Taste Me

Then I got another message from her. "I came for you. Make of that what you will."

Fuck me. My hand was instantly inside my panties again and, in less than a minute, I was writhing on my bed, biting the pillow, and moaning the loudest moan of my life.

And this became our new reality. We were part friends, part lovers, part I-don't-know-what, with remote benefits. She talked more than I did, I listened more than she did. I got treated to a daily run of The Asshole Show, where she'd share her frustrations about her relationship, but I'd veer her into other discussions as often as I could. I helped her come up with and improve the storyline of more children's books, I gave her personal advice regarding her career and life (some of which obviously amounted to "leave that fucking waste of a man" but in nicer words), and every day or two, she'd ask me to help her "relax," which was the code word for "make me cum like there's no tomorrow," and I obliged.

I always obliged. Often in writing, sometimes over phone calls. Hearing her moan and groan, feeling her sighs and erratic breathing, knowing I was in charge; nothing else could compare to that. And every time I told her to "cum for me" and she did, I felt this surge of power, pride, happiness, and infinite arousal. She now came for me, by me, and without knowing it, with me.

Not once during our many smutty chats had I told her that the pleasure was mutual. Not once did I admit that I was touching myself too, waiting for her to orgasm, then releasing myself too. She had asked why I indulged her and instructed her hand, why I weaved fantasies and drew images to make her horny, but I stuck to my original narrative: I was a friend who wanted to help.

Every now and then, she'd question the logic, but not too much. She'd push me to reveal something, she'd argue with my faltering arguments, then she'd retreat, seemingly content with whatever bullshit answer I gave her. I guess there was an unspoken oath between us to leave the castle of cards standing.

She had a boyfriend she was faithful to, I wasn't attached to her at all, simple as that. Beautiful illusion.

***

But now, in this movie theatre, everything we'd so carefully built over the months was at risk of crumbling. Or being blown to the wind. All after this simple touch between her fingers and mine.

She stopped caressing my hand. A frantic fighting scene was playing on the screen. I saw her turn her face toward me, for the first time acknowledging my full presence next to her. I turned toward her too, magnetically attracted by her eyes.

The look... The look she gave me... Fuck...

It was even more electric than the one I got in the bathroom. One of those deep, lingering, passionate looks. The ones that made you feel like you could give away two kidneys and a liver to feel this same way again. And as she dressed and undressed every inch of me with her eyes, she tapped HI on my hand.

Hi, indeed.

We were just getting started now.

I smiled. I tapped HI back, leaving my index to linger a fraction of a second longer each time it touched her skin.

The entire construct of time and space was getting pulverized by the sheer intensity of her stare. What was the difference between a millisecond or a century? A few inches and billions of light-years? Nothing. Nothing, if those amber eyes were fixated on you. Nothing, if they erased humans, planets, and worlds, and made you feel like you were the only thing to matter in the expanse of the universe.

She broke our stare after, well, anywhere between a few seconds and an eternity, and slowly turned her face toward the screen. I did the same. Energy pulsed through my veins. I could run a marathon now, then a triathlon, and still have momentum to spare.

U RLY LOOK GR8, she tapped, repeating the sentence she'd told me in the washroom before the movie. The "really" cause a few extra flutters in my heart.

I lived and died by her compliments during our chats. She often asked for photos of me, but I rarely shared them, waiting for her to beg a few times before obliging. It hurt to know she was going to delete them right before seeing him. She was never too shy to compliment me or tell me how sexy or cute I was, though, even repeatedly asking me for one particular picture of my thighs and legs, clad in tight jeans, and hoisted on my living room's coffee table. A cute but revealing photo. She asked for it at least every other day. I only re-sent it once a week, and the "sexy" compliments would rain.

Hearing her, or well, feeling her say I looked good in person was very different, though. The flutters in my heart were a million times faster.

But why wasn't she still looking at me? Why did she avoid my eyes before tapping this? Would it be too personal and too raw? Maybe she'd betray some real emotion if she did. Oh, stop dreaming! As if she'd feel anything for me when he was next to her.

I didn't go for a snippy answer, even though I really wanted to repeat the one I gave her in the bathroom. A simple THX should do.

She hesitated for a few seconds. I could feel her index lower down a couple of times, about to touch me, then it'd retreat. At the third time, she managed to finally tap it.

WHO IS SHE?

Paige. I had nearly forgotten about Paige on my other side. She had been quite occupied with the movie, thankfully. She loved actions flicks.

But was that jealousy from Rachel? I had detected hints of it each time I told her I was going out or busy for the evening, I even enjoyed seeing her frustrated messages each time she got impatient before I got back home, so I took advantage and made her wait a bit longer sometimes to assert my dominance and make her beg me to talk to her. But she had never pushed enough to show her full hand. This time, she was actually seeing me with someone, a woman nonetheless, and she must be wondering.

Lying to hurt her would be so easy. But also so petty and destructive. We'd lied and pretended and behaved like idiotic teenagers long enough. I also debated dismissing the question or asking her why she was interested, but I eventually chose to cut through the noise and just say it. A bit of straight truth wouldn't hurt.

FRIEND, I tapped.

LIKE ME? She quickly asked.

For months she had obsessed over how special our relationship was to me. She'd wanted to know if I did anything similar with other "friends" or if she was different. As if I could ever tolerate talking to another human for many hours a day, or I enjoyed bringing a horde of women to orgasm with my imaginary hand and my smutty stories every night.

I had avoided that answer like the plague. Making her stew in her own confusion and suspicions was but a meagre revenge over the hours she left me alone to go be with him and the millions of images of him touching her and penetrating her that played on repeat, like a psychotic thriller, in my head.

But now, with her hand touching me, with her body within reach, how could I pretend that anyone else was like her? How could I avoid the blinding truth?

NO. NO1 IS LIKE U.

There, a bit of extra sizzle. She no longer had to ask that question. Oh, she'll find ways to ask me to explain it further, but the answer was out.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the corner of her lips pinch. She was happy and proud, wasn't she?

GOOD, she tapped.

Good?! Good?! What was good about this?! What was so fucking good about us using Morse code to communicate in silence during our first face-to-face meeting lest we raise the suspicions of the asshole sitting next to her? What was so majestically good about our relationship and her special place in my life if we had to keep the charade going even when we were only inches apart? Even when our hands were literally touching...

Good. How dare she say that? How dare she think that any of this was good? That invading my life and conquering my thoughts and cannibalizing my time was any good? That choosing to leave me every evening to go out with him, to have sex with him, to let him keep his ascendance over her was any good? That dragging my heart through the mud day after day and stomping on the little self-esteem I still had was even within the realm of decency, let alone good.

I snapped my hand away. I couldn't let her touch me anymore. She couldn't have that much power over me.

But no sooner had my hand retreated to my own leather-decked seat than she followed it and grabbed it back. Squeezing and insisting not to let go. Fuck. Why? Just let me move away. Let me wallow in my poor misery.

Let me be without you.

I furiously tapped U R HERE WITH HIM, RACHEL. I insisted on spelling her full name in Morse, despite how useless and time-consuming that was, but I wanted her to feel the anger dripping from my words.

SO?

So?! So?! She was retreating back, getting defensive like she did every time I talked about him. But we couldn't really talk as long as he was in the equation. If he was there, there was no room for me. Or us. If he was there, I had to disappear. We had to cease existing.

I was livid. For about an hour since the start of the movie, even the fifteen or so minutes before it, I'd let her keep me and hide me at the same time.

I was the secret, he was the known entity. Of course his feelings mattered more than mine. Of course I shouldn't raise suspicions around him because I was accommodating like that. Of course her eyes couldn't betray that they were looking at me, or her hand reveal that it was touching me.

The panic that had surged in my body when I ran to the bathroom was back. What the fuck was I doing? How could I accept any of this? It had to stop. All of it. There was no other solution. I had to get myself out before losing my sanity.

SO U HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY THAT TO ME.

It took forever to furiously tap every letter of that sentence. But my anger could sustain me for years -- a couple of minutes were child's play.

When I was done, I tried to extricate my hand but she wouldn't let me. She squeezed and held on.

She partially turned her face toward me, but I didn't dignify her with the same movement. I was fuming.

IM WET.

What the actual fuck? My head involuntarily spun as she tapped the letter T. I couldn't believe her audacity. Now?! She was saying this now?!

Our eyes met. She dared grin.

UR JEALOUSY GOT ME WET, she repeated, this time clearly outlining the reason.

The castle of cards was kaput on the ground. The game of illusion was no more. There was no point in denying anything now.

With my eyes glued to hers -- we had both forgotten my supposed invisibility and the arrogant bastard sitting next to her -- I slowly tapped, FUCK U.

In the darkness of the movie theatre, her eyes glinted.

WLDNT U...

Oh no, she wouldn't dare...

LIKE...

Oh fuck, she is...

THAT...

Well, she certainly did dare.

I shot daggers at her dark honey eyes.

She held on to my hand and squeezed harder than she ever had since our first contact. My bones started fighting over which one would break first. Then she suddenly let go.

For a few seconds, I didn't understand this quick shift. Why had she left my hand just now? She had insisted on keeping it through the toughest part of our talk, and now, after dropping that bomb, now that she had me in the palm of her hand, quite literally, she was taking a step back? That made no sense.

Then I grasped what was happening. Her left hand, the same one she'd held me with, was now between her thighs. She briefly adjusted her seated position. Was she...? She certainly seemed to be. No way. But... She must be. What else could she be doing?

Was it even physically possible for her to reach something, anything through her shorts? I had no idea. There should be a barrier of fabric there, right? That's the whole point of shorts versus skirts. But she seemed to be quite intent on continuing whatever it is she was doing.

My eyes fleeted between her thighs and her eyes. The physics of her barely perceptible movements fascinated me, but it was that sneaky grin on her lips and the focused contraction of her pupils that was slowly undoing me.

So much so that I allowed myself to believe that she could actually get to her goal. I let my guards down and pictured her finger, or fingers I couldn't tell, dipping between her folds, touching her engorged soft puffy lips, and sliding over the wet juices coating them. Maybe she could even penetrate them from this cramped up angle -- who knew? I had no idea she could reach anything there, but it seemed that the laws of physics and the limits of human articulations couldn't stop her. Even one or multiple fabric layers didn't count as an obstacle.

The image of her puffy lips, which had never left my brain since she sent it to me a couple of months ago, was seared again in my eyes. I craved to touch them, kiss them, lick them, flick my tongue between them, drink their sweet juices, and just make them mine.

One hundred percent, zero compromises, mine.

And now she was touching those same lips because of me. Because I got her wet. Me. The real me. Not the version of me who hid behind phone screens and imaginary smutty stories. No, me. Flesh and bones me had gotten her wet. Whoa.

She extricated her hand and brought it back up to the console between us. My own, carefully retained wetness spilled when I anticipated what'd happen next.

And happen it did. She slowly dragged her sticky fingers across mine, coating me with her essence. In the darkness of the theatre, the bright flashes on the screen from another car chase scene threw some light on our hands. Her juices shone. And one glinting, sticky strand extended between our indexes. She twisted her finger a little, got a fraction farther, then brought our skins closer, smashing the strand between us. Fuck.

And she started tapping. Did I need to wait for it? No. I already knew what it would say.

TASTE ME.

Fuck me.

This was it. The final, fatal blow of unmitigated truth. If I did that, that was the end of the charades, the death of the lies and illusion, the unredeemable collapse of the castle of cards. That was it for our pretend-friendship, for my dignity, for anything and everything I had said in the past months.

But it was her pussy on my finger, her essence on my skin.

Her on me.

And I desperately, painfully, sadistically wanted it in me. All of it. The smell, the taste, the stickiness. Everything I had caused her pussy to drip.

In me.

I could not possibly resist tasting her. The universe in which I'd keep my coated hand away from my mouth more than a few extra seconds didn't exist. In every alternate reality, every universe, every scenario, one million percent of the time, I'd break down and do it. I'd taste her.

I lifted my hand, took a deep breath, and dipped the first sticky finger in my mouth. Mmmmmmmm. Did she have to be so delicious? Equally fruity and tangy, so smooth, and immensely addictive. I licked every inch of my finger time and again, making sure I didn't waste a single molecule of her.

For a few seconds, I even forgot she was there. My eyes were shut. My ears refused to hear anything, not the final emotional scene of the movie, nor the thumping of my blood in my veins. Nothing could disturb this spiritual, gastronomical experience.

Her, in me.

I opened my eyes before going after the second finger. A quick side glance revealed that her eyes were as glued to me as her juices were to my fingers. She seemed fascinated by my reaction.

Maybe the ramifications of these last minutes would not come clear until later. Maybe now was just the time to lose ourselves in the moment, this very beautiful and infinitesimally brief moment in time where we were one, in a way.

The second finger went in, an imperceptible whimper went out. Mine. But maybe also hers. I licked it just as well, not wasting a drop. If this was the only time I'd ever get to taste her, then I wanted it to last forever. Savor it all, the taste in my mouth, the stickiness on my fingers, the smell in my nose, and the feeling of her eyes on me. Stretch the moment and abuse the seconds until every last molecule and proton and electron of her juices had found its way into me.

I repeated the action with my other fingers, which had now dried up a bit. My saliva awakened the stickiness and flavor of her juices. This was surreal and yet so, so very real.

After this, everything was going to change. But for this one long, long moment in time, everything was still. I was drinking in her essence and letting myself believe, even for a wink, that she could be mine.

I was taken out of my transcendent moment by the loud sound of music and a few claps. The movie was over. I quickly dropped my hand out of my mouth and turned toward the end credits projection. I caught a glimpse of her mirroring my panicked movement. Our elbows and arms touched a little, causing a few more shivers to spread through me. Would this be the last contact between us, ever? There was a distinct possibility that yes, it would. I sighed as the sad reality washed over me.

Soon, the sound of people getting up, talking to each other, grabbing their stuff, and shuffling to the exit became too loud.

"Did you like it?"

I turned to see Paige smiling at me. If only she grasped how well-timed that question was.

"Yeah, yeah, I liked it." I wasn't sure about the movie, but the entire movie-going experience, let's call it that, had been memorable for life. Next to me, Rachel coughed a little. Did she hear the question or my answer? Maybe. It didn't matter; there was no hiding now.

Shit. There was no hiding now. She knew.

I started gathering my things when I noticed that Rachel and her worthless clump of carbon and hydrogen were already up and ready to leave.

I looked up, our eyes met. She had an undecipherable look on her face. Somewhere between "I know you just licked my pussy off your fingers" and "I have no clue who you are" -- a mix that shouldn't possibly exist.

Then it hit me, she was still hiding me. I never was and never would be a tangible entity. I was nothing but a shadow in her life, just a puddle of nothingness, the absence of light. My mere existence, if you could call it "existence," revolved around his aura. When he faded away, I grew stronger; when he shone bright, I vanished. He was the sun, her sun.

A shadow can't compete with the sun.

I coiled back in my seat. For fuck's sake, her juices were still in the back of my throat and I was already fading, stripped of my identity. I was already no one! Seriously, how many reminders did I need to fully grasp the enormity of the shithole I was in? How many glaring moments of clarity were necessary for me to realize the schism between my idolization of her and my insignificance to her?

I lowered my eyes and brought my knees and feet back. Just pass in front of me and leave me to wallow in the misery of my poor life choices. Go on, enjoy your date, your evening, your life with him. Maybe he'll once deign to taste you like I just did.

She placed one foot in front of me, then as she was making the second step to get past me, she hit some invisible obstacle and fell clumsily toward me. On me.

In a blink, she was on top of me, all of her. Her knees were on mine, her hips sat in my lap, her chest crushed into me, one hand fell on the back of the leather seat next to my right arm, the other into the invisible space between us and landed straight onto my left breast, and her head smashed into my shoulder with her face nuzzled right next to my neck.