Leave the Night On Pt. 03

The radio is still on. Another song has come on. I start feeling hot everywhere. My heart is hammering against my ribcage. Pearl is sucking in earnest, down and up again. She's my dream come true with the floppy swirls her tongue does all over my dick, giving a special attention to the tip because she knows that's where I go nuts.

I fist a handful of soft curls, guiding and following her head at the same time as it rises and falls. She makes her way up my length again and there's a tiny golden moment where she loses her breath and makes a gasping sound that's almost desperate. But then as soon as she's recovered her breath, she's back at it again. The intensity coming from her is electric, ever increasing. She starts moaning those indecent sounds she usually makes during sex. One hand grabs my hip, nails digging into skin like she's hanging on for dear life.

She's so lost in me; I get a high so excruciating I need a second to squeeze my eyes shut and allow myself a moment to simply feel. Her hand, cupping the base, squeezes and I flex my hips forward, momentarily leaving the driving out of my mind. I flex my hips again and she takes every thrust as I give it to her, deeper and deeper. The vibration her moaning creates travels from my groin, up my spine, and reaches the pleasure center in my brain. I feel myself begin to lose it, my dick growing tighter and tenser against her tongue.

Pearl senses I'm on the edge of coming. As soon as she's licked off my pre-come, she's sliding down again almost faster than my hand on her hair can push her. My hips have found a rolling rhythm. A shiver runs down my spine and my fingers curl in her hair.

She plunges down then, so deep she gags, and that's when my mind leaves my body and I spill every drop of my lust all the way down her throat. I hear myself hissing, "Fuck!". I loosen the pressure on her head, my eyes searching for a piece of cloth or old t-shirt, but Pearl's mouth tightens around me, throat working, swallowing it all. The road's disappeared. I don't even know where we are. If we die, at least I'll be able to say I died in ecstasy.

The thumping of my heartbeats is a synchronized pulse in my dick. There's a pop sound when Pearl slides her mouth off of my still throbbing dick. She leaves a trail of kisses along it, ending with another sweet kiss to the head. When she's all done, she puts me back in my boxes and zips my pants with tender care.

She comes back up to face me, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She's such a beautiful view. Hair messed up, eyes watery, mouth swollen and rosy. Through the haze of lust fogging my brain, I do what I should've done earlier, I press my foot to the break and stop the car with a jerk. Without giving any of us time to recover, I slide a hand under her nape and draw her nearer. Knowing where her mouth has just been, what it's just done, I kiss her with a violence that leaves us both heaving afterwards.

"You're the nicest kind of bad girl out there."

Her smile is a beam of sunlight. "You're not going to start being nice to me now, are you?"

"Only if you don't stop with the singing."

She's still laughing when I kiss her again. The saltiness of my own taste is in her mouth. My hand slips under her sweater to find warm and soft skin under my palm. I can feel her heart hammering against her chest. My hand cups a supple breast and then...her phone starts ringing. I sense her wanting to pull away, but I hold her to me, so she stays. She's just about to get on top of me when the ringing recommences. This time I can't stop her reaching for the source of the interruption.

Pearl gets back to her seat and pulls the phone from her bag. She doesn't seem to notice a black notebook slip out of it and land near my foot. Whatever number she sees on her screen has her face changing with worry. A frown puts a deep dent between her brows. She ignores the call. I want to ask her what's wrong, but I feel like I'd step over some boundary if I do. Instead of inquiring on her ignored call, I pick up the leather-bound notebook. When she sees it in my hand, she snatches it back so fast you'd think she's a teenage boy hiding his playboy. "Wow. I wasn't going to read your diary, Pearl."

She shoves it back into her bag with frantic fingers. "Sorry. That was rude," she says, clutching her bag to her chest. "It's nothing. It's just...It's personal."

I eye her suspiciously. She's entitled to her privacy. Yet, not for the first time, I think that there's a lot about Pearl I don't know. And there's a lot she's purposely keeping to herself. This is new for the both of us, but something tells me I'm the one with more cards on the table.

Seeing all the playfulness of a moment ago gone, I start the car again.

***

I SWIG BEER FROM THE BOTTLE precariously dangling from my fingers. The alcohol is settling on me, slowly loosening me up. The effect it has on Pearl, however, is even better. Somehow, the drinks she's had have made her softer. In every way. She's halfway to being drunk enough to sleep over at my place. My theory is corroborated by the state of her. She's languorously lying on a spot I've begun to call hers, on the opposite end of the couch, with her feet resting on my lap.

She's in my house. On my couch. There's a weird, albeit agreeing, silence disturbed only by the crackle of the fire on the hearth. I have one hand closed around her calf. She has one hand lying over her stomach as she slurs, "This couch is cozy heaven." All we need now is a TV on. The domesticity we're in paints a surrealist picture, and yet it scratches an old itch of mine even as I fight an urge to deny it. It's primal and simplistic in its sexism, but I feel like a man for the first time in ages. Fuck. It feels awesome to admit it. I'm in the company of a hot as hell woman who gave me a mind-blowing car head merely a few hours ago.

In the right here right now, the only concern I have is getting Pearl out of her clothes by the end of this night. On a regular day, I'd be collecting Hannah's toys after having tucked her in. I'd be having a beer by myself, scrolling through Tinder just to check because I never dare like anyone. I loathe these modern solutions to dating. Even if, sporadically, I find myself in these hypocritical episodes in which I consider the possibility only to despise it the next second.

Sex I found when I looked for it. It was initiated and concluded somewhere else. I never bring women to my house. Even in Hannah's absence, I was always careful to separate my weekends from my personal life. Tonight, however, I have Pearl here, in the house my parents built with years of hard work. She feels like something innate to this environment. Something that's always belonged to my little world. Same as the old fireplace, or the wooden dining table with my name etched to its surface. Pearl's posture itself is a testimony to how easily molded to this space in my life she could be. The last time I experienced this brand of intimacy around a woman was months before my relationship spiraled into a shitstorm that resulted in divorce.

Under my hand, there's a softness entirely weird in its novelty, because I don't think I've ever stroked the skin over the bones on a woman's ankle in this life. Pearl makes a small sound of pleasure and I squeeze her foot only to have her nudge it into my hand. I'm only too glad to forsake my beer to obey to her silent demand for a foot massage. Almost absently, I begin kneading smooth curves and hard arches. She mumbles, "Oh God, don't stop." And I can't help recalling another time when she muttered those words under my hands.

A glance at her is all I need to start smiling to myself. She's so sinfully beautiful. She has got the most sumptuous skin. It's milk chocolate brown and enticing. Her hair is a storm of long black coils upon the pillow under her head. She's wearing a goddamn pair of jeans that has to be some kind of torture device because it hugs her so well, showing how curvaceous and alluring her body is. My hand, busy with the massage, is debating yanking her pants down her legs until I get access to her warm and, hopefully, wet pussy. If I have one more beer, I'm going to start giving my hands-free rein.

I'm thinking too much. If I get more comfortable here, next morning I'll wake up with neck pains and Pearl's feet on my lap. I break the silence. "Hey."

"Hum?" Her eyes are closed. She has eyelashes so long they almost skim her cheeks.

"What's on your mind?"

A little wicked smile makes an appearance. "Sex", she says.

There's another thing I like about her; sometimes she says exactly what I didn't know I wanted to hear. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Am I in there too?"

"Theoretically." She opens her brown eyes in time to read my expression. She sees I didn't get the answer my ego wanted. "I'm thinking I love it. And I've done it a lot. And I've done it with you." She stops, eyes expectant and intent on my face.

I know what she's waiting to see. She won't find any judgment coming from me. "I'm listening." She is a talker, normally. With my incentive, and alcohol, more words flow out of her.

"It's not that I've slept with that many guys, you see. It's just that...Why is it a problem for a woman? When I say I slept with like...twenty guys?" She makes a pause here, still waiting for a reproach from me. That's when I realize she's used to getting it. When I don't react, she smirks with a subtle contentment, and goes on. "Anyway, people give me that 'You're a slut' look. A man never gets that look. Because a man who enjoys sex is a player. He's more of a man for it and he gets a tap on the back. It took me a long time to accept myself and the fact I had desires and that it wasn't wrong for me to pursue them. So, that's what I was thinking about."

Do I care that she's slept with twenty dudes throughout her life? No. That's her life, her body, her right.

Am I irrationally hating every single man that's ever touched her? Yeah. Because I have some testosterone induced jealousy claiming exclusive rights to her body.

I sigh, long and loud. I'm on the edge of drowsiness and this isn't a topic I've discussed with anyone before. I'm not complaining about the talking we do. I love it, actually. I can talk to Pearl about things I've never tried with anyone else. My nights with her are riveting. I'm enthralled by the places her mind takes us to. Problem is, we have already had sex. A lot of it. Great, sweaty, and filthy sex. Now, we're doing things backwards, having dates that never end with our clothes on the floor and Pearl being fucked until my name is the only word she's able to utter.

"I get it," I declare, after debating the idea with myself. "I have a daughter and there are pressures out there saying there are things she's not supposed to do because she's a girl. What I worry about is how she'll feel with the people she'll invite into her life. I don't want her feeling less because people tell her she's not worth it. I just want her to choose well when it comes to the person she'll date, and the only thing I can do about that is teach her self-love. I figure, if she loves herself, she'll choose a person who loves her as well." I'm honest in my answer and Pearl's smile is confirmation she likes what she's heard. My ego is stroked by her approval. I really, really enjoy having her here.

"Julian, with an example like you at home, Hannah will have very high standards. She'll probably only date the most disgustingly attractive people."

I laugh, flattered. Again. "Thanks for validating my brittle male ego."

"You're welcome."

Suddenly, she sits, withdrawing her legs and leaving my hands idle. The way she hugs her knees lends her an unguarded aura.

"What?" I ask.

She bites her lip. An air of uncertainty settles on her face. "Can I ask you...?"

"You can."

"Have you ever..." She trails off.

I've a feeling I can guess at what's coming and yet she delays asking it. This is as unprecedented as it is exciting, having Pearl walking on such a tenuous ground. From what I gathered so far, she's proud, although not about her vulnerabilities, but about some particular weaknesses I haven't met yet. I'm in a position in which I empathize with a man taking the first step to the dark, unseen, side of the moon.

She sucks the air and breathes out her query. "Have you ever been with a black woman? I mean, before me?"

My answer is immediate. "No." She's not fast enough to hide what I read as disappointment. "I've slept with a lot of women, Pearl. Most of them were Korean. Some were not. But a black woman? Never. Not until you."

She casts her eyes down, hiding from me. I can't even begin to guess at what she's thinking. "Does it bother you?" I ask her.

"No," she says, and there's sincerity when her eyes rise to meet mine. "I only wonder if it was a question of preference, of culture, or maybe even-"

"A race specific preference in women?"

My unfortunate words earn me a reproachful glare from her. "Or lack of opportunity, because we're the 'undesirables'." Her air quotes are accompanied by a roll of eyes on that last word.

The cause of my chuckle is more the face she pulls than her choice of words. "Undesirables?"

"You know, black women and Asian men are the least desirable partners. Or so some research says. I mean, I guess eastern Asians have a tiny little advantage there, but still..."

We give space to silence for a moment. In this quietness, I look at her. Really look at her. I see a beautiful sexy woman, but also an intelligent and intriguing one. I'm not enough of a hypocrite, or an idiot, to pretend I don't understand the subject. To me, though, it doesn't even compute how a man, any man, could see her and decide she's not desirable. I've wanted her from the second my eyes found her on that dancefloor.

"I know what you mean, Pearl. And I don't see black women as less desirable," I respond to her comment with the honesty she deserves for being brave enough to poke at such a tender spot. "I like women in all shapes and sizes. That said, I was raised in an Asian community. I was, at some level, taught to celebrate my culture and, subsequently, my people. And yes, the main incentive was to date Korean girls. Because, let's face it, it was easier. It's easy to deal with the familiar. It was easy to date a girl who my family approved, a girl who was part of my culture and who understood these aspects of me." I stop to give Pearl time to digest my answer. She nods and I take it as permission to conclude my argument.

"When it comes to women, though? I have never kept my options narrowed. The diversity of my dating pool was automatically limited for me. I didn't have all kinds of women lining up to date me either. People have some pre-concepts about us minorities. Even so, my only prerequisite to date was attraction. Not race. Never race. I don't care about the ethnicity of an interesting, beautiful woman."

Pearl's eyes find an excuse to be everywhere but on me. "I never thought you did. That's not why I asked."

"Why did you ask it?"

"You know, that time, when you didn't show up..."

"You thought it was because you're black," I conclude in her stead. It registers as a painful poke in my ribs to see she must have been in a situation like that with men before. "You thought I didn't show because I had already satisfied my fetishized curiosity about how sex is with a black woman."

For the first time, I see what embarrassment looks like on her. "Some very stupid and completely irrational part of me might have thought that."

In face of her admittance, two very disparate feelings convolute within me. I'm ashamed; because I was responsible, at some unconscious level, for making her feel cheap and used. At the same time, her vulnerability floods me with an instant affection that surpasses sexual attraction. I get a whiff of power so exhilarating, for being a man trusted with this secret of insecurity, I'm overwhelmed with a craving to protect her.

"Come here, my Pearl." I wrap a hand around her calf and beckon her closer. She comes to straddle me, knotting her hands on my nape. The weight of her ass sits perfectly on my groin. "Tell me the truth. That first time, you were dancing like that for me, weren't you? You wanted me to notice you."

She laughs, like I wanted her to. "I was dancing for myself, you cocky jerk. Until I noticed you. After that, yeah...I put on a little show. I liked having your eyes on me."

"My eyes?" I tease.

"Eyes, hands, lips." She drops her eyes. "That pretty dick of yours."

Pearl has a way of insinuating she loves my dick that has it listening to her and twitching in my pants. "You like it, uh?"

"I love it." She slips her index finger a few tentative inches into the waistband of my sweatpants. I hear myself hiss when she brushes the skin just where the hair gathers. "Didn't you notice that earlier?"

"I noticed what a filthy, delicious mouth you have. Nothing I didn't already know."

"Asshole." Her presence at insult ends with her mouth sliding over to mine. The aroma of the honey beer she's had is in her breath. A sound rumbles out of her, an almost animalistic moan, characteristically loud of Pearl, as she melts into my mouth. She nibbles on my lips, asking for permission that I give willingly.

She takes a fistful of my hair, pulling me into her, asking me to give up control at the same time she's losing it. Her mouth leaves mine only for the seconds it takes her to gasp for air. Her hips start moving, rolling over my hardening length. Soon, she's dry humping me. Wild and messy. My hands are those of a teenager again, slipping under her shirt, discovering her nipples tight over the lace.

She breaks the kiss and reaches for the hem of my t-shirt. I'm compliant and lift my arms, aiding her in pulling it over my head. When my shirt is gone, Pearl withdraws a little, her entire body quieting. Her hands lay still on her thighs and all she does is stare. I watch her watching me, watch her breathing halt and become shallow, her lips tremble with every short exhale. She's transfixed, unaware of how I'm becoming inebriated by the palpable yearning irradiating from her.

Tentatively, she raises cold hands to my chest. My stomach dips and contracts with a sharp inhale. Rather than succumb to my instinct to dominate her, I relinquish myself to her touch. Pearl begins to relearn soft curves and hard lines. Fingers trace my collarbones. Nails scrape down my abdomen drawing transient tracks almost as pink as they're colored.

I revel, internally, knowing I'm the cause for the thirst dazzling Pearl. Her face is flustered from looking at me. She's this awestruck by me and knowing this causes a rush of blood to descend to my groin. In a reflex, I push my hips upwards, towards her ass, so she knows she's got me harder than ever with the way she looks at me.

Her full lips, already a little swollen from the kiss, part. She swallows dryly, eyes moving with a languid lust up and down my chest like she can't decide where to start. She chooses to let her hands run along my neck, into my hair. "I was dreaming about you, before you came for Mal, last Sunday." Her voice is low, sensuous as she tilts my head back to lick a line along my throat.

I close my eyes and groan, grabbing her ass and pushing her down against my throbbing dick. "What was I doing to you?" I ask her. My voice is huskier than usual, heavy with how horny I am.

"The usual." Her teeth raking over my skin betrays her smile even as she shrugs, feigning nonchalance. "Getting my pussy wet."

I fucking love that tells me her dreams. Dreams about me. Dreams she wants me to bring to reality. She trusts me with her desires and she is fearless in asking for what she wants and trusting me to deliver it.