STORY EXCERPT

Amy poured the water into the kettle and wondered for how much longer she could take Todd’s long-winded and detailed complaints about his latest girlfriend.

It wasn’t that she found him annoying, not usually, in fact just the opposite. The irritation she felt was due to the silly reasons he seemed to be concocting in order to break up with the girl. That was Amy’s excuse for her bad mood and she was sticking to it. It couldn’t possibly be due to the fact that she found Todd remotely attractive, not at all. Really. She was used to hearing about his love life, this was nothing new.

Since she’d met him, all those years ago, well, eight at least, she had been more than aware of his charms. For all of the time since they met they had become all but inseparable. All but for the times he found a girlfriend and was diverted by his new interest for a week, a month, and on one worrying occasion for nearly a whole summer. That one had been hard to take.

It was high school where they met, fresh faced and eager to educate themselves. He’d bumped into her on the steps on the way in and that was the first time her heart leapt, certainly not the last.

‘Hey, sorry,’ he’d said in that deliciously deep drawl that managed to sound intelligent and sexy at the same time.

‘No problem,’ Amy said as she bent down to scoop up her books that she’d dropped. It was then that they knocked heads together.

‘Ow,’ they said in unison and Amy, crouched down and rubbing the top of her head, looked into his dark brown eyes and felt something she had never experienced before. She didn’t know exactly what it was, not then at any rate, but she soon allowed her brain to catch up with her emotions and realize what she was thinking as he fumbled on the concrete for the stuff that had spilled from her bag.

‘You okay,’ Todd asked, and his eyes were watering from the collision of skulls.

‘I think so,’ Amy said. When she took the books, and a stray pencil from him, their fingers touched and she was sure he would have noticed the way her body reacted. If he had been studying her closely he would have seen her pupils dilate, he may have noticed the sheen of perspiration that beaded her forehead, or he might have wondered about the rose blush that flushed across her upper chest. 

Fortunately he wouldn’t have been able to guess, or have any idea about the most devastating effect the innocent caress of his skin had on her. He wouldn’t have been aware of the dampness that invaded her panties, more quickly and more arresting than she could have imagined possible.

When they stood, he holding out his hand to make sure she was steady on her feet, and she making every effort to ensure she didn’t let him touch her again for fear of what her reaction might be, they looked at one another and gave an equally shy smile.

‘I’m Todd, the clumsy lump,’ he said.

She held out her hand, suddenly emboldened. ‘Amy, just as clumsy, and about to be just as late for class if we don’t hurry.’

‘What’s your first one?’

‘English Literature.’

‘Me too, come on we’ll walk together.’

And they spent the whole of the day together, and were together from then on in.

She poured the boiling water from the kettle into two mugs and took the coffee across to where Todd was slouched on her couch. He was still in full flow about the latest girl to fail his stringent tests. Not that he set them real tests – Amy didn’t think he’d flipped quite that far. He seemed to operate a system of approval ratings that she had never quite understood. He was explaining where the most recent one to get dumped had fallen short of expectation.

‘Lauren was cute, don’t get me wrong,’ he said.

‘She was, she was cute,’ Amy agreed, and settled down on the couch next to him. This was going to be a long one, she recognized the signs. How did she know Lauren was cute? The same way she had known that Becky was too loud, Kate a bit too shy, Ravelle too dim, and the list went on. Todd insisted that whoever he was dating had to meet Amy. She assumed that was one of the unwritten tests, if she approved they got a tick on the unseen chart.

She wanted to find fault in all of them of course. She wanted to tell him that none of them were good enough for him. She wanted to scream that he didn’t have to search the length and breadth of New York to try and find little miss perfect. I’m here, she wanted to tell him. You found me when we were sixteen.

‘She just had this way, you know, this way of saying something as if she was trying to belittle me.’

‘Sounds like she wasn’t the one for you.’

‘Oh, she wasn’t. I can see that now. It took a while, well a couple of weeks but I can see it now for sure.’

‘Did she take it okay? When you broke up with her?’

His eyes shifted away and seemed to find the pattern on the rug at their feet fascinating.

‘Todd? You have broken up with her? That’s what this is all about, right?’

He sipped some coffee. ‘Got any cookies?’

‘Todd, you haven’t have you.’

She uncurled her slim body from the couch and went into the connected kitchen to grab the cookie jar. ‘Here,’ she said as she handed it over.

‘I have,’ he said as he nibbled on an oatmeal. ‘I have dumped her. It’s just…’

‘Come on, spill,’ she said. ‘What is it. I know you, don’t forget, you can’t lie to me.’

He looked horrified. ‘I would never lie to you, Amy, you know that. I… it’s just I may have let her think that the reason I broke up with her was you.’

‘What?’ she leaped from her seat, coffee spilling over her blue-jean-clad thighs.

ADULT EXCERPT

There were numerous times when she had laid in her bed, alone, the horns and sirens of the city as background music. She would lie on top of the covers, her clothes from the day discarded, her nightclothes undisturbed in the closet. Naked, she would close her eyes and imagine that Todd was in the room with her.

He would never speak, that was what she liked about the scenario. He didn’t tell her what he wanted, didn’t ask her any questions. Instead he would circle the bed, drinking in her nakedness, allowing her nude body to become familiar to his eyes. Her breathing would become shallow, held in while her lover took control of her skin, flicked his gaze over her most intimate parts.

When she felt his weight on the edge of the bed she let out a breath and swallowed. The anticipation was intense. It was warm in the apartment, despite the air-conditioning, but already her nipples were hard and quite painful. His side of the bed dipped further – she liked the sound of that, his side, as if he slept with her on a regular basis, or at all. His weight caused the bed to lower slightly and she allowed her body to slide gently in that direction.

The hand on her breast knew exactly what she liked. The palm covered most of the breast, rotating over the soft flesh, not ignoring the nipple but not concentrating on it either. Then his other hand took possession of her other breast and gave it similar attention. The sensations on her areola were transmitting themselves to her pussy.

She daren’t touch herself there. Or allow him to move his fingers there, at least not yet. She was conscious of how wet she was becoming. When he grasped both of her nipples simultaneously she cried out in pleasure and felt the damp slickness at the top of her thighs. The nipples were pulled out and pinched, the fingers rotating and speeding up. The raw sensitivity of her breasts echoed inside her head. The hands exploring and taking charge of her nipples were demanding, and she was eager to surrender to them.

In her mind it was then that he dipped his head and took an erect nipple into his mouth. He would suck it gently in and lightly tease it with his teeth. His warm tongue would lap at the engorged bud and then move his attention to the other breast. He would repeat the action, drawing in the nipple and as much of the full breast as he could get into his mouth.

She kept her eyes closed the whole time, not wanting to risk opening them and somehow spoiling the mood. She was being satisfied by the man she loved, the man she adored and craved. His teeth were tantalizingly pulling at the hard nipple, while his tongue lapped at the sensitive tip, causing tremors to spasm through her chest. Those sensations vibrated all the way down to her stomach and she felt the taut muscles tighten. Involuntarily she moved her thighs apart, messaging him that she was ready for him to explore her even more intimately.

A hand snaked down, feathering over the skin of her lower chest, lower, past the downy hair of her belly, until the fingers curled in the small strip of hair that signaled the entrance to her sex. The fingers splayed out, and while the palm of the hand pressed down, giving delightful focus to her pubic bone, the fingers danced in an erotic motion, lightly playing unheard music on the wet folds below.

She felt the motion on the bed as he moved away from her breasts to concentrate on her pussy. With one hand he parted the folds, revealing the pink arousal within. With the other hand he rolled a finger along the damp labia, not attempting to enter her, just deliciously creating waves of pleasure to throb over her sex. Then his thumb brushed over the sensitive clit, and she cried out in an explosion of orgasm that shook her body from head to toes.