Erotic Poetry Workshop

Hi all - this story is not the lusty, depraved romps I've been writing. It's just a cute lesbian story. Kinda vanilla, but sometimes I just want a latte. Be nice ;)

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When her mouth finds mine, I don't know what to do... or think... or feel... or have any response beyond a moan. Is it relief? Is it ecstasy? Anticipation? Surprise?

No, not surprise. I knew this was coming, though perhaps I thought certainly it would have been me kissing her.

Her hand travels up my shirt, this stupid Hello Kitty teeshirt that I wore like an idiot. I wasn't even being ironic. I genuinely like the shirt... but not as much as glancing down to see her hand beneath it cupping my breast. I can feel how hard my nipples have become, and clearly she knows; she's rolling them between her fingers. She isn't wear a bra either, brave of her considering the rack she has pressed against me. My own bee stings are just as exposed, though who would notice if I wasn't aroused.

At a romance writer's conference. Me, not aroused. Why don't I think things through?

I've heard her poetry. She's not the shallow type, but it didn't stop her from examining my chest.

Dear god, she's exquisite. And that tongue of hers wrapping around mine. The scent of her dark, glossy hair... cinnamon sugar and something else.

I feel like I've known her forever, the words of her poetry traveling straight to my soul, finding my scars and vulnerable underbelly, entering me and warming me from the inside. Goddamn, that's a metaphor right there. And if that's not enough, I think she's about to fuck me. Hard to believe we only met this morning.

It wouldn't have happened if either of us had arrived on time to the _Sex Scenes that Sell_ lecture. See, I'm not much of a planner. My success is limited to activities that tolerate an extreme amount of lateness. I'm generally known as a flake. I don't have much experience with romance or sex either, but you wouldn't know it. The one thing I'm particularly good at is simulating something I know nothing about and completely faking my ass off. I've gotten myself into an out of number of sticky situations this way, but it's a living.

There was standing room only, and that was in the foyer. That is to say, the ballroom serving the Sex Scenes lecture was so over capacity that a fire marshal might have passed out on the spot. A breezy blend of floral perfume and pachouli stink hit me in the face as I tried to see over heads and strained to hear. It was no use, and this as I'm six foot one in heels.

"Excuse me," I said to the woman with a conference badge and a radio, "I registered for this lecture. Is there no seating inside?"

The woman had the simmering look of a person that was just about over it. Her tone was only mildly impatient. "Registration software error. EVERYONE was registered."

"Yeah but... I paid..."

"Send an email to the conference coordinator. It's in your welcome packet."

"But..."

"Look, if you want to make use of this time, there are other workshops happening right now. Find one you like and go. Here..." The woman wrote her initials on the back of a tattered, elderly business card that has seen many pockets, and a note that said 'admit one on account of jackassery'. "If anyone gives you shit, have them radio Stella."

Because of course her name was Stella.

So I meandered away from the ballroom and checked the meeting agenda on my app. There was only one other workshop happening now.

I reached the door to Erotic Poetry, and at first I thought I had the wrong room. It looked set for an audience, but no one was in there. Correction. There was exactly one person in there: the presenter.

"Come in come in, have a seat!" said the woman in a musical lilt. She was tall, though not as tall as me, with long white hair down to her bum and skin that looked easily 20 years younger than I suspected it should.

"This is Erotic Poetry?" I asked, walking down the aisle between banks of gray hotel chairs.

"I know, it's underwhelming," said the woman. "It's my own fault for booking my session during a Hugo winner's lecture on sex."

"They gave me this card."

"You keep that, darling. If you'd come in off the street you'd be welcome here."

A voice sounded at the door. "Erotic Poetry?"

I turned and my heart quickened. She was raven-haired and curvy in the extreme, with a proud nose, lips like a bow, and eyes that hinted of secrets. Then I noticed her black and white dress was printed with white skulls and roses, the choker she wore had sharp studs, and her nose ring was a serpent eating its tail. Lashes for days and blood-wine lips pointed in my direction. Leather boots climb to her knees, and she swayed broadly as she walked in, her movement feminine and dangerous.

Never before had I felt so much like a lumberjack. I unconsciously tested my breath. For the record, it was fine.

"Didn't fit in the Sex Scene session?" I asked as she approached.

"Fuck no, I signed up for this workshop," she said, her voice dusky with just a hint of the south in her articulations. "I know how to write sex. I want to write sexual art."

"You are in the right place," said the presenter. "My name is Tamsin. And if this is all, perhaps we can take our class somewhere more interesting, hm?"

The hotel coffee shop was a small affair with reading nooks and large picture windows at the rear of the outlet. The windows overlooked the canals and a gondola poling by. The three of us scooted together, our laptops crowding the small table. I sat on one side with my fellow classmate. Workshop mate? Anyhow.

"Well, this is intimate, isn't it." Tamsin sat over her steaming cup of black coffee and leaned forward. "Let's talk about sex."

"Ba-by," hummed my workshop mate, who introduced herself as Lilith. The jewel in the eye of her snake nose ring glittered at me.

Tamsin smiled. "What kind of sex do you like?"

I cleared my throat. "Ha, um. No ice breakers, huh?"

"Passionate," said Lilith. "Intense."

"That's all?" said Tamsin.

Lilith scoffed. "Do it right, and that's enough."

"Do you prefer men, women, both?"

"Prefer women, but I'll wet a pole."

My face went hot. I suddenly felt this door crack open between me and the woman with her thigh pressed to mine. Which is fucking presumptuous, but like... she was sooooo uuuugh. And I hadn't had sex in...

So, my ex-wife and I had years of disconnection, and the exit was a slow burn-out. I was physically, emotionally, and intellectually exhausted by the idea of another relationship, but that doesn't mean I wasn't horny. I'm also very selective and that left me alone and I'm good with that. Mostly. Except when I feel like I did sitting next to Lilith.

"You look nervous," said Tamsin. I could feel Lilith's gaze burning the side of my cheeks.

"Aren't we supposed to learn how to write poetry?" I said.

"This is a workshop," said Tamsin. "We learn by doing."

Her emphasis of the word 'doing' sent a shiver through my abdomen, and I could feel my body... lubricating. Fuck, this was going to be a long hour.

"So, how about you?" she asked me. "What kind of sex do you like, Elysia?"

"Same, I guess."

"No, no," grinned Tamsin. "We all do our own assignments."

"Um... I like... a bit of everything really."

"Be specific."

Fuck, was Lilith just staring at me? I didn't dare take my eyes from Tamsin's. Or did that make me look too intense? I looked at the table.

"I like... slow, soft touches on my body. Firm, warm touches in my erogenous zones. I... prefer to be submissive, but I like a game of sexual chess now and again, so I'll take a dominant role to play a round or two."

Tamsin was quiet. Appraising. Goddammit, I felt more words coming out of my mouth.

"I like to be bound, spanked, forced to my knees...fingered and eaten slowly. I love anal play and usually can't cum without something in my ass. But I really prefer to do those things for someone else."

"Good, good. Let it all out, honey," said Lilith.

My face burned.

"And I like girls," I said. "Exclusively."

I think... I think Lilith's smile disappeared.

"Thank you," said Tamsin. "I did mean more on the emotional spectrum, but all details add to the discourse swirling inside your sexual spheres. And that's what we want to find in the erotic. Eros is all about needs, a sublimated instinct to propagate, and we ride this instinct most definitely with no intention to propagate, but to emote. Emotions communicate the strength and insistence of this instinct. Emotions separate erotica from porn. And that's what we want to tap into with poetry, dig deep into the depths of your sexual souls... or perhaps employ restraint, build tension."

"I'll employ restraint," said Lilith behind her coffee cup.

"You have thoughts, Lilith?" said Tamsin. "Please share."

"I don't know. Does sex have to be all emotional?"

"You said you enjoy passionate sex."

"You can have passion without emotion."

"Can you?" said Tamsin. "Passion is a derivative of emotional magnitude, if such a thing could be measured."

"I don't feel particularly emotional during sex," said Lilith. "But I do feel passion."

"Perhaps you don't feel love during sex," said Tamsin. "But if you experience passion, you are having strong emotions indeed. Perhaps that's exactly what you need your poetry to explore and unlock."

I nod. "Right, like, poetry for yourself instead of for others."

"Poetry is always an expression of self," said Tamsin, "whether personal or projected. It may be commercialized, but it's not a commercial proposition."

Lilith fondled her coffee cup. "Are we... going to get pointers? Maybe do some writing?"

Tamsin smiled but said nothing. She looked back and forth between Lilith and me. And we looked at her.

Finally Lilith said, "What's happening here?"

"You feel that?" said Tamsin.

Lilith raised her brow.

"That's tension."

I bit my lip.

"Now, if I ask...," said Tamsin, "why won't the two of you look at each other?"

My cheeks caught fire. I should have worn concealer today.

Tamsin's eyes crinkled at the corners. "You feel that? That's _sexual_ tension."

Lilith dropped her head. "Fuck," she whispered.

Tapping my notebook, Tamsin said, "Write it. Write your feelings."

"Just like that?" said Lilith.

"Tension and awareness are the keys to erotica," said Tamsin. "You've already established the first. Focus on feeling words that connect your mind to your body."

I was already writing, and Lilith clicked her pen with excruciating slowness before following suit. Tamsin sat back and sipped her coffee. Words dripped from my pen, and I felt them like an ache.

My pen hit the page too loudly, and I was too aware of the feeling circulating below my navel, and the intended recipient of those words. Lilith wasn't writing, but her head was down. I read my words over and over again. Picked up my pen. Scratched a word through, puzzled out a new one. When Lilith lowered her pen, I lowered mine.

"Who wants to read theirs first?" said Tamsin, her face betraying something akin to joy.

Lilith lifted her paper, and a dark breath of air carried each word:

_Pussy. _

_Queen, Mother,_

_Devil, savior._

_She demands_

_Attention,_

_Worship,_

_Satisfaction._

_Women know her._

_Men believe they do._

_Pussy speaks to pussy._

_A language of delicious moans,_

_Wet lips,_

_Musky, milky desire._

_Grind, finger, lick, circle, pump,_

_The language of cunts,_

_Thanks be to God._

Lilith set down her page with a look that felt like a challenge. And I calmed the bite of my lip, the flare of my nostrils. I could feel her looking at me.

Nodding, Tamsin said, "Elysia, tell us about Lilith's poem. What are your thoughts?"

"It was... um..."

"You can just say _hot_," said Lilith, her eyes burning into me.

"Sapphic," I said.

"Quite," said Tamsin. "Talk to me about emotions. How did it make you feel."

"It felt exclusive...," I said.

"No, how did it make _you _feel?"

I tilted my head. "She invoked women in their power forms, so, powerful. And yes, _I_ felt exclusive. As a woman attracted to women."

"How did affect your body?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Connect the words to your body."

I swallowed. "Wet. It made me wet."

Everyone was silent, my arousal hanging in the air, vulnerability twisting my guts.

"Tension," said Tamsin, and everyone laughed. My eyes finally flitted to Lilith's, and she was staring at me.

I lifted my page:

_Curving miles. Fingers_

_Walking to the grove._

_Rigid peaks atop_

_Soft, pink thrusts. They beg_

_Attention. How not _

_Should I oblige tastes_

_Of such a landmark_

_Feature? I look back_

_Whence I came, fragile_

_Ripples of landscape..._

_I'll need to make my_

_Way back, dark windows_

_Glassy over need,_

_Beyond the ripples'_

_Ripe invitation._

_As I traverse lush,_

_Dark brush, an odor_

_At once pungent and_

_Delicate whisper_

_Secrets of the grove._

_She needs tending, so_

_I settle myself_

_Into her fragrant _

_Valley, and indulge_

_Sacred nectars, mine, _

_Bartered for endless,_

_Sweet adoration. _

When I lowered my page, Tamsin was smiling. Lilith was not. Lilith's mouth was slightly askew where she was chewing on her lip.

The session continued. Lines piled up. Each no less provocative than the last. And when we finally noted the time, the scheduled session time had been over for 25 minutes.

Tamsin smiled, her cheeks a bit rosy after the last round - a description of our own pussies without using a single sexual word. And yes, my panties were soaked. But that wasn't the one that locked me into this girl next to me. That assignment was on love, specifically what was missing for each of us, what has never worked. And Lilith's poem... I felt every word. Like I _was_ the poem. From that moment on, I found it difficult any time I needed to break eye contact with her. She never broke first.

Tamsin said, "Now, I can't tell you what to do. But I'm sensing this creative duo has not concluded. Therefore, you have an assignment if you choose to accept it. Go somewhere quiet where you can really expression yourselves, be vulnerable, and trade lines."

"Write together?" I said.

"Write erotic poetry together...," said Lilith.

Standing, Tamsin tapped the rim of her mug with the underside of a mood ring. "Class has ended. Fill the world with love."

After Tamsin had departed, Lilith and I kind of just... stood there. Not looking at each other.

My heart thundered in my chest.

Then Lilith rocked into me, her shoulder to my bicep. "Why am I nervous?" We looked at each other and giggled.

"Do you want to?" I asked.

Lilith grinned. "My room or yours?"

----

"Wow," I said, looking around, "this is incredible." The door closed behind me with a click that I felt in my panties.

"I guess," said Lilith. "If you need three rooms to yourself in a hotel." She tossed her shoulder bag onto the couch and pulled her notebook out. "Where do you want to do this?"

I realized she was talking to me, but my eyes were on the silver vibrator and butt plug sitting on her nightstand.

"Oh please, like you don't have those," she said. "They're clean, I promise. Perhaps you didn't notice, but I'm a very sexual person."

"I have a whole bag. But... not here."

"Oh, I have my bag here," she said with a wink. "It's in the closet."

"It's like that, is it?" I said, trying not to bite my lip like an idiot.

Look, I wasn't going to pretend this was a particular kind of invitation. It might have been. But probably not. We were just writers. Collaborating. It was a collaboration. In near proximity to vibrators. And...

"But like, what kind of stuff is in your bag?" I said.

Lilith unzipped and pulled off her boots, and she climbed onto the bed. Sitting on her heels, her dress road up on her milky thighs. She looked at me and swirled her hand over the sheets. "This seems like a good place to write, don't you think?"

"Oh, y-yeah. For sure." I slipped off my sandals and met her dark hotness with my... fucking Hello Kitty tee shirt and athletic shorts. God damn, I keenly aware of what I loser I was.

"So," she said, looking at me. "Assignment is trading lines."

"Yes."

Looking at me... or... what... did she keep glancing at my tiny tits? She said, "Do you want free verse or structure?"

"Structure. I like structure in poetry so I know where to place the tension."

"Yes, power dynamics are important," Lilith said, all teeth.

Fucking hell. I shuffled my legs, squirming against the feeling in my groin.

"Pentameter is the most common metrical line in English," said Lilith. "Tried and true?"

"How do you know that?"

"I know all kinds of random shit. It's useless mostly."

"Not useless right now."

"You going first, or am I?"

I opened my mouth... and nothing came out. "Okay, you first."

Lilith closed her eyes:

_Soft folds devour_

She opened them and looked me, the challenge hanging in the air between us like a purple electrical arc.

I wrote down her line. My turn:

_My nose, her scent hot_

"Damn," she said. "Right for the clit, huh?"

"Oh please, that wasn't the clit," I grinned. "If I was going for the clit, I wouldn't miss."

Lilith licked her lips, her bosom rising as she inhaled:

_Pungent, labia_

Oof. Right in the clit. I scribed our contributions. Then:

_Slick, my suckling_

Without missing a beat, she said:

_Mouth full, coaxing sour_

"Mouth full... damn girl," I whispered.

"It's only polite to offer a mouthful," she said.

"I mean... if you can."

"Oh, I can."

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I swallowed hard:

_Thrills,_

"...wait hang on, let's see _coaxing sour... notes, touches... kisses..._"

"Yeah, I'm not... feeling it?" she said.

"Um, well we can open with something else."

"Ooooor," she said, "we just need to start with more foreplay."

I hummed. "Like...?"

"Start the poem with more touching and mouth kissing."

My heart was thundering, my pulse pounding in my ears. "That's, like," I said, "a pretty good idea. But we are supposed to connect our bodies to the poem."

"That's right, we were told that."

"And so maybe, we should, like... say the line... and then do the line?"

She seemed to stop breathing for a moment. A long moment. As she hung, frozen, I began to wonder if something medical was happening. But then the burning in my chest informed me I wasn't breathing either.

"On each other," she said.

I finally bit my lip and blushed like an idiot.

A coy grin crept across her features. "You know, I usually make the first move."

"You... did invite me to your room."

"Touché. And for the record," she said, shoving our notebooks and pens off the bed. "We should probably just go back and forth and then try to remember what we said? It will flow better that way."

"I don't think we're going to remember," I said.

"Gorgeous, I don't think we'll ever forget." And Lilith motioned me forward, and I leaned onto my palms as she took my face in her small hands. Her kiss found my nose first, a gentle, moist impression. Then her lips glided over mine, their tacky softness tugging at my bottom lip before snatching it and drawing my lip into her mouth. Lightening shots down my spine and straight to my pussy. Oh, about that...

"Um," I said, backing up just a bit. "If this is happening, no surprises. I'm um... it's about my... arrangement. Between my thighs, that is."

Lilith's eyes narrowed. "Shit. You got something?"

"Um... I wasn't born with it. It's... it's a science pussy."

"Don't be mad?" she said, squinting. "I kinda figured."

"For real?"

"You're easily one of the more girly girls I've ever seen... but you're... proportions are a little boxy, and girl, you have no hips."