar. And after you've had the good stuff, it's hard to go back." She paused, then added, "I really should invite people over for drinks more often."
Inviting him in for drinks was a big step for her, he thought. But it might be the first step on a new path, and he might be the first in a long string of dates invited in for a nightcap, interviewed briefly, then sent on their way for failing to measure up in some obscure, but important, way. On the other hand, he was here now. He'd have to make sure she was very glad to have invited him. Then maybe she'd invite him over for drinks next time, not just any available man. Well, she would never invite just any available man in for drinks. She'd drawn the line with her date tonight. Belatedly, he said, "I wonder."
Joanna returned his gaze, wondering what he was thinking.
"Will it work that way with you?" She frowned in confusion. Recklessly, he continued, "If I taste you, will it be hard to go back? Will I lose interest in other women?" Her eyes widened in surprise. "Only one way to find out, right?" As he saw her mouth open to reply, Hale's head darted forward.
His mouth was on hers only briefly, his tongue sliding forward between her lips for the shortest moment. She had been about to say something lighthearted and, she hoped, encouraging. She had no idea now what it might have been. He tasted of good whisky and vermouth, with the faintest hint of toothpaste in the background. He must have brushed his teeth when he showered, before coming over. Funny, that. So had she. What was he thinking?
She tasted of good whisky and vermouth, with a minty background. Had she been expecting this? As quick as the kiss was, she'd leaned into it. Her tongue had flicked forward to touch his. As quickly as he'd kissed her, as briefly as he'd tasted her, she'd responded.
Joanna looked into Hale's eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had kissed her on the mouth. She hadn't wanted anyone to kiss her in a long time. But she wanted more now.
Hale hadn't survived as long as he was by second-guessing his own good luck, and he wasn't about to start now. He looked around, then lightly touched her arm. Standing, he drew her up with him. His hand reached around to caress the back of her neck. She leaned into him with a sigh. He put his other arm around her. After a moment, he gently encouraged her to move into the other room. He ran into the edge of the coffee table, but got them safely seated on the couch.
He could feel himself mirroring her huge smile. He had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't nearly as cute on him. Smooth, maybe not. But whatever it was, it was working. He gently slipped her glasses off her face, careful to lift the ear pieces up so as not to snag her ears. He set them on the table. Without the slight reflection from the surface of the lenses to block his view, he saw her pupils were dilated almost completely. The smile had gone away, replaced by a slightly breathless look, her lips partly slightly and she leaned towards him. He waited, wondering what she would do.
No one had ever taken her glasses off her face before with such tenderness. One particular boy in high school had left red marks on her ears by yanking off a pair of glasses which had ear pieces curved most of the way around her ears. He'd been reckless and insensitive in other ways as well. Bob hadn't done her any permanent harm, but she hadn't stuck around long, either.
She hadn't expected such tenderness and patience from a man who looked like Hale. She'd half expected to find herself pinned up against a wall being kissed ruthlessly. Which wasn't normally her style, but had a certain appeal after reading Kelly's books. Instead, he was proving to be the gentlest lover she could ever have imagined. He was sensitive to her mood and not aggressive at all, yet persistent.
He was letting her set the pace, waiting for her to make the next move. She leaned forward, to kiss him, thinking he would meet her parkway. But he didn't. He sat, motionless, waiting for her to come to him. She touched her lips gently to his, then slid her cheek against his. His face had looked so smooth, and it was, barely pulling even as she slid her cheek against his against the direction the hair grew. He must have shaved when he showered. She could still smell a trace of chlorine in his hair. She pulled on his earlobe with her lips, licking lightly. She felt, more than heard, a quiet groan, low in his throat, as his arm reached around her waist to pull her onto his lap.
As nice as it was to be in his lap, the pressure on her knee was going to kill her, or at least permanently damage something if she didn't adjust her position. She pulled back for a moment to find a more comfortable angle. As she did, she worried her weight would hurt him. She knew she was tall for a woman, and strong, which meant she was no featherweight. She let her knees slide to either side of his legs, straddling him.
While Joanna was adjusting her legs, Hale reached up to caress the back of her neck. When she moaned softly and leaned towards him, he massaged her neck and shoulders. Sliding his hands under the fabric of the loose silk tunic she wore over cotton leggings, he worked on her shoulder muscles. Her head flopped forward bonelessly, and she continued to moan intermittently, almost a purr. She absorbed his touch like a cat, letting him know what she liked and endlessly willing to accept more.
"Your skin is beautiful," he murmured. He opened the top button of her silk tunic. His fingers traced the top curves of her breasts.
Joanna leaned back and raised her head to look at him.
"It's incredibly soft, and warm. Even after being in the pool and the hot tub, it's not dry at all." He felt the second button of her shirt open under the pressure of his exploring fingers, revealing the top of her bra.
"Ah," she responded, an acknowledgement that turned into something more, an affirmation of his touch and encouragement for more. She didn't drop her head this time. She brought her hands up to undo the buttons on his shirt, and leaned forward to kiss him.
He tried to keep his response to her kiss slow and gentle. For a moment, he wasn't sure what to do. He had expected a little necking, and, in the true spirit of heterosexual masculinity, had hoped for more, but was resigned to at least token protests along the way. Joanna's actions suggested she had bigger plans for them tonight. Mentally, he gave himself a slap. She was young, but she wasn't that young. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn't the type to play coy.
When he felt her pull his shirt out of his jeans and slide her hands across his abdomen, he popped open the third button on her tunic. He was pleased to discover her bra had a front closure. It was a pretty bra, nearly the color of her skin. The lace was soft. Her breasts were neither small nor large, almost exactly a handful. He cupped them before undoing the clasp. Her nipples were round and hard against the palms of his hand.
Joanna had opened his shirt completely and found his nipples. Pausing with her fingertips just touching them, she tilted her head and asked, "Do yours work?"
"Uhh..."
She brushed her fingers over his nipples a few times, then slowly circled them. As his nipples crinkled in response to her touch, he understood what she was asking. "Yes. They work. Well, in fact." He regarded her actions as implicit permission for him and opened her bra.
He wanted to know what her nipples would feel like in his mouth, how they would respond if he grazed his teeth against them. He pressed her shoulders back as he leaned down to take the tip of one breast between his lips. She cooperated, leaning only slightly against his arm which circled her waist supporting her. He brought his other hand across her upper abdomen, appreciating the muscles which flexed under her deceptive softness. He found her other nipples and mirrored with his fingers what he was doing with his mouth.
What a wonderful mouth he had, thought Joanna, luxuriating under his attention, momentarily stopping what she had been about to do to him. When his teeth nipped at her and his fingers pinched, he was still gentle, slowly escalating, making sure not to leave her behind in his own growing excitement. She could feel that excitement quite distinctly, pressing through his jeans, her thin leggings and panties. She snuggled harder against him.
He felt her grind against the fly of his jeans, where his erection was pushing uncomfortably. She explored its length and width through the fabric.
Feeling a primitive growl begin deep in his throat, Hale turned it into a question. "Do you like what you've found?" he asked.
"Umm hmm," she mumbled sensuously. Sex with this man would be very, very good. Gentle and slow and satisfying. Okay, maybe not so slow. She could feel her own dampness soaking her panties. Even knowing she wanted him, she hadn't expected to feel this way so quickly.
Joanna wanted only to continue, but she stopped herself as she was about to nibble on Hale's ear. They really should talk. She had to ask a few questions. Moving fast, she could live with. Being unsafe, she could not.
She hated this part. She always felt awkward, stupid, and paranoid, but she knew she had to do it so she dove right in anyway. "We're getting goal directed," she whispered. "We should probably talk about a couple of things."
Hale stomped on incipient panic with practiced ease. What was she talking about?
Joanna could feel the tension rebuild itself in Hale's body underneath her. That was not a good sign, but she plowed on ahead anyway. "I have condoms, and I will not have straight sex without them." She could feel some of his tension drain away immediately. Her own fears back under control, she waited to hear what he would say.
Ah, he thought. That was what she was talking about. They probably should talk about this. Although he had never yet met a woman who did, despite all the noise made in the media about how everyone should. They either expected him to produce condoms magically or remembered at the last minute and proposed a trip to a twenty-four-hour drug store. She was waiting for him to say something. "Uh, great." There were condoms somewhere in his apartment. He hadn't thought he'd need them tonight. He should probably be happy that he had this particular problem. He didn't feel happy. He felt stunned. It was hard to think.
Not sure what to make of Hale's noncommittal response, Joanna took a flyer on what she had heard was sometimes a problem. "If you have a latex allergy, I might have some Avanti around, but they may have expired. Otherwise, I have kimonos."
Hale shook his head. "No problem with latex. Whatever you have will be great." He wasn't sure he'd ever been around someone who was this prepared. A voice in the back of his head suggested that he should worry about someone who was this prepared. He dismissed it. He wasn't the kind to punish the cautious or well-prepared. Besides, probably everyone Joanna's age was this prepared. They'd all grown up worried about AIDS.
"Uh, I hate this part, but I do think it's important. I have oral herpes. I don't currently have any open sores. I probably should have told you before we started kissing, but . . ."
He had to think about that for a moment. He heard herpes first, then realized she was talking about cold sores. "That's okay. Lots of people have that. I don't care. I get cold sores, too, and I don't think it's even occurred to me to warn someone. Although now that you have, I feel like maybe I should have." He paused, caressing her breast, then tracing along her side, in at the waist, flaring out again at her hip. He was torn between the pressure in his groin telling him not to slow anything down, and his desire to tell her how wonderful she was compared to every other woman he had ever met. The words spilled out of him, awkward and babbling.
"Everyone else is worried about being smooth and serious and sexy but you speak up and you're still smooth and serious and sexy. You take your weight on your knees and you buy your own condoms. I've never met anyone like you. You are wonderful."
"Wow," said Joanna. "Thank you. Somehow, I just don't feel smooth, or not as smooth as you say I am, anyway. Uh, one more thing, and I feel weird asking this question after you've said such nice things to me, but, uh, is there anything you want to tell me?" What Hale had said made her feel even more euphoric, but also even more nervous.
Several thoughts sprang to mind, most of which he immediately suppressed. "I don't have anything else." It was a good question. Cities in southeast asia offered a lot of amenities to a soldier on leave. Unfortunately, antibiotic-resistant strains of sexually transmitted diseases were an inevitable result of a policy that sent soldiers departing on leave through an exit demarcated on one side by a barrel of antibiotics and on the other by a barrel of condoms. Hormone-crazed young men weren't conscientious about the condoms while on leave, but they were good about taking the pills. He had never made the mental risk comparison that justified smoking for so many on active duty. He had applied that same native caution to sex as well. "I've always used condoms. I get checked at least once a year, and I'm clean."
"Okay. There's saran wrap in the kitchen, too, if you want to be really careful."
Hale laughed. Another first. No one had ever offered him a dental dam or saran wrap. "Did you see Booty Call?"
Joanna giggled. "Oh, yeah. Everything not to do on a first date."
"You," Hale said, as he easily lifted her off his lap. He rotated and lowered her so she lay along the couch, "should teach classes on what to do on a first date."
"Ha!," she protested, while she reached down to undo the button on his jeans. "I'm here to tell you that while there haven't been a lot of first dates for me, of the few there were, at least twice my little spiel has so demoralized the poor guy foolish enough to take me out that he sent me home still unsatisfied."
He felt her unzip his jeans. He felt a profound relief when the pressure on his erection was gone. He felt profound gratitude as her hand slipped under the elastic of his boxer-briefs. "Thank you for not calling them men. You were dating boys, Joanna, not men." Slipping his hands under the waist of her leggings, he found her panties. Tracing them with his hands, he tried to ignore what she was doing in his pants.
He had to get of her clothes off. Touching her was great, but he wanted to see her while he still had enough self-control to take the time to appreciate her. He slid her leggings and panties down her legs. He felt her hands leave him for long enough to help free her legs. He looked along the length of her, the round curves of her breasts and hips, her long legs. He ran his hand down her thigh, feeling the thick muscle. He felt her move one knee up, then she arched under him.
Her hands circled behind his neck. She pulled him down on top of her, her mouth open before their lips met. She nipped at his lower lip for a moment, then ran her tongue along his teeth. Without thinking, he ground his pelvis into hers and deepened the kiss. As his teeth hit hers painfully, he knew he had to do something to slow down. He levered himself back up, and took a deep breath. Then another. "Say something funny," he demanded.
"Hunh?"
"Say something funny. I have to slow down."
"It's okay. I'm having a great time. Fast can be really good, too."
"Not for the first time. Not with you. No. Just. Say. Something. Funny."
"Uhhh," Joanna stalled. How could she think of something funny when she felt so. . .frustrated. Men could be very irritating. They needed to remove a bullet from the chamber to have a great round of sex, especially after a long time without, especially with a new woman. But try to find a decent man who wouldn't fight it every step of the way.
What had they been talking about? It had made them both laugh. She remembered now: Booty Call, with its endless search for protection so the women would say yes to the men. First condoms, then latex condoms, then saran wrap, with that hysterical bit in the urban convenience store. She remembered watching it on video at a party at Lisa's. She also remembered shocking everyone by the stories she had told about Ms. Jones, her high school health teacher. What an appropriate name that had turned out to be.
As Hale's hand moved from the outside of her leg to the inside, she decided to risk it. If he didn't find the story funny, he might at least quit trying to slow things down.
"Shall I tell you how I learned the bad way that you have to lube non-lubricating body parts before applying a dental dam or saran wrap?" Partly the memory, and partly anticipating Hale's reaction, Joanna suppressed a giggle, turning it into the biggest, most innocent smile she could. She still wanted desperately to toss Hale on the floor, rip off his jeans and impale herself on his cock, grinding against him until she came. Ideally, more than once, but she tried not to ask for the impossible, and his patience, or self-control, or whatever he called it might not extend that long. But he was too large, and too strong for her to just throw around like that. Besides, she might trigger some scary defensive reaction and wake up with a huge bruise on her jaw. Or something.
"Sure. Anything. As long as it's funny." He ran a fingernail along the inside of her thigh. Her entire leg shivered briefly.
Joanna eyed Hale speculatively. She wasn't sure she wanted to admit the details of how she'd learned about the saran wrap. She'd been awfully young, just starting high school. Her boyfriend thought they were too young to have sex, but they were old enough to fool around. "Did you have to take health class or human development or some class like that in high school?"
A perfect topic for slowing down, Hale thought with a grimace. "You mean Sex Ed? We didn't exactly have a whole class on it. They separated the boys and girls and passed out some stupid booklet after making us watch a movie. What a dead loss that was. They never told you anything useful." He sat back up and pulled her into his lap again. The skin between her thighs was smooth and warm.
"That's what everyone says when I start to tell this story. My teacher, Ms. Jones, was, uh, a little unusual. She didn't have an education degree. She got one of those, you-have-experience-we-need-teachers kind of certificates. The year she taught my class she was sick of public school and planned to quit teaching the after my year."
"Didn't have a lot to lose, and didn't owe anyone anything, in other words," Hale interpolated, massaging her legs until she relaxed onto his lap.
"One day," continued Joanna, "she announced she was adding an extra two weeks onto the unit on human sexuality. She swore the class to secrecy, and gave anyone who didn't feel like taking it permission to skip."
"Must have been heaven for a bunch of, what, fourteen year olds?" He reached down to tickle her instep. She clenched briefly in response, sliding closer to him before relaxing again. Interesting. Scratching made her shiver, and gave her goose bumps, but tickling made her tense up.
"Yup. Not too many people took her up on the offer, though. She started bringing in props. Useful props."
"Condoms?"
"I think those are mandatory these days. She brought in flavored condoms, saran wrap, dental dams, latex gloves, dildos, heck, double ended dildos, vibrators in an array of sizes, shapes and colors. She even brought handcuffs, silk scarves and a bunch of cuffs to illustrate the importance of not tying someone up too tight, for too long, or in a way that prevents them from communicating that it's time to stop. She had enough gear to open a small shop."
Hale's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?" His hand stopped moving briefly, then continued its slow, spiraling journey up her leg.
"Word didn't get out until the unit was over, and after that, it was hushed up. They even let her finish out the term. Rumor had it she cut some sort of deal with the school board. Very juicy rumor speculated about the nature of the deal."
"Unbelievable."
"That was my response to the story about the crisco, the twister mat, and the vice-principal. But who knows? Maybe after all those false stories about attractive male leads shoving hamsters up their butt, some kid somewhere actually tried it. Kids will try just about anything. But to return to my tale," Joanna overrode Hale's attempt to interrupt. She suspected it was a story about just what kids will try, but she wanted to finish hers first. "My boyfriend snagged the replacement saran wrap from his mom's kitchen, and we met in the athletic equipment locker in the local community center after hours. He had a key, because he helped coach a team for some grade school kids. And we wanted to find out if oral sex through saran wrap would still feel good."
He asked, "When you were fourteen? That's a little precocious, isn't it?"
"I was never sure. He tried it on me, first. Then I tried it on him. It works okay, actually, if you get it flat. It makes crinkly noises, which is distracting, but we got used to it. We tried 69, and he inhaled it a couple of times, which we thought at first was the worst part about it."
He tried to imagine what it would have been like to do 69 when he was fourteen. He'd made jokes about it then, but he hadn't known anyone who had actually done it then. He wondered if Joanna's father had had any idea.
"Felt like he was going to suffocate, hunh?" Hale could readily imagine that putting a man off entirely. A fourteen year old boy, on the other hand, would regard it as a minor nuisance. "What was the worst part?" He ran his fingers through her pubic hair. It was very short. She must trim it. Or maybe she shaved it part of the time. He wondered if she had expected him tonight, would she have shaved? Would she shave for him some other night? He imagined licking smooth skin beside he slick clitoris, taking her labia in his mouth and sucking. He suppressed that thought ruthlessly, paying attention to her story instead.
"We forgot to lube his dick first."
He didn't get it at first, then cringed as he realized how it would have clung, and pulled when removed. "Oh. Ouch. The teacher didn't warn you?"
"Nope. I went and asked her about it later, and she was surprised. Turns out she was lesbian."
"Ah." Hale slipped a thumb between her legs, sliding past her labia. He found her clitoris under its protective hood, moist and slippery. It tried to slide out from under the gentle pressure of his hand. He pursued it.
"And not a well-informed one. When I've told this story to lesbian women, they usually know about the problem." She moved her leg up and down slightly, rubbing against his cock.
Hale groaned. "Have I mentioned just how wonderful you are?"
She grinned back at him. "Why, yes, you have. But I like to hear it just the same."
"I like telling you, so I think we can make this work." He tilted his head, debating whether to ask her what he could not stop thinking about, after hearing that story.
"What are you thinking? You look like you really want to ask something. Usually, in this kind of situation, that means you should. How else can good things happen?"
Good things were happening without asking for anything, Hale thought. He felt Joanna's fingers replace the side of her leg, caressing his erection and sliding lower to gently cup his balls. And the longer he kept quiet, the better things got. On the other hand, you never know until you try, and she was watching him, smiling, laughing silently, daring him to ask for whatever he might want from her.
Taking a breath, he asked, "Do you still do '69'? Or was that just in your younger, more flexible days as a teenager?" He was trying to sound casual. Listening to himself, he sounded crass. He let his finger slip inside her, still manipulating her gently with his thumb.
"Ha!" objected Joanna. "I'm much more flexible now than I was then. I work hard at it. As I mentioned before, I haven't done much of anything in a while, but I can't think of anything I used to do sexually that I wouldn't be happy to try again with someone I trusted and liked. And who was doing such nice things to me." She paused and gave him a saucy look that said, "Like you, hint, hint."
Stunned, it took Hale a moment to react. "Uh, we're still sitting on this couch." That was a problem, he thought. He was hazy on the details. All the blood had rushed out of his brain again and gone. . . elsewhere.
"You're providing such a wonderful incentive to stay," Joanna offered helpfully.
Did she want to stay on the couch and continue the foreplay here? Hale wondered. But another look at her face told him she was mocking him. In the nicest possible way, he thought, but still mocking him. "Oh, is that the way it's going to be?" He brought his free hand around from where it was cradling and supporting her back and tweaked one of her nipples, hard.
"Hey!" Joanna protested weakly. He slid a second finger in her, increasing the size and force of the circles his thumb was making. She groaned. What was he waiting for? Hadn't she been clear enough? Doh, she thought abruptly. We're at my place. He won't invite himself into the bedroom. He's much too polite for that. "Shall we go find a warm, soft flat surface? Like, my bed?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Hale murmured, then crushed his lips against hers.
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Copyright 2013 by Rebecca Allen Updated July 17, 2013