Friday Flings #3

This week's Fling is a little different than my usual story. A very good friend of mine asked if I could post a story that I read at a coffee house about a million years ago, and so, for you Marty, I've dug up "Between Friends." This won the award for Best Performance that season. I don't do readings, or rather, I haven't done readings in a few years. Mostly because the audience gets uncomfortable after I say "Fuck," "cock," or "lube" for the fourth or fifth time. So this is something from when I was a bit more... vanilla. Enjoy it, Darklings.

******

BETWEEN FRIENDS

By Tucker McCallahan © 2013

Friendship is a really strange kind of thing. I hadn’t thought about it until Claire sat in my room, staring up at me with those helpless, pooly blue eyes of hers, and then it hit me. I couldn’t remember a time when I hung out with anyone else. I couldn’t remember ever calling anyone else, getting together with anyone else, nothing. Our group of friends had a history that went back to the dark ages. Sure, we had our fights and our fallings out. My own personal emotions ranged from wanting to die for any one of them to just wanting them all dead. Most of the memories, though, were good ones. I liked the way things turned out for us all, and it didn’t bother me to remember.

In the midst of this motley crew we all “came of age,” and I guess it wasn’t anything to be proud of, but the fact was, directly or indirectly, we all slept with each other. Now Claire sat here staring at me, and I realized that directly was a helluva jump from indirectly. She was here, and I knew why she was here, but it was just too hard for me to believe.

I knew she and Rick were having problems. Who didn’t? They fought all the time; we were all used to it. When she cornered me a month ago in her basement I played along with her. You can never tell exactly when Claire’s serious and when she’s just having some fun with you. What Rick didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, right? What were a few kisses, a few random touches between friends? She started it, after all, and I maintained plausible deniability throughout the encounter.

This, though, was a completely different matter. I mean, here she was, one hundred percent Claire, staring at me with her head cocked at just the right angle so that all her long, honey-blond hair fell in a graceful pool next to her arm. Her lips were slightly parted, full, and freshly glossed. She knew she looked like a sugary between-meal snack and she knew I was starving. What was I supposed to do? Tell her to get in her car and drive home? Back to Rick, who probably hadn’t even noticed that she was gone yet? And it had been so long for me, so long since I even slept next to someone, let alone slept with someone. Damn it, what would any other deserving guy do?

No internal struggle raged within me about taking advantage of her. Taking advantage of a girl like Claire was impossible. Even if I tried, she’d end up coming out on top of things; that was her nature. She never lost, she never compromised; she just changed her mind. What Claire wanted she ended up getting 99.9 percent of the time. I wasn’t worried about hurting her because nobody could do as good a job of that as Rick was already doing. I was worried about friendship. Not just between Claire and me, but between Rick and me, too.

She definitely had an agenda for the evening, and it looked like I was following it whether I liked it or not. I already took her out. I already showed her around. What was left but to take her to bed? I tried to sidetrack the inevitable by putting on a movie, but that venture backfired. She used it as an opportunity to open yet another button on her blouse, and put her cool, supple lags across my lap. I played right into her hand; she trumped my last ace. The movie was over, and now the drama would begin.

My options in this situation got fewer and fewer the longer she remained in my presence. Claire wanted to cheat on Rick, and now she was in my room with her shirt strategically open to reveal smooth, white cleavage, her eyes fixed on me with F-14 missile-lock perfection. I couldn’t say, sorry Claire, I don’t feel like having sex, because we both knew how I felt. In fact at this point we had a visual aid. One quick glance at the front of my Levi’s revealed exactly how I felt about sex with Claire.

She got up and walked over to where I stood, then sort of melted up against me. “Tell me you’re going to make me feel better, Richie,” she purred, rubbing her face against my T-shirt.

All her hot spots pressed up and ground into me, almost the way I imagined dirt worked its way into my clothes. But even that unsexy visual didn’t help cool the flames she fanned every time she rubbed against my dick.

“Claire, you’re teasing me again.”

“I’m not teasing.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Are you sure you want to ask questions?”

She reached down and wrapped her small hand around my wrist. Staring into my eyes, she very deliberately brought my hand up and set it atop her sternum, directly in the center of that teasing cleavage.

Nope, no questions needed to be asked, oh no, huh uh. “You’re driving me crazy,” I mumbled, but it came out as more of a growl. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was really going to go through with it. If I was really going to wake up next to her in the morning, or if she was just going to go about this merciless business for hours until I passed out from lack of blood in my vital organs.

As if she read my thoughts, she let go of my hand and stepped back. She unbuttoned the rest of her blouse and pulled it off her shoulders, letting it drop in a heap at her feet. “I’m not teasing, Richie. Tonight I’m all yours.”

Little explosions seemed to be going off all over my skin, covering me with a prickling sensation that was almost unbearable. I reached for the button on her shorts and she never moved. She stood there and let me fumble with it until I got it undone. I pulled the zipper down, and then the shorts themselves. She stepped out of them and then I had to move back and take a look at what I uncovered. She wore a silky sort of bra that hardly seemed to support her breasts, and a pair of simple, white cotton panties. Not what I’d call sexy underwear and not what anyone would subscribe to Victoria’s Secret to look at, but totally Claire. Even though it was the end of summer and it had been a hot one, her skin was the color of skim milk, completely unmarred and colorless save for the faint bluish streaks of her veins.

She struck a pose for me, then giggled. “I’m all excited about sleeping in the loft.”

I could only peel off my shirt and nod my head dumbly. My brain registered blond hair, jiggling breasts, and luscious thighs. Had she said something? She walked around me to the foot of the ladder that led up to my loft and climbed. At the first step I focused on the sway of her breasts, and at the third my gaze swam at the moving medley of sheeny skin and smooth white panties. She reached the top and tumbled over onto the mattress, disappearing from sight. My brain was incapable of thinking at all as I took off the rest of my clothes, hit the lights, and climbed up after her.

My eyes took a moment or two to adjust to the darkness, but when they did I realized I couldn’t really see her at all, only the vague outline of her body. I could smell her hair, though, like the lingering shampoo scent in a steamy bathroom. She rolled over into my arms and kissed me, no words or fancy preludes for an advanced warning, and faint memories of our basement encounter came back to me.

“You taste like an after dinner drink,” I said.

“Well, I have had an awful lot of amaretto sours tonight. Kiss me again,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you mean it.”

I did. Kiss her like I meant it, that is, and maybe I really did mean it. She broke away and smiled at me. “Now you tell me that Rick’s not missing out,” she said.

“Rick’s a crazy sonofabitch,” I replied.

At the time I meant that Rick was crazy to be ignoring her. Right now I was positive that Rick was totally insane for ever letting her out of his sight. She slithered all over me like butter melting on a hot pan. I didn’t know if she astounded me just because it had been so long since I’d been with a girl, or if it was just because she was Claire. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

Her bra and panties became artifacts of the past, though I wasn’t sure if she removed them or if I did. I got lost in a palm-first tour of her body, tracing all the interesting spots with my fingers. She never said a word, but for some reason I knew she was smiling. She hadn’t touched me yet, and maybe she didn’t intend to. It didn’t matter. My skin still prickled as if living creatures crawled across it, and any touch from her would’ve sent me into space.

I rolled on top of her, hovering, eating the gloss right off her lips and enjoying it. She ran her nails up my back, and I thought I might collapse into her, but between kisses she spoke.

“You know I have to do this.”

“You mean you want to do this.”

“Well, yeah, but this will prove if I really love him.”

“Who?” I buried my face in her breasts.

“Rick.”

“What about him?” I mumbled, my voice muffled by ample amounts of creamy white flesh.

“I have to have sex with you to see if it changes my feelings about him.”

I raised my head. “What?”

“He won’t commit to staying together when I leave for college. I need to know if I really love him and if he really loves me. So that’s why I’m doing this. To find out.”

That prickling sensation started to fade. “That’s the only reason?”

“Well no. I mean, I know it’s been a while since you… Well, I know you haven’t been with anyone since you and Kristy broke up, and well, this is kind of like my going away present to you.”

She was so matter of fact about it. Like pity-fucks were everyday things that required no thought or questioning. I couldn’t speak for a minute. Then I found my voice.

“I thought you wanted to break up with him.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before, so I don’t know if what I feel for Rick is really love. I don’t know any other way to test it than to have sex with someone else.”

Now I felt like a lab rat. What the hell was I doing? What the hell was I doing naked, in bed with Claire, who was one of my oldest friends, and who just happened to be the girlfriend of another of my oldest friends? Had I gone mad? Was I so sexually deprived that I was going to resort to this?

The answer was no, I was not, but what was I going to say to Claire? I delicately rested in the confines of her spread thighs. Quick Richie, come up with something brilliant and get your butt out of this, I thought. I tried to focus on what constituted sex. I didn’t think I could get around penetration. Claire was a pretty old-fashioned girl. I thought I could manage brief penetration without too much folly, but how to stop it? An actual memory of an aborted sexual attempt flickered across my mental landscape, and I caught it as if netting a butterfly.

OK, I had a plan. I just had to be forceful now and convincing.

“Shut up and kiss me.” I bowed my head. She complied, and for a fleeting second I forgot that I was Squeaky, the friendly lab experiment.

It was enough. With no reservation I plowed ahead with the mission, silently reveling in the hiss her breath made as she exhaled. Then I let one leg fall and cursed with feeling.

“What’s wrong?” She sounded breathless, and I almost didn’t go through with the plan. Fuck, she felt good. But then I had a vision of hitting a bar for a pellet, and that did it. I pulled out.

“It’s my stupid knee.” I clenched my teeth for best effect. Simulating pain wasn’t difficult; my balls ached.

“What?”

“My knee went out. I hurt it last year and sometimes it hyperextends. Oh god, Claire… we’re gonna hafta stop. This hurts like a bitch.”

She immediately sat up and felt for the sheet, tugging it around her body. “Do you want me to get you some ice?”

“No, oh god. Wow. Just let me stretch out here.”

She moved over obediently and I laid back, stretching out my legs. After a few minutes she curled up against me. “Is this okay?”

For a fraction of a second I felt a twinge of guilt. She couldn’t help it if her thought patterns and processes were totally warped. But my guilt passed and a feeling of satisfaction replaced it. I managed to preserve our friendship and even her honor, depending on perspective. Well, depending on how we defined sex. Before I was done contemplating it she fell asleep, breathing heavily against my chest.

In the morning when I awoke she was already out of bed and in the shower. I got up and climbed out of the loft. Sitting down on the couch, I grabbed the remote control and switched on the TV. Talk shows, great. I hated talk shows.

Fifteen minutes later Claire walked in from the shower. She nonchalantly dropped her towel and dressed in front of me. I knew then that we were still friends. Modesty just wasn’t one of Claire’s attributes, but only around her friends would she let her hair – and her towel – down so completely. I felt better almost instantly.

After I returned from my own shower I found her watching a game show and eating a bowl of soup. I plopped down next to her and she put down her spoon, gazing at me.

“Are we going to forget about last night?” she asked.

“What do you want to do?”

“It’s done. I know now that what happened was for the best. I really do love Rick.”

I nodded. “Well then it’s forgotten.”

Later that afternoon she got back into her car and drove home. We didn’t say anything else about it, and the story stayed, like so many things, between friends.