The Floating World Pt. 07: Juliette

Maddy watched as Adam dressed the girl, and knew it was a natural thing for him to do. She could tell from watching that he had children of his own who had once been small. He sat back in the corner of the room and opened his arms for Juliette, who crawled to him, her arms and legs weak and shaking. Maddy watched as Juliette curled herself small in Adam's arms, one hand slipped under his shirt to rest on his chest over his heart, the other curled small in a tiny fist between her breasts; her thumb almost moving to her mouth. Her fingers flexed against his heart like a kitten's paw bringing up milk from a mother, settling down into a sleep.

Maddy saw how Adam cradled the girl's head to his shoulder, and how he wrapped his arms around her. Madelyn had never seen such a gentle man, and she waited.

After ten minutes, Juliette stirred from her trance and looked around, as if to discover where she was. She reached up for Adam's face and touched his cheek, and her eyes were huge. Maddy saw him bend down to kiss her, a simple kiss on the lips. Juliette wriggled off his lap and sat cross-legged for a minute.

After long moment, Adam got to his feet and helped Juliette stand. She was a little wobbly, but refused Adam's help as she walked slowly to the door from which she'd entered the room in the first place. She held her head high.

Adam watched her go, watched the door close behind her. He then moved to the mirrored glass and looked directly at Madelyn, and would have seen himself. Madelyn saw him mouth the words, "Come here, come out here."

She got to her feet, and went to him.

"You didn't fuck her," she said.

"I didn't need to. She was content with my fingers, and not being able to move. She said, 'If fingers were good enough for Madelyn, they're good enough for me.' She said to use three fingers."

Madelyn nodded. She understood that. "You cared for her, afterwards. That was lovely to see. You let her be small in your arms."

Adam smiled, and Maddy sensed some distant memory in the darkness of his eyes, and thought it wasn't the first time he'd been a safe place for a girl who slept.

"Can I sleep in your arms one day?" Maddy asked. "Like Juliette just did. I'd like that."

"I thought you didn't do that, Madelyn."

"A woman can change her mind," she replied.

Adam looked at her with a wry smile. "I reckon you made your mind up a while ago, Maddy, you just forgot to tell yourself."

She laughed, and moved towards him, placing one long leg between his legs and her bare sex against his thigh. Her hands went up inside his shirt at the back, then she ran her fingers down his spine.

"Take this off," she said, and bunched his shirt up and over his head. "Lie down. You've been kind. Now it's my turn."

Adam lay down, and without fuss or delay, Maddy undid the buckle of his belt, undid his fly, and slid his trousers and briefs down his legs, peeling them off his feet. He lay naked on the mattress where Juliette had lain.

His cock quickly grew rigid, straight and thick up his gut, his arousal undiminished.

"You must be horny as fuck, after Juliette," said Maddy, lying down with her head on his chest, gazing down at Adam's shaft. She shifted down his body, took the cock-head in her mouth, hollowed her cheeks, and sucked.

She lay at right angles to him, stretched long on the mattress. Adam could reach her back, and tried to touch the taut globes of her ass, but she moved away so he couldn't reach her there.

"Just you, your cock," she said, before engulfing his shaft once again. Adam brought his hand back to the top of her spine, resting there, touching her. Maddy turned her mind to his pleasure, and didn't think about herself at all. Trance like, her existence centred on Adam's cock, its length, the cool weight of his balls, the blood hot heat of his shaft. She slowed her suck, and took the length of him into her hands, and began to slowly stroke.

She knew enough of Adam now, his transcendent places, to know he would give his pleasure up slowly, let her take him to a higher place. She didn't want quick release, she'd save her cunt for later, and she'd fuck him slowly when their time was ready; but now it was the sweet joy of hearing his breath catch, feeling his hand grip her skin as she paused...

... and began to move again, slowly stroking.

Maddy closed her eyes, and felt the velvet smoothness of his cock head on her lips, the heat of him on her cheek. She pressed the tip of her tongue into the little slit on his head, and smiled to herself when he gasped. Oh fuck, his breath was more and more ragged, and her nipples and breasts throbbed with her own delight, but it was the cock in her mouth, the hot cock in her hand that mattered, his hot shaft stroked back and forth. Adam arched his back, gripped her neck...

...and Maddy stopped, and waited, and breathed hot breath to cool his heat, and didn't move and didn't move, and she found his still place...

... and began again to move within it, finding his stillness and his heat, and she matched her breath to his, and his cock became the centre of her existence, the only thing in the room, and Maddy loved that long cock and tasted its flesh with delight, and she took him to the back of her throat and fucked him down to her depths, and Maddy took his cock and heard his slow moan and oh sweet fuck she made the man hers...

... and took him into her mouth and her lips and with her small teeth bit him gently and his hand gripped her skin and his other hand couldn't help it, he held her head and held her there but she didn't need to be held because his cock was in her mouth and names didn't matter any more because he was getting so close so close so close...

... she didn't stop stroking this time, didn't speed up either, and in the one moment between this one and the next she knew she knew she knew that he wouldn't stop couldn't stop and in a still place in a silent room her man made no noise but spilled his seed into her mouth, slow surges of thick pleasure as he gave himself up to her and spilled hot luscious semen into her mouth and she swallowed him down swallowed him down and with a smile on her face she had him, he'd given himself up to her; and she smiled, such joy. In this moment the man was hers, given up...

... and slowly Maddy came back to her senses, and wiped her mouth. She cupped her hands lovingly over the softening heat of his shaft and his tight balls, and ever so gently she moved her long body next to his, and lay herself on top of him, the heat of his prick thick against her belly. She lay upon him, and Adam put his arms around her and was big and still and quiet and held her in his arms.

Maddy kissed him, and gave him his own taste for his lips.

"Hello, Adam," she whispered. "Was that nice?" She smiled, and snuggled her head to his shoulder, kissing the soft hollow of skin on his throat.

"Maddy," he said.

Maddy smiled. She was the girl in the street, and she had him, now.

"Madelyn."

Madelyn smiled. She was the woman in a fast car. "Soon, my darling. Can't you wait?"

* * * *

"Adam," said Juliette, "is that you?

"Can I see you?

"Sooner would be nice. I wanted to thank you."

She smiled at his response. "No, it was my pleasure."

She laughed, and her eyes lit up. "Both our pleasures, then.

"Your place. I'd prefer your place. I'm in a group-house and it's, well, messy...

"Filthy, actually. One room is full of ski gear that's only been used once. I've given up nagging. I keep telling him, sell the bloody stuff if you're not using it!

"What can I bring?

"Apart from myself. I can drop by somewhere on the way... okay, that sounds good.

"No, she doesn't know. We don't have her number, remember."

A little later, Juliette opened a beautiful box containing another set of Bonnard's lingerie. She didn't know Adam's apartment, but thought the dark blue might be best. It would match his eyes. She'd sensed a vanity in the man, and thought he'd like that.

* * * *

"Juliette, come in, make yourself at home. Here, let me."

She gave Adam the carry bag from a gourmet deli nearby, and he took it through to the kitchen. She followed, dropping her shoulder bag onto the bench, with her car keys on top. She went to him, reaching up on her toes for a kiss, affectionate for him, a pretty girl in a plain cotton dress.

He didn't compliment her with words, and she didn't think he would. Adam had a way of noticing beautiful and elegant things around him that came from the corners of his eyes. Juliette had seen it briefly at the restaurant, and more closely in the garden, that crease of appreciation. She saw it now, and smiled back, accepting the recognition. She liked being noticed, and why not? She was the kind of girl people gazed at, only then realising what they were doing. Juliette liked their spontaneous smiles, they were like the sun coming out on dappled leaves, after rain.

"Look around, if you like. I'll put these on some plates, and we can sit outside, watch the sunset." Adam turned to cupboards and drawers, getting out plates and glasses. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Just water, for now," replied Juliette, to remind them both of the last time he got her water.

"Cold or tap?"

"Fridge'd be nice, thanks."

Adam poured her a glass from a cold bottle and she took it, feeling the coolness against her fingers. She turned from the kitchen to study the living space, and saw its elegant symmetry.

A wide, comfortable couch faced a wide-screen TV, but instead of the usual black and silver boxes and skinny speakers tucked alongside, she saw a set of unfamiliar equipment with black lumps of metal and what looked like small light bulbs in a row across the front. A turntable sat upon its own shelf. Juliette had never seen speakers like the ones in the room, a pair of tall, wide slabs, each with two speakers exposed to the air. Intrigued, she opened a glass fronted cabinet, and saw shelves of LP covers; hundreds of albums, she thought.

"God, that's a lot of records. How does this all work?" She thought of her little collection of CDs and her iPod full of downloads. She pictured herself on the bus with white dangling cords from her ears, and guessed Adam never listened to music that way. She angled her head to read some of the titles; most she'd never heard of, but she vaguely knew some of the bands. His CD collection was equally large, but she recognised more titles, more band names, as most of the albums were newer.

"Just a sec, and I'll show you."

But by the time he'd finished in the kitchen, Juliette had discovered another room, a smaller one. Two walls were completely filled with floor-to-ceiling books, and opposite the door, a long window overlooked the parkland below, a comfortable chair looking out. She ran her fingers along the spines of books, taking in the wide range of subject matters, their vastly different ages. She could lose herself in here for a very long time.

"This is amazing," she said. "Have you read them all?" She turned to Adam, who stood by the door, watching as she discovered his world of words and pictures.

"Most of them, yes. There's a few that I might have bought on a whim, that I haven't got to yet." He crossed to a shelf of older books, and ran his finger across their spines. "These are some I had as a teenager, these a bunch from uni. I keep buying books, and inherited a lot from my dad."

Juliette stood by his side, very close, and took his hand. He gave her a little squeeze, which she returned. Then she turned and left Adam to his silence, knowing she'd come back and sit in this room another time, and he'd let her.

She wandered across to the other side of the apartment, and looked through the open door of his bedroom but didn't go in. She admired the large framed charcoal drawing above the bed-head, the naked back of a woman, and wondered about the artist.

She then went to another bedroom door, which was just ajar. "Can I sticky-beak?" she asked, realising it would be a guest bedroom.

"Sure, go ahead." Adam was back in the kitchen, watching her move around the apartment. "You're like a little cat, inquisitive about a new space."

"I figured you probably were a cat person," she replied, remembering her thought from the restaurant that Adam and Maddy were like a pair of circling panthers, and she the prey in between. She was still in between them, still curious, but she wasn't afraid.

Juliette pushed the door open and wandered into the room, checking out its neatly made bed and empty wardrobes. Not quite empty. She bent down to pick up a scrap of cloth from the floor of one of the wardrobes, and saw it was a bikini bottom, bright yellow, very brief. She held it to her hips, and thought its owner would have been a similar build as herself. Intrigued, she put it to her nose and breathed it in, to find a sea-salt smell. Whoever wore it, had worn it in the sea. A quick image of dry salty skin flashed into her mind, some psychic connection with a girl in a yellow bikini, a reminder of summer.

She took the little garment out to Adam and waved it under his nose. "Company, Adam? Was she all salty and delicious?"

"Ah, where'd you find that? I got a message from Leslie, saying she'd left it somewhere, could I look. I completely forgot." He turned the bottoms over in his hand, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with the fragment of cloth.

"On the wardrobe floor. Who's Leslie?"

"Leslie? An American girl, stayed here with a friend for several weeks over summer. The other girl's the niece of a colleague in America. Nice kids, still studying."

"Two young things, Adam? Did you behave?" She caught a look on his face, and laughed. "You didn't behave, did you? You sly dog, Adam, you sly old dog." She looked up at him and pouted. "Now you've just made it difficult for me. You'll want to compare." She stopped teasing for a moment. "Wait. You said girls, kids. How old were these two, dare I ask?"

"Twenty-two-ish, I think," he replied. "Thereabouts."

"You think? That's almost cradle snatching, Adam. Goodness me, you're a bad man. Still, that makes me not so bad, being a bit older than that."

"Not so bad for what, Juliette?"

"Don't be coy, Adam. We both know why I'm here."

They looked at each other, both smiling, and Juliette considered the fact that every time she'd met this man, there'd been sex involved. First the crazy Madelyn in the restaurant toilets, then Adam and Maddy in the garden, then the ropes. Mouths and fingers, fingers in cunts, fingers around his cock. Juliette had seen Maddy give Adam head in the rope room, so she knew they were intimate, too. She'd liked watching them, seeing Adam's slow release, Madelyn's surprising gentleness.

But Juliette knew, without knowing their history, that Maddy and Adam weren't a couple, they weren't together; just as she and Adam were strangers, despite an innate, instinctive trust. Juliette felt she could trust Adam with her life.

She fingered the lace collar around her throat. She wasn't so sure about Madelyn, though. She thought Madelyn might discard those she lost interest in rather quickly. In a sudden flash of insight, Juliette wondered if Maddy had been discarded herself, and was therefore hard, as a defence. She thought of Madelyn's porcelain skin, might it shatter?

Her train of thought was interrupted.

"Why you're here, Juliette? You rang me, remember, so isn't this for you?" Adam gestured around the apartment with his hands. "I've provided the stage, but aren't you providing the script?"

"I suppose so. But I... I sort of wanted to see what happens. In an unscripted kind of a way. I mean, you didn't say, 'Bad idea, Juliette,' did you? To me coming here."

"No, you're right, I didn't. And you're here."

"We're both here, and I'm hungry," said Juliette. "This... philosophising, isn't going to fill my belly, is it?"

He laughed. "A ravenous creature? Come on then, bring some of this through to the balcony. We can put our feet up out there, while it's still warm enough." Adam picked up a tray full of nibbles and moved out to the balcony. Juliette followed with two bottles of wine and some glasses.

"I've gotta say, that's a pretty special view," she said, leaning on the railing, looking out to the west where the sun was lowering red over a flat sea. "Ten floors up, huh? Can see for miles, from up here. It's quiet, too; that's nice, isn't it?"

"Peaceful, yes, but close enough to the city. See, there's the tram."

"And the light on the hills, that's beautiful too. Lucky man, living here. It's very peaceful, really lovely."

Adam came up behind her and placed his arms around her, his hands resting intimately over her belly. Juliette leaned back against his shoulder, placing her hands over his.

"You're very peaceful too, Adam, but I guess you know that. After the ropes, I felt so very, very safe, like a little girl would be, with her daddy." Juliette's voice was low, and she kept looking out at the view as she spoke. "But you took me hard, when I was tied. You didn't hold back."

"Too hard?" Adam asked.

"Not to your edge, so no, not too hard." She still didn't look at him as she shifted her boundaries, moved her line. Juliette wondered exactly where Adam's edge was.

Suddenly, she rushed forward as if to hurl herself over the balcony railing.

"Whoa!" Adam grabbed her, wrapping his arms hard around her, dragging her quickly back. "What are you doing? Fuck, don't do that!"

She turned to him, passion black in her eyes, adrenalin surging in her body. Adam's eyes flared, and he dragged her further back, away from the edge, pulling her away until he fell into one of the lounge chairs. Juliette fell back on top of him, her arms and legs tangled in his. A shoe fell off as she struggled, and she pushed her hip into his groin. She slid up, grinding her thigh against his, and was rewarded with a ridge that was cock, not muscle.

Her breath was fast, so was his. "Jesus," she exclaimed, "that was quick." She reached for the back of Adam's neck, pulling her mouth to his. Her kiss was fierce, hungry, greedy for him. He responded just as hard, fucking her mouth with his tongue, his hands pulling her close to his body, clamping the tight muscles of her ass in his hands, his strength surging over her. Relentlessly, Juliette fought him and found him, forcing her lighter weight down onto his body, her hands everywhere, trying to find how to bind herself to him, to become as one.

Breathless, they broke the fierce kiss and fell away from each other. Juliette saw darkness in his eyes and her whole body shivered, goose bumps on her arms. "Ohhh, yesss," she hissed, and kissed him again, then pushed him away. She pressed her hand to his groin and gripped the swell there. "Fucking yes, 'till it hurts."

"Fuck, Juliette, what's this about?"

"You know, Adam, you fucking know." Juliette sat up, her thighs clamping his, her high breasts rising fast with her breath. "I got you going there, didn't I?"

She placed her hand on his throat, grasping him with her full hand width and squeezing. Juliette looked deep into Adam's eyes, thrilling to the turmoil there, and all the while she kept pressing on his throat. Eventually he gasped and she released him; suddenly her body felt lighter over his.

Juliette eased herself off him, and primly swept her hand back through her hair, tidying herself. She stood up, collected her shoe and put it back on; then sat back in the second lounger chair. "I think I'll have that drink now, Adam. White wine, can I?"

Adam composed himself too, as if nothing had happened. Juliette watched him intently. "Not a kitten, then; the cat?" he asked.

Juliette laughed, a high, sweet laugh. "Still a kitten, Adam. With tiny claws."

"Christ," he replied, "sharp enough."

"Wait till I bite, my sharp little teeth," said Juliette, reaching for some cheese and several crackers. She waved her hand over the landscape. "Nice view, it really is."