Body Wisdom & Uncompromising Portraits Read online

  The work on the chair was meticulous, lots of small slats to paint with an even handed brush. I’d spent two weeks just sanding it to a fine well-polished smooth. I wouldn’t allow one drip of paint to spoil the results. I had some soft rock and roll playing behind me, but I was too engrossed to listen to that, simply painting away with not a thought in my brain.

  There was a sudden sharp rap on my front door and I must have jump two inches. Glancing at the clock, it was already ten. It must be Beth was my first thought. There was another knock before I could get off the floor, wipe my hands, and answer it.

  With the porch light on, I could see his face. Kurt, standing outside in his leathers, my heart and cunt went off like an alarm.

  “You’re back,” I said, opening the door.

  He looked tired and strangely distant, so much so, that I thought it might be his final excursion to my house. The final goodbye.

  But he reached up and took my head in his hands. Bringing my face to his, his lips were unexpectedly warm. We were standing in the dark just inside my door, saying absolutely nothing. Just kissing.

  He pushed down on my sweats until they dropped to the floor; then he pulled up on my sweatshirt so that he pulled it off over my head. I was naked in his arms in the dark, pressed against the warm leather.

  “I’m getting cold,” I told him.

  He pulled my hands behind me, and pushed me toward my room still saying nothing. There was nothing but the noise of music coming from the kitchen, though the sounds of his body, the leather creaking, the scrunch of boots, and his heavy breath were raging in my ears, like blaring heavy metal.

  “I’m going to take this ass of yours, Jess,” he announced to me as he pushed me on hands and knees to the bed.

  I heard him rip off his pants and nothing more. His prick was shoved between my legs, at a wet hot open door. I was storing my passions again, and as before, Kurt exploded them. I rocked back on him happily.

  My shoulders were pushed to the bed, my arms still held behind me, so that I was uncomfortable and couldn’t move. Kurt was thrusting against my rear end hard, his one hand beginning to play with my back door. I shuddered, feeling the odd sensations that were gathered in that place. He probed, but didn’t yet pull out to screw me there. I wondered if he would.

  He slapped my ass and my body jolted; this was making me even hotter. I couldn’t stand myself, there was too much raw sexual heat flowing from me to put any brakes on at all. I knew he owed me an explanation for his absence, but that wouldn’t happen until later.

  He rode me hard for a long time, punctuating thrusts with slaps and pinches and more penetration in my anus with a leather-gloved hand. It was driving me wild. Such madness in my ass I could hardly take.

  He held me down, so I couldn’t respond. But I was getting to him anyway, squeezing down hard on his cock with the muscles of my cunt. I prided myself on every little wiggle and squeeze that I knew was sending him right to the edge. A long guttural groan followed moments later, and for an instant everything stopped but the cry, and the action of his cock cumming in me.

  He remained in my cunt, his cock still hard enough for me to feel. He played with me, both clit and ass, not letting me move until the orgasm he inspired finally ripped through my body. Sharp and quick. I whimpered, then collapsed face down into the sheets when he let me go. He might not have fucked my ass with his cock, but he might as well have the way his hand had probed me deeply. I was feeling strangely empty with his hand withdrawn.

  He didn’t touch me afterwards, not right away. We lay side by side for a while, though when I turned over to snuggle against his nakedness and the leather jacket he was still wearing, he did put his arm around me.

  “You want an explanation, I suppose,” he said at last.

  “I think so.” I wasn’t really sure.

  “What if I don’t have one?” he said.

  “You do, and you’ll tell me. Eventually,” I said. “But now’s a good time. It’s dark and you don’t have to look in my eyes.”

  He was silent for a time before he finally spoke. “We didn’t have any commitment,” was his opening line.

  “No, we didn’t,” I agreed.

  “I like being in control,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed,” I replied to him. This was the strangest explanation I’d ever heard, but I followed along figuring Kurt knew where he was going with it, he always did.

  “You weren’t conforming very well,” he said.

  I considered that for a while. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I can bend, but only so much. I’ve taken some time figuring out myself, just having a relationship with you is bending, believe me.”

  “Do you have any space at all for me to suggest that there’s more Jessica Wilde than you’ve ever figured?” he asked.

  “I think you already have.”

  “Just not a lot more, right? You’ve got yourself all nicely circumscribed.”

  “No, I don’t.” I countered. “You just have to take it easy with me.”

  “I wasn’t taking it easy with you just now,” he reminded me of our sexual interlude.

  “You’ve got a wisdom when it comes to my body, Kurt. I can’t deny that.”

  We lay in silence for a while longer. He was staring at the shadowy ceiling; I suppose it was easier for him to think that way.

  “Jess,” he suddenly interjected into a perfectly lovely quiet,” I fucked around a little while I was gone.”

  I considered the news for a moment, not sure how to reply. I certainly didn’t welcome the announcement. “We don’t have a commitment,” I repeated his words aloud, as a lump grew in my throat, and a tiny dagger seemed to be sinking into my heart. No commitment, I kept reminding myself, and he was right.

  “But, Jess, it wasn’t like this, like you and me; and it wasn’t satisfying,” he said.

  “I suppose I should feel relieved,” I said.

  “Hey, I didn’t take off just to play around on you. The sex just kind of happened. I fall into bed easily sometimes. If I wanted to play around on you, I could do that here.”

  “Yes, you could,” I agreed. “But you didn’t, and I kind of made assumptions that I probably shouldn’t have made.” I was sounding much more hurt than I wanted to, but I couldn’t help it.

  “I wanted you to make those assumptions,” he said. “I wouldn’t have liked you fucking around on me.”

  I wondered if I should feel good about that or not.

  “So, are you going to stay?” I asked.

  “I think so.” He pulled up on his side and looked down at me. His long hair was loose and swimming around his face. God, he looked beautiful to me!

  “So what does this mean? I make myself available for you to screw when you don’t have something more fun to do?” I asked.

  He winced. “I suppose I deserved that?”

  “We have no commitment,” I said again, though I was clearly mocking him. “I’m thirty eight, I walked right into this with eyes open. But honestly, Kurt, I don’t know if the door out there is going to be open every night at ten for you.”

  “You have to understand, Jess, settling down has never been in my blood. But now, I’m thinking about it all the time.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  “Yeah, you don’t even know where I’ve really been. And I’m not just talking about this trip, my whole life. Now, I’m feeling like I have to explain it to you. I keep thinking that before I get through this, you’ll split and I’ll have my ass hanging out.”

  “That would be a pretty sight,” I mused. “Seems like I had my ass hanging out for the last week.” It was a little revenge making him wait, making him think. I could almost see him sweating this out, but he was too cool and detached to hang his ass out too far.

  “You know, Kurt, you don’t have to explain anything to me, but if you want things to continue, we have to get beyond this, and we do have to get to know each other.”

  “So, you want me to stay?” he asked
.

  “Yes, I want you to stay,” I said. “As long as you don’t go riding roughshod over my feelings. I’ll kick you out if you start that.”

  “Don’t even think of it,” he said. He was leaning in so closely I could feel him breathing on my face. “Listen Jess, I came back because your face and your body weren’t disappearing from my brain. I usually kick people out of my life pretty easily, but not you.”

  “Why do you think that is?” I asked, sincerely, staring into those dark warm lively eyes.

  “I love you,” he said without hesitating for a second.

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing him say that. “You really mean it?” I couldn’t help the tears in my eyes.

  “Is that so strange?”

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen with you. You’re too young, and you scare me, and I like sex with you too much . . . .” I was suddenly very anxious.

  “Wait a minute,” he stopped me. “Liking sex with me is wrong?”

  “It’s always been that way before. Any man I really had a good time with in bed turned out to be a lout, and I ended up hurt. So I suppose as long as we’re into confessions, I might as well tell you; I put you in a non-serious category of relationship. Should I change that?”

  “You damn well better if I’m making love confessions to you.”

  I had a feeling I was being captured by some mysterious force, dawn into his arms, our mouths pressed tight for a kiss where our tongues fought for a place inside each other. He was all consuming, pulling me so close there was no space between us and no way to pull apart. As reluctant as Kurt was to commit, it hit me that I was reluctant too. Though not now, not in his arms, with his body moving next to mine, his groin against my groin, his cock gently melting into my pussy that was hot to have him again, and again and again.

  As rude as he’d been earlier, he was tender now; though his demands didn’t stop. His hands were on every inch of my skin, and I explored his hard male flesh with as much eagerness. He was mine, all mine. The sinewy muscles of his back were mine, as I ran my hand down them; the gentle tightness of his round rear was mine as I massaged it; and the strong substantial thighs that pressed against my own were mine. If I could only let go my fear and climb inside him, the way he was climbing inside me …

  His tongue lapped at every sensitive place on my body, every fissure and valley … from under my arms where the skin was too sensitive for anything but a sensuous tongue, to the nape of my neck where my hair would stand on end from just his breath, to the arch of my back where it took just a delicate touch to make me shiver, to that lower cleft where sexual rapture began and ended in my two favorite places. The best was still when we were body to body, his naked chest to my naked breasts, his naked groin locked to my naked groin. The longer we rocked and rolled and fucked with his erection thrusting deep, the more I relinquished, surrendering everything to him. My body wouldn’t stop for anything. I was glad it was a lot smarter than my brain.

  “I’m going to have you any way I want, Jess,” he whispered as a warning. And I guessed he would.

  After I shuddered with orgasm this time, I finished him off, roving down his body to his erection. So very straight and tall, I covered it with my mouth, my nostrils smelling the pungent aroma of my cunt on the surface of that taut skin. His balls fell into my hands as I played, and fondled, and made him gasp loudly into this strange sticky-hot air around us. He shot his liquid against my face as I listened to him groan much softer this time.

  In the morning, I was getting dressed as he watched me from the bed, those wild, daring, warm, sumptuous eyes of his boring holes into me.

  “Stop staring,” I said.

  “No, I like looking at you,” If anything he was more vigilant that he’d been before. I turned away, but that didn’t help. I felt as if my skin was crawling. “Why don’t you take the day off?” he suggested.

  “I could, but I’m not,” I replied.

  “Won’t give up that library, will you?” There was that trace of judgment in his voice again.

  “I’d have to have a good reason, and just because you think being in a relationship with a librarian doesn’t suit you, is not reason enough.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” he said, softly smirking at me.

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  “Just testing you.”

  “You do that a lot, don’t you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Though I did last night,” he conceded.

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “When I came in the door and took you to bed. I wanted to see how you’d respond. See if you were angry with me.”

  “So I passed?” I asked, deliberating ignoring a lot of possibilities for a confrontation here.

  “I keep thinking you’ll say no to me, that you’ll decided you don’t like sex the way I want it,” he said.

  “But I haven’t.”

  “No, you haven’t.” He sounded as if he was really awed by that fact.

  “And, if I do?” I wondered aloud.

  He chuckled just a little. “I’m not sure it matters anymore,” he said.

  I sat down on a chair, just a foot or two away from him, and stared back at him as intently as he was eyeing me. “You know, Kurt, I’m going to have to call this love. I can’t explain it any other way. Though it’s the strangest relationship I’ve ever had.”

  “So, it’s love in spite of yourself,” he added.

  “Yeah,” I admitted to us both.

  One of those smiles that first wooed me broke out on his face, undoing me all over again. Damn! I really was in love.

  Chapter Four

  “So, these are your choices, this weekend, or the next, or the next. Which one is it?” he stated.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” It was a few weeks after Kurt returned, we’d made love at closing time, in his shop, and were eating a pizza at the deli on the corner. We had already argued over vegetarian or Italian sausage, and I’d won. I sensed another argument brewing.

  “I’m giving you plenty of time to make a decision. I’m not springing anything spontaneous on you,” he half joked, though the sarcasm was thick. “I want a weekend with you, away from this town.”

  “You’re going to close the shop, again?” I asked astonished. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get the time off, I just had my judgment about his business practices, especially during the hottest tourist season.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Because you’re more important to me than money. You said we have to get to know each other.”

  His words registered, but I let them quickly slide.

  “I think you’re being a little foolish. Can’t we wait until October when the weather turns? You’ve already closed the shop a lot this summer.”

  He recoiled from that statement. “You want to let me handle my business my way, or do you plan to control that too?” he asked.

  Oops, I instantly thought. I winced so I hoped he’d see my chagrin, but he was scowling as I watched him polish off the last piece of pizza and his beer.

  “Kurt, I didn’t mean to sound controlling. . .” I started.

  “Oh, but you do a damn good job of it,” he snarled.

  “I’m just pointing out something I thought was obvious.”

  “You didn’t think I could see it myself?”

  He was making fast conclusions I didn’t like, but I wasn’t sure how to back out of this. “I just thought a different point of view, maybe,” I said, trying to be diplomatic.

  “I’m altering my life for you Jess, but I’m not going to alter everything. And I sure as hell don’t think I should be the only one making changes.” He looked at me with the coldest look I’d ever seen from him. And without having a moment to frame a decent reply, I watched him throw a few dollars on the table and walk out.

  ***

  “What is it with men?” I was asking Beth that same evening, when I interrupted her in the middle of shampooing her hair, desperate for someone else
’s point of view on the sticky situation between Kurt and me.

  “Kurt, huh?” she said, looking at me through the mass of brown curls that she’d just set free from the terry-cloth towel.

  “He asked me to go with him for a weekend trip up the coast, on his Harley. Closing the shop again. I mean he was really sweet, telling me that I meant more to him than money.”

  Beth looked at me with one fixed eye, a character trait I was familiar with. She was concocting something in her own breezy style; it would either be totally off base, or brutally right on. At least I’d know which the minute she said it. I could count on Beth for that much.

  “If Kurt had some nice car, a Jeep, little coupe, truck, whatever, would you go?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not being obtuse, just answer my question.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’d go in a heartbeat,” she declared,

  “So what’s the point?”

  “You’re terrified of that Harley,” she said.

  I was speechless. “I am?” I said, thinking maybe she was wrong in her assessment, even though I knew she wasn’t.

  “Yep, petrified. I wondered when this was going to happen.”

  “He took me up to the State Park on his bike a while back, I didn’t have a problem then.”

  “That’s not how I remember you describing it,” Beth said.

  “Well, it was kinda scary.”

  “And now he’s talking about capturing you on that bike of his, on that dangerous vehicle, and you’re balking with some silly excuse that he should be more responsible and keep his shop open.”

  “Doesn’t sound good, does it?” I agreed. I hated her being right.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I think you’d really better figure out your feelings about this, or your just going to butt heads with Kurt Cezant over and over. You have too many more disagreements in principle like this, and he’ll be gone. That’s not to say that I completely understand your choice in men right now. But I understand where he comes from.”

  I studied the way Beth was combing through her tangled hair with a practiced precision, thinking that she was far more suited for the man I was in love with. I could imagine her brown hair flying as she rode body to body with Kurt on his bike. It kind of amazed me that she wasn’t turned on by him. At least she was far from admitting it.