Lust Transmission

The house seemed pleasant enough. Importantly, it was within Cherie's budget. She'd been looking for a place on her own for a while, a two-bedroom where she could dedicate one room to painting and forget the awkwardness of her roommate's unrequited love, and although it was in a poorer area beset with the often thick humidity that surrounded the lagoon, it ticked both of those key criteria and was otherwise comfortable. Her only doubt was over a slight musty smell lingering in the rooms. She figured it was just part of the deal in a particularly humid area and signed the lease anyway.

John helped her move. She felt guilty to ask him, but she knew he'd do it and not expect anything in return, despite what he obviously hoped for. It was written in all his actions that warm Sunday as they conveyed boxes to and from her car: the exaggerated way he would move out of her way if they happened to be walking the same path, the lame one-liners he attempted, his downward gaze when they didn't land. She wondered if he might finally say something as they parted. True to form, he just gave her a tight hug on her doorstep and went on his way. As she watched him slope off to the bus stop, his floppy, unkempt hair obscuring his face, she was confident she wouldn't see him again unless by chance. Then she walked back into the house and set about making the house her own.

Cherie decided the end room would be her studio, hoping the sliver of water visible through trees from the window would spur her on to paint a series she'd planned some time ago abstractly representing the moisture of and around humans. The idea had occurred one evening when she looked at the beach houses on the edge of a pleasant city bay and considered how temporary they all were in the face of the water below them, which was already infiltrating them through the air and ground and would ultimately inundate them decades or centuries from now. That led to thoughts of our own moisture, the corrosive carnality of it, at the same time as its fundamental importance to our existence. The sketches sat wedged in a heap towards the back of her folder of ideas. Unlike so many other sketches, for projects that seemed trite or uninspired almost immediately, the moisture series never got thrown away. It had that rare quality of appealing to something deep inside her, something she couldn't articulate. She simply had to work it out on the canvas.

She set up her easel so she could face the window while she painted. She had intended to store various art supplies in the closet of the end room - paint-spattered clothing, mixing boards, brushes etc - but when she opened the door, she noticed a patch of thin pink mold covering large sections of the back and side walls. Damn, she thought. Why didn't I check that during the viewing? She resolved to get some good mold cleaner the following weekend; in the meantime, she piled her supplies in a corner of the room and taped the moisture sketches to the wall, then returned to her bedroom to make up her futon and hang a couple of pieces on the wall.

As she worked, she noticed her heart rate had increased. A faint lightheadedness settled comfortably over her, not enough to make her actually dizzy, but enough to magically tint a mundane task. It's the heat, she told herself, as beads of sweat formed under her arms and in her cleavage; the heat and all the heavy lifting. She went to the kitchen and drank a large glass of water from the tap. It left a slightly musky aftertaste, reminiscent of the odor she'd noticed when she first entered the property. Then she went to bed.

Over the course of the week, that same lightheadedness would come and go a few times a day. Cherie found she was able to push through it at the office by staying at her desk and focusing on whatever piece of work was in front of her. During her evenings at home, however, especially as she sketched out concepts and painted, it was harder to ignore. She would sweat noticeably, even while seated, and her throat would become parched. Water helped in the short term, but after a few trips between the kitchen and the end room, she would invariably have to fix herself a sandwich - something simple and quick - and take herself off to bed to wind down and sleep.

Still, the moisture project was progressing well. Thinking about it so much had stimulated vivid dreams about sweat spreading across goose-pimpled skin, a rising tide overwhelming a populated coastline, a wetland heaving and sighing like great lungs of the Earth. She kept a sketchbook by the bed to capture these images immediately upon waking and committed them to canvas when she came home from work. An odd tingling sensation began to arise in the pit of her stomach when she was in the studio; she interpreted it as a bodily response to the most genuine artistic inspiration she'd ever felt.

That Saturday, Cherie invited her friends Sid and Karina to help warm her new home. She spent the afternoon preparing a creamy garlic pasta with roast vegetable salad and pesto-crusted haloumi. The tingling rose again while she was cooking, becoming so strong at one moment that she had to sit down, her elbow against the table and her palm against her head, and breathe deeply until it subsided. She felt filled with an intensity of some kind, something indescribable. It might still have been that sense of creative satisfaction but surely this was a greater physiological conversion than even Monet or O'Keeffe could have felt. Sparks flew from the centre of her body to the tips of her fingers and toes.

They arrived about six with a bottle of wine. Holding herself together, but still aware of the growing sensation coursing through her body, Cherie showed them around - even the end room, contravening her usual policy of not displaying works in progress to anyone. Karina was impressed, and Sid nodded politely. After the grand tour was over, they all settled down to the meal at the table.

Talk flowed easily, as it usually did with Sid and Karina. She'd always felt comfortable around them, able to share some of her more private thoughts with confidence they wouldn't be shared. Their presence took her out of herself a little.

The nice bottle of wine they'd brought ran out quickly, but given the heat they all agreed to switch to water rather than open a cheap bottle from the cupboard, so Cherie filled a pitcher with water from the tap and placed it in the table. Her guests were very complimentary about the food. They seemed to mean it, too, singling out individual flavours and textures for praise. She felt proud as she watched Sid wipe cream sauce from the rim of his plate with his finger and place it in his mouth, then wash it down with water from his glass.

A sudden curiosity seized her. What does Sid's penis look like? She'd never seen a brown one, and from a giggly, drunken conversation she'd once had with Karina, she understood his to be impressive. But did it curve upwards when erect? Did it favour one side? If it were inside her, would it be thick enough to stimulate her clitoris as it drove in and out? When he got up to go to the bathroom, she had to fight the urge to follow him and engineer some way of seeing it. She didn't just want to see it, either; she wanted to hold it, taste it, feel it. It was as though Sid, who she'd known for years without ever feeling particularly attracted to, was suddenly defined by his concealed appendage. Had he ever thought about her this way, she wondered? Would be secretly like to draw her top up over her breasts and kiss the hollow between them? Has he wondered how it feel for his abs to bump against her soft belly as the tip of his penis reached into the back of her vagina? Trying to remain calm, and embarrassed by this rare attack of lust, Cherie waited until he returned to the table and went to the bathroom herself.

It helped to pass urine; to feel something in that part of her other than the urge to be filled. Then she noticed a stain on her underwear. A translucent discharge, faintly pink, was at the center of a large wet patch on the fabric. Surely not a period, only a couple of weeks since the last? Resisting the temptation to rub her vagina and gain some quick relief, Cherie washed up and took a minute in the bedroom to change her underwear.

When she returned to the kitchen table, she found Sid and Karina draped sideways over each other, foreheads touching, Karina's right hand idly playing with the seam of Sid's shirt. They disentangled partially when they saw her, giggling.

A fresh wave of desire hit Cherie, forcing her to scurry to her seat opposite the couple and sit down. She managed to look up at their smiling faces and say, "You two," in a tone of mock admonishment.

They left soon after. In the car on the way home, Karina massaged Sid's substantial erection through his pants, daring him to take his eyes off the road. They partially disrobed seconds after entering their apartment, pushing jeans and underwear halfway down, and made love on the couch with a passion they hadn't experienced since their honeymoon. As they fucked -- vigorously at first, then languidly, bodies pressed tightly together -- they shed their clothes in stages until they were completely naked. The lubrication that had been building in Karina's vagina all evening seemed to load her with the most exquisite sense of completion while he was inside her, to the extent that it felt like his sizeable penis was even thicker than usual. For his part, Sid lost himself to the dreamy sensation of her sloppy wetness around him. Karina came first, yelping, then Sid shortly after. His ejaculation made her come again, the muscles of her pelvis squeezing and drawing his sticky fluid upwards.

When Sid reached into his jeans and took out his cellphone to check the time, they were astonished to learn they'd been at it for over an hour. It was the longest single episode of penetrative sex they'd had. They laughed and cuddled, then took themselves off to the shower, where Karina was briefly confused by the pink tinge of the lubricant now tumbling from her crotch in concert with Sid's semen. It took a good five minutes for it all to come out. She decided not to mention it to Sid.

Finally, they fell into a deep sleep holding one another, their dreams of rain and soaked skin. They talked briefly about the episode in bed the following morning, wondering where the lust had come from. Then they had sex again - loving, but not as hot. Karina's vagina was back to normal.

As soon as she closed the door on their receding figures, Cherie exhaled loudly and grabbed her right breast through her clothes. Sweaty, no-longer-suppressed visions blotted her mind - of Sid banging into her on the dining table, in the yard, in her bed, under the easel in the end room. Her other hand went straight into her underwear. It felt warm, puffy, and very, very wet, more so than she thought possible. The relief as she pressed against her swollen vulva and protruding clitoris was immense and sent flutters of ecstasy through her body. As she rubbed up and down, her knees buckled and she nearly collapsed right there in the entrance. She summoned the presence of mind to stop stroking and stagger to her futon, disrobe completely, and stretch her naked body out on soft sheets. Her underwear, now in a heap on the floor with the rest of her clothes, was almost completely soaked from front to back.

As she writhed and gasped, what felt like oceans of thick, sticky liquid poured down her vagina and out of her opening. The sheets were quickly a mess. Wet trails of moisture stuck to her thighs and buttocks. Her hand continued to busily apply pressure to all of her outer genitals, rubbing in circles around her slit, squeezing the engorged labia together, teasing and occasionally tweaking her clitoris. Her bunched fingers slipped easily over her flesh. All of the redness at her centre was from arousal.

Cherie's other hand fondled her sizeable breasts, flicked her nipples, clutched at her throat. The pleasure was indescribable but she was desperate for release. Masturbating with her hand was maintaining a high plateau but she didn't seem able to push herself over the edge, however depraved her thoughts of Sid's brown body in congress with hers became.

Eventually, she pulled her dripping hand from her vagina and grabbed a large dildo from under a spare blanket beside her bed. She guided it roughly into herself and immediately felt a jump in pleasure. Each pump of the shaft in and out of her increased her arousal ever so slightly. It pushed through the excess fluid, pressing it against the walls of her vagina and filling her more completely than ever before.

With one hand thrusting the dildo in and out with loud squelching sounds, and the other rubbing tight circles around her extended clitoris, she drove herself on and on to climax. It arrived slowly, inexorably, her pleasure drawn out in a long but inevitable arc. Once the dildo was inside her, there was never any doubt that she was on a path to orgasm; she simply had to continue the motions and enjoy the ride to its inevitable conclusion. And enjoy it she did. Sometimes she imagined the dildo was Sid's penis; sometimes she focused on the very real sensations of the unfamiliar liquid slopping around her crotch; sometimes she simply marvelled at her body's capacity to give her pleasure. Every part of her was tingling now.

When it arrived, her orgasm was at first a gentle and steady tipping over into ecstasy, then a series of full-blown, buffeting paroxysms. She couldn't help crying out with each contraction as her vagina milked non-existent semen from the silicon shaft. Her pelvis bucked up and down and her torso twisted from side to side. Her legs bent upwards at the knees, as if to force her to draw as much of the dildo into her as possible. Finally, after what seemed like an endless series of all-consuming jolts, Cherie's arousal finally began to subside. She rolled out of the large wet patch on the bed, pulled a blanket over her body, and fell asleep.

Her dreams were more vivid this time. She bathed in a large pool of pink, viscous liquid. It pulsed around her, as if it were alive. It slipped over and around her vagina, which opened to accept more of the sticky substance inside. She touched her tongue to the surface and wanted to explode.

Her arousal peaking again, she awoke, grabbed the still-moist dildo, and shoved it in with a loud splat. It only took a few minutes this time, so desperately did she fuck herself, so overloaded were the pleasure centres in her brain. The familiar pink lubricant sprayed over her inner thighs and onto the sheets as she rammed the shaft in and out. There were crackles in her skull when she came, her pelvis thrusting upwards towards nothing. She passed out again.

When Cherie awoke, light was peeking through the curtains. The bed was soaked, chilly against her naked flesh, though the air was still humidly warm.

In the shower, she soaped away the pink residue on her thighs and crotch. It had stopped flowing but the tingling radiating out from her centre remained. Then she removed the sheets from her futon and dragged the mattress out into the sun to dry.

The humidity of the day was already rising. That activity alone was enough to work up a sweat. She hadn't even found the mental resolve to consider what had happened last night - the real, bodily change she had undergone, without warning, like nothing before or since - when, to her horror, the liquid began to drip steadily from her vagina once more. She walked briskly to the bedroom, remembered the futon was just a frame, then decamped to the studio, where she'd laid down a few bedsheets to catch paint. That at least would be more comfortable than lying on the hardwood floor.

Not wanting to waste more clothes, she stripped out of her shorts and underwear, letting the moisture slide out of her vagina and down her legs to the sheets below. As it grew in volume, from a drip-drip-dripping, to a trickle, to a narrow but steady flow, the tingling sensation grew in intensity and her genitals reddened with arousal. Clad in only a thin t-shirt, her nipples jutting out through the fabric, Cherie sank to the floor and rubbed a hand deliciously over her sodden vulva, resigning herself to another episode.

After a half hour of thrashing and groaning, she still hadn't climaxed. Through a plateau of ecstasy she remembered needing penetration the previous night to end it, so she crawled to the bedroom, flicking droplets of the pink stuff across a stray canvas along the way, and stuck the dildo in as far as it would go as soon as she found it. The peak came quickly, again with a sense of fullness like nothing she'd felt before, and she fell asleep in a small pool of liquid on the bedroom floor.

*

Small indentations on the ceiling. The pale pattern on the wallpaper. The blinding late afternoon sun pouring light through the window and onto her nude form.

As her eyes adjusted, Cherie noticed flecks of pink on a blank canvas leaning against the wall. They outlined the vague shape of a reed pointing upwards; at least, that's what her mind saw. She looked at it for a few seconds, then hauled herself to her feet and walked to the kitchen, not bothering to put any clothes on.

She was starving. The pots and pans on the stove still contained leftover food from Sid and Karina's visit, so she grabbed a spoon and ate directly out of them. The now-familiar tingling sensation began inside her, and as her crotch grew slick again, she recalled the pink on the canvas and felt a flash of inspiration.

This time, she positioned herself seated in front of it, her legs splayed. Then she worked at herself, increasingly lost in ecstasy, and watched as the pink dots on the canvas accumulated. The dildo sent arcs of fluid out of her, some of which haphazardly streaked the canvas. She started shrieking again and brought herself off with her hips raised up off the floor, the dildo pushed all the way inside. Then she collapsed.

A few minutes later, she inspected the result. She wasn't sure if her pleasure-addled brain was fooling her, but she thought it looked fantastic. The loose shapes could have been marshland plants or a cityscape; blades of grass or goose pimples in extreme close-up. The rawness of their creation seemed to literally drip off the canvas, although that could have been the sweet smell of her mingling with the musk of the pink. It would be a shame, she thought, to lacquer over it. Perhaps she wouldn't.

*

An exhausting week followed. After an unsustainably distracted Monday, Cherie called in sick Tuesday and Wednesday. She tried to remember to eat, and to drink water, but not too much, lest it set her off again. There was no doubt that the water from the tap was behind some of what was happening, along with the pink mold growing in the studio. It was taking her over somehow. Through trial and error, she learnt to control how much she exposed herself to so that she could anticipate and prepare for each session of passionate creativity.

As tiring as it was, she didn't want to turn it off; the products were as compelling as any art she'd produced, and the sessions were so deeply enjoyable, a sense of losing her head and body completely and being allowed to come back. The substance had some property that kept her supple as well. Although her pelvic floor was a little strained from flexing and squeezing the rubber shaft so much.

By Thursday, she had a handle on managing her arousal, so she managed to get through the workday without major difficulty. Although she did have to change her underwear a couple of times. Friday afternoon, she was occupied by thoughts of the mind-bending orgasms she was going to give herself over the weekend, and the art they would produce. She wondered how much of this she would be able to share publicly at exhibition. If she put it all out there, she'd almost certainly get notices, possibly notoriety, perhaps even the kind of fame that changes your life. She just wasn't sure she could bring herself to be so open with the world.