A New Beginning

Kara snapped awake. She jerked the earbuds from her ears and thrust the MP3 player under a Vogue magazine. "I'm in here."

Clark strode in. "So what's the plan tonight?"

"Plan?"

"Yeah, it's Friday. Date night. Your week. Your pick. Dinner? Chick flick? Wine tasting?"

God, I forgot. "Uh . . ."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Do I need to dress up?"

"How about popcorn and a movie in? Wedding Date?"

"Okay." Clack scratched his nose. "Haven't we seen that a million times?"

"I like it."

"Your date. Your pick. Tell you what, I'll grab some pizza, you make the popcorn."

The popcorn and pizza was gone. On the home screen, Kate had just been told how incredible she was by her hired boyfriend. She was still staggered by the aftershocks of her hired man's verbal stroking.

Clark's right arm snaked over Kara's shoulders. He brushed back her hair. His hand skimmed Kara's ear.

Kara shivered. She squirmed deeper into the couch cushion. Her legs uncrossed.

Clark massaged her earlobe. Kara sucked in her bottom lip. Something heavy, like sand warmed on a tropical beach, settled between the lowest regions of her hips. Her legs vibrated. They inched open a finger-width wider.

On the big screen, Kate unloaded her bank account at the ATM. Clark ran his fingers up the backside of Kara's ear. Her eyes lost focus. The silver screen girls were screaming in bachelorette party glee. All Kara saw was a blur.

Clark traced the whorls of Kara's ear. Her lip popped from between her teeth. Her bosom heaved with a ragged gasp. She spread her shaking legs further.

Another touch. Kara moaned. A slow wave passed from her head, down her neck, over her breast, through her abdomen to her hips. She ground her crease into the couch cushion.

Distantly, she knew Kate was tangling with her boyfriend.

Clark leaned towards her. His breath blew hot on Kara's left ear. "Kara, baby, come for me, please."

"Clark, I can't come on comma—" Kara's eyes rolled up. Her right hand opened and closed along the seat of the couch. Her left hand skittered across Clark's thigh. The sand melted. "Oh, gawd. Shit." She began to pant.

"Kara, please orgasm."

"Clark! Oh shit. Clark." A much harder wave rolled through Kara. The molten glass between her legs splashed. It boiled up within her. It filled her. "Oh shit. Clark - Oh. Gawd."

"For me, baby, please orgasm."

Kara's head smacked back into the couch. Her hands clutched at nothing. She splayed her legs. Her toes curled. Kara's back arched. "Clark!"

Kara fell back to the couch. Ripples coursed over her flesh. She leaned against Clark. He stroked her hair.

"You all right, baby?"

Kara heaved several shuddering breaths. "Yeah, I'm—" She paused. "—kind of sticky."

"Was it worth it?"

Several heartbeats hammered by. "Yes."

He pushed her up off his shoulder. He held her. His eyes searched hers. "Are you sure, did you like it?"

"Yes, you dolt," Kara said, her voice gaining strength. "How couldn't I love it? That was like — nothing I ever felt. My toes orgasmed. My ears orgasmed. My finger's orgasmed. Shit, Clark, my knees orgasmed. I mean, everything orgasmed. It was like - It was like - I don't know what it was like."

"You want to do it again?"

Kara pushed away a little. "Not right now."

"Why not?"

"Let me get my breath back. Gawd, let me get my sanity back."

Clark chuckled.

They did not make love that night. Though Clark's phallus poked at Kara's backside as they spooned. It was still hard when she woke in the morning. She wondered if Clark slept.

No gym that morning. Saturday was their day off. Normally eager for her once a week heaping plate of eggs, Kara played with her food.

"Something wrong, honey," Clark said, between mouthfuls.

"We need to talk—" Kara broke off. "What are you going to have me listen to today?"

"Huh?"

"The music. It makes me—"

Clark put down his fork. He turned more fully to face her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I was just trying—"

"Don't interrupt. The music makes me do things. Doesn't it?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what exactly does it do?"

"What I told you. It helps you stay in the moment. It also - it also makes sex a priority."

"A priority? More like a primal need."

"Well isn't it?"

Kara bobbed her head back and forth in an odd, non-committal wave. "Is that all it does?"

"It also, uh, encourages you to listen more."

"Uh-huh, I kind of got that."

"And—"

"And what?"

"It gives you suggestions. I mean—"

"It makes me do things."

"No, not makes you. It kind of offers your subconscious an idea. If you're okay with it - I mean, if your subconscious has no objections, moral or otherwise, it allows you to more easily consider opportunities. It does not force you.

"Like, like when we had sex in the gym shower. You rejected the hall and the women's locker room. You could have rejected the idea outright. But you were open to the idea, it enticed you and we came up with an alternate solution."

"That doesn't explain what happened last night. You don't just suggest that someone orgasm and then they do it."

"Okay, that one was different. They're all hypnotism, I suppose, but that one was more like programming. If you listened to it regularly, I could ask you to come and you would, regardless of how aroused you were before I asked. Because you'd only listened once. It took a little more. Not only did you have to be - ready, I had to ask you two or three times."

"Uh-huh. So, my original question?"

"Uh—"

"What were you going to have me listen to today?"

"Well," he said, "I have Null."

"Null?"

"Yeah, it takes away the suggestions."

"So it will be like it never happened?"

"No, you'll still have the memories. Having done something once usually makes it more likely you'll do it a second time, especially if you enjoyed it. You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"Yes . . . Were you really going to erase the suggestions?"

Clark looked away. He gnawed on his lip."

"Clark?"

He took a big breath. "I have a Sexy Dreams program."

"What's that do?"

"It'd make you dream about sex, of course. Vividly. So vividly you might wake up thinking you're having sex."

"What else?"

"Uh."

"Clark, I checked your computer. You have at least three more MP3 you haven't told me about."

Clark's eyes shifted away from hers. "They're Bare Down There, Suggestion and Trainher."

"Suggestion? Trainher? What are those?"

Clark began to fiddle with his English-muffin. "You'd have to listen to both for a long time. At least to keep them working. Suggestion is kind of like the other MP3, except, it would allow me to make the suggestion, after saying a phrase, and you would, I mean your subconscious would either accept or reject it. You wouldn't remember me giving the suggestion."

"What would you suggest?"

A bead of sweat dripped off Clark's brow. "I don't know, I haven't—"

"Yes you have."

"Gee strings, crotchless panties, bare down there—"

"Gee strings and crotchless panties aren't all that practical you know."

Clark shrugged. "They're attractive."

"And Trainher? What does it do?"

"You can't guess?"

"Just tell me."

"Okay, uh, it's like Suggestion. Sort of. Except that, well, I ask you to do something, if it's about sex, you'll get, uh, horny. If you do it, you get hornier. Your next orgasm is supposed to be stellar. Kind of a reward."

"Do I forget you asked?"

"No, it's, uh, all conscious."

"And if I don't do it?"

"You, uh, get blue balls. And—"

"And?"

"And you next orgasm is not all that."

"So a reward punishment program."

"Yeah."

"So was that what I was going to listen to today?"

"No. Kara, I swear. No. Maybe Suggestion, but not Trainher. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Why do you have it then?"

"They came as a package."

Kara got up without finishing her breakfast. "I see." She strode from the room.

"Kara?"

Kara returned with the MP3 player. She scrolled through list she'd previously synced. "Which one's which?"

"Uh, seven is Null."

"What's six?"

"Trainher. Five is Suggestion and four is Bare Down There."

Kara deleted a program. She wandered over to her favorite easy-chair.

"Kara?"

She arched an eyebrow at Clark. She popped in the earbuds. "We'll finish this later." She sat down and clicked play. Clark drooped. She closed her eyes. The music swelled.

Kara blinked her eyes open. She stood, staggered sideways and caught herself on the wall. A picture slipped from its moorings and thudded on the floor.

"Kara?" Clark raced in. "You all right?"

She popped the earbuds out. "I feel a bit dizzy." She retracted her hand and wobbled.

"You listened to it for two hours. What did you do? Have it on playback?"

"I wanted to make sure it took."

Clark's eyes dulled. "Sit back down a moment. Let me get you a glass of water."

"Aren't you going to try it out?"

"Try - huh? You didn't listen to Null." It wasn't a question.

"No."

"Nor Bare Down There."

Kara licked her lips. He looked at her thoughtfully. Light flared in his eyes.

"Kara, would you please take off your pants."

Fire surged within Kara. It gathered between her hips. Clark's hands seemed to cradle it. His breath fed it. It glowed hotter.

Kara's hands shook. The buttons of her jeans popped open one-by-one. She hitched her thumbs in the waistband, and pushed.