The Apple... Ch. 03

Chapter 3

As she watched the sleeping woman by her side, Arianna tried to make some sense of the last day.

Certainly she was aware of the love a woman could feel for another, whether she chose to express it physically or not. After all, she had lived with a free spirit for the last three years and had seen both men and women share Sarah's bed. Before that, she had lived four years in close quarters with fellow nurses and been exposed to same sex pairings aplenty. Yet earlier, she had spent five years in an all-girls boarding school where experimentation went from blushing kisses and light petting during truth-or-dare games to full blown sexual coupling.

Priding herself on her open mind, though she had never indulged in it, Arianna saw nothing wrong with sex between women, whether as a physical expression of love or as a relief of the extreme stress brought upon them by the horrors of war. She herself had never partaken in this relief, preferring to bury her experiences deep in her mind certain that she could handle what occasionally had come near to overwhelming her. Maybe she should have.

She was not promiscuous by any means, quite the opposite.

A self-assured independent woman, experience had taught her early in life her that the attentions she received from men were either superficial because of her physical beauty or motivated by a desire to take advantage of her father's position. So, she had endured much disillusionment following her presentation to society at her 16th birthday cotillion as she found that she did not suffer fools or social climbers.

Arianna was not a virgin, having had her share of affairs both with doctors in the army and fellow students since returning to civilian life, but all had been temporary liaisons by mutual consent from the onset. She simply seemed unable to make emotional connections. There was always a restraint, an aloofness, in her interactions with people as she instinctively kept them at arms length. The defensive wall she had erected around her heart as a young woman had been made thicker and nearly impregnable by her war time experiences.

So it was with wonderment that she reflected on the ease with which this ordinary woman had penetrated these defences, seemingly effortlessly. Juliette had walked in her life and wrapped a blanket of warmth around her, bringing a deep sense of security she had not realized she so dearly craved.

'Why do I feel such unrestrained feelings for this stranger? Why do I feel like I need her nearness so much? Is this the love poets rave about?' Arianna wondered, bemused.

Her eyes misting as the well of emotions she had thought dry now burbled like a new spring of joy in her heart, she reached over and delicately brushed stray hairs from Juliette's face, lightly caressing her cheek.

**********

Juliette became conscious of the hand gently stroking her face and leaned into it with a sigh.

"Hello dear." She said with a warm smile on her lips. "Why does it seem like every time I wake up you are there looking at me?"

"Because I am, sweetheart. I cannot get enough of the sight of your lovely face as you sleep. You look so beautiful when you are relaxed in slumber."

"Get out of here. If anybody here is beautiful, it's you. I'm plain looking and I know it. I don't mind, it's just who I am. I have no illusion about it."

"But you are beautiful! It is as if an internal light was shining through."

"Oh you! You say the nicest things." Juliette replied, giggling.

That set both in laughter. As it died down, they found themselves yet again falling deeply in each other's eyes. The connection of their hearts deepening, strengthening.

"I don't understand why, but if I feel as I've known you forever." Juliette murmured timidly. "I should be scandalized at being in bed with a woman, and both of us naked, but when I look in your eyes, I feel as if I was looking at myself, a sort of out of body experience."

"I feel the same way. I have read about this, but I always thought it was a flight of fancy."

"Well, what is it? Tell me more about this."

"The term is 'soul mate'. It means someone with who completes you perfectly. It is like two souls who, having wandered aimlessly for the longest time, have found that which they had been looking for all along without knowing what they were searching for or even that they were searching at all. Poets have been writing of it forever. It is as if we were incomplete and have become whole when we met, a new purpose now directing our life."

Juliette was confused. "But you are a woman! How can this be? It's impossible! A woman should love a man!"

Arianna brought her in a tender embrace, seeking to alleviate her agitation. "It has nothing to do with being man or woman; it is a joining of the spirit. It is much deeper that the love most people must be content with. Did you not feel a sense of connection between us from the moment we met last night? Do you not wonder at your acceptance of our physical nearness today? Have you ever even considered being naked in the presence of another woman? Why you are not running screaming at my sight?" This last said with a giggle.

"You must be right about the spirit thing. I would never have imagined finding myself in this situation. And you're also right, I should be running away screaming, but I like being in your arms like this. Would you mind terribly if we stayed like this for a while?"

"No, sweetheart, I do not mind at all. I find that I too like this very much. Feel free to stay here as long as you wish."

Arianna kissed the top of Juliette's head, lovingly stroking her hair. The other woman reciprocated by running her hands lightly down her back and, after a short hesitation, to her buttocks.

With a smile, Arianna pulled away slightly and lowered her lips to Juliette's.

"I don't know what to do." Juliette said almost plaintively. "I've never done this before."

"Neither have I, sweetheart. We can learn together. Just do what feels right and do not be afraid to try new things. Nature is a wonderful thing and She has built mechanisms in us to let us know the way. If something feels good, then it must be so."

"Will it be as extreme as it was earlier? That really scared me."

"I rather doubt it. You were simply unprepared for the orgasm and your mind reacted rather harshly to the surprise of it."

"I remember you saying something about this orgasm thing. What is it?"

"Did you never feel so good when making love to your husband that you felt this overwhelming physical sense of pleasure?"

"Oh, my dear Jacques was very gentle with me, more so than most if I believe complaints I've overheard from other married woman. He was very patient and seemed to want to give me pleasure before he took his own. He would kiss and caress me lovingly for a long time before putting his thing in me. I would feel like swooning when he fondled and kissed and suckled my breasts. When he would lay on me and penetrate me, it was most pleasurable, but nowhere near what I felt with you."

Arianna knew that many, if not most, women got little or no pleasure out the performance of 'marital duties'. It had always amazed her that the species had survived for so long after the appearance of religions which repressed so vehemently and sometimes violently this most wonderful aspect of human nature.

"Oh, sweetheart, you have missed out on so much. I am certain that your husband was a good man who did his level best to please you, but maybe he simply did not know how to go about it properly. Even though I am also inexperienced at loving another woman, do you trust me to teach you what I know of pleasure and show you how to apply it to our own special situation?"

"I don't know why, but I do!" Juliette exclaimed. Wrapping her arms around the other's neck, she pulled her into an enthusiastic kiss.

Arianna was swept away by her lover's energy. She responded to the kiss with gusto. He tongue invading the other's mouth as she molded her body to hers. Her hands roamed, caressing, stroking, massaging, trying to discover and interiorise every aspect of Juliette's outer being and committing all of it to memory.

From running her hands through her hair, she gently caressed her face and neck. Moving to her back, she followed her spine, then her sides, enjoying the soft fleshiness she felt there. She stroked her backside, and then grabbing it firmly, she pressed their pelvises together. She caressed the back of her thighs, reaching with her fingertips to graze her labia.

Juliette could barely make sense of what was happening to her through the rush of pleasure that threatened to overwhelm her again. Determined to hold on to consciousness and make sure she did not miss the slightest moment of this wonderful experience, she concentrated on the lips joined to hers.

She felt Arianna's hands roam all over her body and seemed to bring her skin's sensitivity to a high level. What began as a low moan deep in her throat evolved into a groan when Arianna pulled their lower bodies together. Juliette was surprised at herself when her hips began a grinding movement without conscious direction on her part.

The light contact of fingers on her most private area surprised her into a grunt. She thought she finally understood the expression 'I melted under his touch' when she had a definite sense of wetness leaking from her sex unto her thigh.

Her heart was beating at an accelerated rate, happiness growing within her as pleasure manifested itself in her body.

Feeling Juliette's response to her ministrations, Arianna also felt immense joy filling her heart. At long last, she felt the sharing of true closeness with another human being. She had long thought she would forever be alone, lonely, forlorn, never to know this most complete of expression of companionship.

Leaving the lovely mouth, she went on to kiss Juliette's chin, her cheek, her ear where she murmured softly, "Whatever happens after this moment, dear Juliette, my heart is yours."

This seemed to magnify the emotions surging through Juliette. She pulled Arianna tightly against herself. "My mind tries to tell me that we should not do this, but my heart is already yours also. How can something that feels so right can be wrong, after all?"

This mutual surge of emotions only heightened each women's desire to give pleasure to her partner.

Arianna's mouth and tongue left a trail of heat on Juliette's skin as she moved to neck, shoulder, licking on the hollow behind her clavicle, before joining the hands that were firmly fondling the ample breasts. She laved the soft skin before moving to the nipple, enjoying the presence of the turgid nugget in her mouth. Flicking her tongue lightly around it, she went on to suck on it with more vigour. Bringing her teeth into the fray, she bit it lightly, which brought a squeak of delight from Juliette.

After what felt like forever, Juliette felt a brief sense of loss as Arianna's mouth left her nipple. She was surprised as she felt the woman lick the sweat that had pooled in the valley of her chest and, to her delight, she continued her journey to her left breast, paying as much attention to it as she had done to the right mere moments before.

Juliette had always known that her breasts were sensitive, but she could hardly believe the level of sweet sensations now radiating from them to the rest of her body, finally centering on her sex where she could feel a renewed heat bringing about so much more wetness, she felt it leaking down between her cheeks. Briefly, she wondered if she was peeing, but the thought was washed away by her body's responses to this new experience in pleasure.

Juliette's hips thrust upwards, her groin seeking its natural complement. Not finding the expected presence of a man's lower body, a whimper escaped her throat. At a primal level, her body was begging for release the only it knew how. Hearing and seeing this, Arianna brought a hand to Juliette's vulva. She cupped the woman's hairy mound, feeling the heat radiating from it.

The caress brought Juliette's hips completely off the bed in her desperate need to accentuate the contact. "Yes! Yes! Love me! Take me! Make me yours!" In her confused, aroused mind, she expected the familiar thrust.

Arianna used her outer fingers to squeeze the outside of the blood gorged mound, rubbing it tenderly then more vigorously with the palm of her hand. Juliette was trashing on the bed, goose bumps raised on every inch of her skin, her pleading mostly incoherent. For the first time in her young life, her hands were on her own breasts kneading them with abandon, pinching her nipples almost savagely between her fingers.

When Arianna slipped her middle finger between the outer lips of her sex and slid it up and down its length, Juliette felt as if her whole being was on the verge of lifting off from her body to soar the wide open spaces. The feeling of the digit entering her folds brought forth a geyser of pleasure. "Pleaaaaasssssse!!!!! Don't stop! Whatever you do don't stop!"

Arianna could tell that her lover was on the cusp of orgasm. Leaning her mouth close to Juliette's ear, she urged her to the ultimate abandon. "Yes dear Heart, let go. Let yourself go! Dance to the beautiful music of your body."

She would never know if her words were the trigger or if it was her thumb strumming Juliette's clitoris as her finger penetrated the wet cavern of her sex, but the effect was immediate and spectacular.

Once again, Juliette's body arched off the bed from head to heels. A guttural scream issued from deep in her throat. Her hands clawed at the bed sheets, threatening to rip them to shreds. And, to Arianna's surprise, her sex ejected streams of clear light fluid mixed with a thicker whitish liquid.

She stayed in this extreme posture for long seconds, then fell back to the bed, unconscious for the second time in a few hours. This time, though, it lasted only a short moment.

As Juliette came back to senses, she found that her body was wracked by delicious spasms, pale ghosts of the previous explosion as if her nerves were stimulated by random firings of sexual energy. She could not remember ever being so tired, her whole body limp. Her mind felt sluggish too.

When she managed to turn her head, it took her a few tries before she could manage a coherent sentence. "When my mother explained the fact of life to me, she never mentioned this."

Arianna's laughter was heartfelt. "I am sure she did not. She probably has never felt such pleasure as you have just then. I am so happy to have helped you let this side of yourself free of its socially imposed prison." She brought Juliette in a tender embrace, pressing their bodies together and kissing the deliciously full lips before hers.

"Me too, but what about you, dear? I don't think I will ever be able to give you as much pleasure as you have just given me." Juliette said, concern in her voice at what she perceived as her inability to give back to this beautiful woman.

"Have no fear, sweetheart. You can and you will, as soon as you regain some strength. I will guide you if you wish, but you do not really need me to. Your body knows it all. You will do fine if only you trust it."

"I believe you, dear. I will be your attentive student in this." Juliette said. "But for now, please help me to my feet so I can go relieve myself and get a glass of water. I'm ready to burst and thirsty something fierce."

Laughing, Arianna got up and held her hand to Juliette. As the last moved to rise, she happened on a wet spot on the rumpled sheet. "Eeek! I've peed on your bed. That's never happened to me since I was little. I'm so sorry." She started crying in shame.

Arianna hugged her. "No dear heart that is not urine. Though I have never experienced it, I have heard and read about this. It is the female equivalent of ejaculate."

"How can that be? I am not a man."

"No, you most certainly are not, my dear. You know that your body produces its own form of lubrication?"

"Well, yes, but never that much."

"Some women express a lot more than most and it looks like you are one of the lucky few who do. It had never happened to you because you only experienced mild orgasms at best until now."

"Will it always be like that?" Juliette asked, worried.

"I don't think so, sweetheart. From what little I know of it, it only occurs infrequently when the orgasm is particularly intense. It is nothing to be worried about. Quite the opposite, it tells us that you a very sexual woman with a high libido."

"I am?" Juliette wondered, feeling that she had just been insulted. "I loved getting intimate with my husband, but I am not a loose woman."

"I did not say you are a woman of easy virtue. I meant that you have a high capacity for pleasure. Your reaction this morning and just now is eloquent testimony to that fact. Do not be ashamed of it in any way. Rather, be proud that you are going beyond the shackles of your upbringing and have entered in a wonderful journey to a life of unbridled passion."

Juliette had to laugh at the mental image of her in bed day in and day out satisfying one lover after the other. "I don't know about that. For now, let's peel the sheets and see how bad the damage is to your mattress."

It was Arianna's turn to blush furiously. "I am sure it did not get to the bed as I have a protection under the sheet. I sometimes have 'accidents' when my nightmares are particularly bad."

"Oh poor dear. I had almost forgotten the awful scream you let out this morning. I remember thinking you were surely under attack from a terrible monster before I rushed into your room."

"Not a monster, only bad memories. I would rather not talk about it if you do not mind."

"It's okay. Whatever you want, dear. Let's get these things soaking before they stain. And I still need to use the facilities."

Laughing, they proceeded to do just that.

**********

By the time they had refreshed themselves, they found that the sun was going down.

"Are you hungry, sweetheart?" Arianna asked. "Breakfast was quite a while back and we could use some sustenance."

"Yes I am. Let me look in your cupboards and I will whip something to eat."

"They are somewhat bare, I am afraid. I usually go out for groceries on Saturday afternoon, but I was otherwise occupied earlier." Arianna giggled.

"No matter, I'm used to make do with what I have." So she did. The rationing of the war years were fresh in her memory and it was easier to put together a meal for two than for fifteen as her mother had taught her.

**********

Later, both women sat at the kitchen table, relaxing after a simple but hearty meal. Arianna had convinced Juliette to accept a glass of wine.

"You must try this, sweetheart. It makes the simplest meal go down easier and it helps in the digestion."

"My father used to make his own wine. When I got to be older, he let me try it and I didn't like it much."

Laughing, Arianna went on. "No offense to him, but this has very little to do with what your father made. I learned to appreciate wine with my parents who had it shipped specially for them from Europe. Then, I refined my palate when I was stationed overseas."

At first Juliette was reluctant to try the wine, but she succumbed to Arianna's enthusiasm. She tilted her glass wearily, barely wetting her lips. "Hey, this tastes good!"

"I told you. I will make a wine lover out of you yet."

Finding she liked the taste, Juliette swallowed a large mouthful.

"No sweetheart, you do not gulp wine, you must savor it. Try taking smaller sips. Let it flow on your tongue so you can savor its flavour."

"Okay, if you say so."

"When you pour the first glass out of a bottle, you smell it before drinking. When I am done with you, you will be able to recognize a good wine from its aroma. Sophisticated wine tasters then take a sip and swirl it in their mouth so it reaches all their taste buds. In this manner, the best of them can recognize not only the wine but also the region it comes from and even the year it was made."