Waiting for Aphrodite

When it came, it came hard, much harder than usual. Jackie heard someone screaming and only later realized that it was herself. She arced up her hips, contorting herself in convulsions of ecstasy. There was no language left in her head -- it was all raw emotion, this sheer feeling of joy that was outshining everything else.

It faded, as it always did though, and she found herself panting on her bed with a lingering afterglow that felt a bit like a headache and an irritating vibration in her sore pussy. She turned the toy off and cast it out of her, then turned on her side and lay there for a while.

A wave of drowsiness had come over there, and it was tempting to fall asleep right there. But she knew that she would wake up feeling crusty and have rolled over in the night and now be lying uncomfortably on the vibrator, possibly as it buzzed helplessly beneath her. She knew this from experience.

It was, Jackie thought as she managed to get to her feet, one of the best things about living by herself. She could indulge herself with a battery-powered boyfriend whenever she wanted, and unlike actual men it always made her come. That wasn't all -- until she stepped out of the door, she had no one to please, and could lounge around in whatever state of dishevelment she wanted. Dante didn't judge. After two decades of being shoved into uncomfortable dresses by perfectionist parents, it had been a relief to have that kind of freedom. She had just indulged in it a bit longer than most people did. Honestly, shitty job aside, she was pretty content with her life.

So why did she constantly feel the need for men? Especially losers like Rick?

This was probably not the best line of thought to pursue when she was tipsy, naked, and washing off a dildo in her bathroom sink. But maybe that was where she got her best thinking done. Like people said about the shower.

Honestly, she wasn't sure how to think about the relationship between them, or if she could even think of it as a relationship. Was she the seducer or the stalker, the coy flirt or the desperate old lady? Even in this postorgasmic haze, she felt a bit uncomfortable with her desire. Maybe what scared her the most was that she couldn't sum up her feelings for her neighbour, the strange mixture of pity, affection and lust that seemed ever-increasing in her, in a convenient little word. It was raw emotion spilling over the safe limits of language, and she didn't know how to deal with that.

--

Megan's house was as much a miracle as the woman herself. Located in what seemed to be a sleepy, leafy pocket dimension of the downtown core, it was a small but elegant brick house that seemed, for lack of a better word, homey. Somehow this neighbourhood escaped the sounds of traffic, gunshots and the rest of the urban orchestra, and seemed like the kind of old-fashioned streets where cars patiently stopped to let kids pull hockey nets out of the way.

Megan greeted Rick at the door with a warm smile. She was dressed in a red T-shirt that clung flatteringly to her breasts and a knee-length black skirt. It was a lot brighter than the type of things she had worn in high school, but that only seemed appropriate.

"Come on in," she said with a homemaker's glee. "I made some mini-pizzas. Just take a seat and we'll let the terminating begin."

Rick looked around the house, which seemed to be bigger on the inside than the out, although it was fairly austerely decorated. "This is a nice place you have here. I can't imagine how much a house in this location must cost." In truth, Rick didn't know anything about real estate prices, but it seemed like a very adult thing to say.

"Oh, we got it for a steal," said Megan from the kitchen. "Turns out that the previous owners were murdered, and people thought it was haunted."

"Really?"

She laughed. "No. But it was foreclosed on, and that's almost the same thing, right?"

Rick chuckled and sat down on a plush blue couch. Her TV was huge -- certainly better than the computer screen that he watched everything on. He could see living here. It would be a bit like the home he grew up in. It would be a bit like paradise too.

Megan returned with a plate of strange green disc-shaped things. It took Rick a moment to realize that these were the mini-pizzas described earlier. "What's wrong with pepperoni and extra cheese?"

"Goes right to my hips. Besides which, it doesn't hurt to get a little vegetable matter into you. I have this great vegetarian cookbook -- I can lend it to you if you want." Rick didn't dignify it with a response, instead choosing to survey the mini-pizzas closely, as if expecting some kind of vermin to leap out of them. Was that spinach?

He made it halfway through the vegetable confection before politely setting it down and sitting in to watch the movie. It was kind of a nice feeling, he thought. They were pressed up close together, the skin of their arms touching, and the darkness of the living room created a feeling of intimacy and closeness. It felt as though they were a cult of two, secret sharers of this flickering white light.

Just as they had in high school, Rick and Megan giggled at the 80s hair even as the movie sucked them in for real. By the time Sarah Connor's ditzy roommate was killed, Rick thought he felt Megan pressing against him. The idea of putting his arm around her bubbled up from the dark corners of his consciousness. That would be the smooth thing to do. How did guys do it, though? Did the old "pretending to yawn" trick still work? Would she respect him more if it was direct, no pretences?

Before he could decide, the door banged open. Rick's head snapped to the side, immediately paying attention to the intruder. It was a man about their age, tall with a thin beard and hipster glasses. He was carrying what looked like two bags of groceries.

Rick turned to Megan and raised an eyebrow. He didn't know if she could see it in the dark.

"Hi Davis!" She bounded up to her feet and rushed to greet the newcomer in the hall. When she kissed him warmly on the lips, Rick felt as though there was some powerful hand inside him scrunching up his insides into a little ball -- or perhaps a black hole. Megan turned back to him, looking as cheerful as the time she had hacked the school principal's computer account. "Rick, this is my fiancée, Davis."

They looked like the perfect couple to advertise some hip new magazine or bar. He was about to protest about Megan not wearing a ring, not playing the rules of the game, but of course there it was on her finger. How had he not noticed that?

Rick tried to swallow through his sandpaper throat. "Uh, hi Davis. Nice to meet you."

"This is Rick, that old friend from high school I was telling you about. We were just watching Terminator. You want to join us?"

"Just let me get this food put away." Davis, who to Rick was now some amalgamation of Stalin, Hitler and Satan, moved deeper into the house. His house. They were living together. They had fucked. A lot, probably. Megan was saying something. Rick couldn't hear her. He could only here the sound of wind whipping by his ears.

The sound eventually solidified into words: stupid, stupid, stupid.

Rick moved to the end of the couch and watched numbly until the end of the first movie. Megan and Davis cuddled beside him. She fit perfectly into the crook of his arm, like a key into a lock.

--

Jackie had just got off work, and was feeling the kind of deep tiredness in her muscles that would have been inconceivable a decade earlier. She had made herself a microwave dinner, too exhausted for real world, and sat herself down to her rigorously-curated usual Thursday night of television. It was halfway through Parks & Recreation that the knock at the door startled her out of her couch potato coma.

It was Rick. He looked different than usual, but she couldn't quite place it. "Hey Rick. What's up?"

"Can I... can I come in?" His throat sounded sore.

"Sure." Before she had even finished speaking, Rick trudged into her hallway. There was an unfocused look in his eyes, like they weren't taking anything in.

"Welcome to my humble abode," she said, trying to cut through the strange tension that he seemed to be cloaked in. "So what brings--"

He grabbed her by the wrist, cutting her off. Rick was close to her, closer than he had ever been, and Jackie knew she should like that but there was fear in there somewhere, and she knew from the past to listen to that fear.

"That time," he said. "When we first met... you asked me if I wanted to come in. I knew what you meant. I should have said yes."

They were about the same height, so when he moved in to kiss her, it came quick, and she didn't have time to move out of the way, much less wonder if she wanted to. Rick almost headbutted her, but managed to pull up in time to meet her lips. And that was all it was: lips to lips. Rick's lips were stiff and pursed, maintaining their privacy even in this intimate gesture. It was technically a kiss, but not much more. In the distant, analytical part of her brain, Jackie realized that he might be less experienced than she had thought.

He broke off from her and whispered into her ear, a bit too loud and with a bit too much garlic on his breath. "I can't really say it well, so I'll just say it outright. Sleep with me."

The technique betrayed his boyishness, but there was something romantic about the sudden, forceful proposition. Like he had suddenly been overcome with lust for her, like a romance novel hero. Rick wouldn't be mistaken for Humphrey Bogart any time soon, but there was an old-movie brusqueness to the scene that had its charms.

Jackie finally found her voice. "I can't figure you out. First you're a shrinking violet, and now you're about as forward as can be."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Jackie pursed her lips. She really wasn't sure about it, but hadn't she just been desiring this the other day? The part of her that could be generously referred to as her dignity (or maybe her conscience) told her that Rick was being unfathomably rude and cruel, treating her like a whore instead of a lady, and all this after trying to blow her off every time before. But hey, wasn't she allowed to want sex too? And wasn't this more convenient than the endless nursing of hopeless affection, waiting for a knight in shining armour?

"You're lucky you're so cute, or you wouldn't get away with this," she said. And then she leaned in and taught him what a real kiss was.

---

Rick tried to hide the quiver in his legs as Jackie lead him into her bedroom. The nerves were gradually overtaking the sense of bitter, nihilistic bravado he had come in here with. He had started to realize that this was actually happening. He was going to have sex. It wasn't the way he had imagined his first time, but damnit, it would be sex.

Even the touch of her fingers on her wrist as she gently pulled him towards her bed felt strange, a warm softness that nevertheless had a kind of strength underneath. And then she pulled him in from another one of those kisses and -- wow. It was like their lips and tongues were intertwined in some rapidly shifting way that defied geometry, and it felt great.

Rick barely had time to take in her caramel-coloured room before Jackie was pulling him down on the bed. Was it always like this, this frantic motion of bodies against each other, pulled and pushed as if by some strange force? The sweet taste of her lips stopped him from thinking too well.

She was grabbing him now, cupping his ass with her palms and shifting him up against her. He was between her legs now, and his suddenly hard cock was pressing up against her crotch. Experimentally, Rick shifted into her kiss, and felt a bolt of pleasure as his cock ran along the groove of her body. Even through their clothes, the motion was intense. He started moving back and forth, enjoying the friction. It was a whole-body sensation, and he had a hard time taking in all the stimuli at once.

Jackie broke off from the kiss to gasp and breathe in, and Rick suddenly realized that he had been short of air too. "Hey," she said into his ear. "Are you just gonna dry hump me all night, or are we going to get more comfortable?"

Even he knew that "comfortable" meant "naked" (although he thought that, depending on the weather and surroundings, nudity was not always all that comfortable). Rick partially sat up and immediately started fumbling at the buttons on his shirt. It was the nice dress shirt that he had worn for job interviews a long time ago, and he had foolishly hoped to impress Megan with it. At the thought of Megan his fingers just started shaking worse.

Jackie sat up as well and kissed him on the cheek. "Here. You do me and I'll do you." Her hands were on him then, fussing with the buttons, gradually revealing his bare chest and its light tufts of hair. Even this clinical undressing was somehow erotic.

Realizing belatedly that she had implied reciprocity, Rick reached down to the bottom of her blouse. In one smooth, measured motion he pulled it up, and Jackie quickly ducked to get it over her head. There she was, all flesh save for a soft white bra, and the realness of the whole occasion had just intensified.

Jackie wasn't stopping. She was snapping open his pants like an expert and shoving them down to his ankles. Rick frantically tried to do the same to her, resulting in a tangle of limbs and a bit of scratching. For a moment, he was lost in the impossible geometry of the moment, and then somehow they were both shorn of everything except their underwear, and they were kissing again. He thought he could just sit there kissing for hours -- it was strangely addictive. It was like eating candies, swearing that each one would be the last but then going for another. They were light and airy but somehow savoury at the same time.

But there was also something in his mind saying that tonight was the night, and he needed to do it all, because this window could soon vanish. Now Jackie was gently tugging down at his underwear. He realized in a moment that he would be completely exposed to her. Nobody had seen him like this since he was a child. Rick froze.

"Hey," she said into his ear. "You okay?"

"Yeah... yeah. Keep going."

And then he was naked before her, pimples and all. Rick looked down self-consciously at his dick as it snapped out of its cloth prison. It looked so pathetic -- hard and eager with its weird bumps and its base of wild pubic hair. He found himself blushing. Was it big enough? What was Jackie thinking about it right now? What had happened to that reckless confidence he had been so brimming with a few minutes ago?

She gently took his cock in her palm and ran her hand up and down it as though it were a method of greeting. "So tiger," she said. "Are you going to do the same for me, or just sit there all day."

Rick hurriedly leaned into her, and they were pressed together as he fumbled for the clasp at the back of her bra. It still felt shockingly good just holding his body against hers. His cock lay in the cottony groove of her panties, tortuously close to the moist opening underneath.

He surprised himself by undoing the bra strap fairly quickly -- but then again, he had always been good with mechanical things. He hesitated only a moment before pulling her bra away from her. And there they were: breasts. Tits. Mammaries. He had seen countless pairs on his computer screen, but in the flesh they were both breathtaking and disappointing. They were huge and heavy and they had marks on them just like regular skin and they were pointing towards him, as if demanding something from him, and he couldn't do anything but stare.

Jackie patiently took Rick's hands and placed them on her tits. "It's okay. You can touch."

So he touched. He suddenly couldn't get enough of her chest, running his hands all over it, kneading her breasts between her fingers, running his thumbs over the stiff skin of her nipples. Tentatively Rick leaned down and licked one of them. It sent a shiver through her body, and that sent a shiver through his. Reciprocity was, it appeared, a good thing.

He lost himself in Jackie's breasts, practically mauling them with his face and tongue. She seemed to wince a couple time when his teeth got in the way, but for the most part she was moaning steadily. Rick felt a surge of pride. Here he was, giving pleasure to a woman. Getting pleasure from a woman. It wasn't the woman he thought it would be this morning, but...

"Baby," Jackie said with a purr. "The bottom half needs you too."

Her panties were quickly dispatched with, and Rick got another eyeful. He had never liked the gynecological close-ups in porn (why did he keep thinking of porn, when he had a flesh-and-blood woman in front of him?), but this fleshy pink opening beneath a gentle patch of hair, and the pink bud of a clit sticking out... in this low light, it looked beautiful. There was a part of him that wanted to kneel down and worship it.

Jackie grabbed his ass, with another silly stop-staring-and-do-something smile. Feeling suddenly short of breath, Rick shifted in. At first he just got on top of her, but from there he could only thrust into air. Then he tried again and his cock ended up arcing up past her pussy lips and into her pubic hair. Was this supposed to be this difficult?

Finally, he got the angle right, and entered the new world.

The first thing he was aware of was the warmth, and then the tightness, and then the wetness. It didn't feel like a physical thing he was penetrating, but a ball of raw sensation. He was shocked at how perfectly he fit into her, how perfect this all felt. The feeling of her body clenched around his, of merging with another person, the all-body tremors of pleasure pulsing through him. He just wanted to stop and sort this all out, figure out each individual sensation in detail, but he knew that would be impossible.

He drew back, and thrust into Jackie again, and then that was it. Hot white spots filled his vision as he spurted his cum into her hot cunt. It was only after the ecstasy had subsided that he realized he hadn't lasted very long.

He collapsed on top of Jackie, then slowly rolled off. His body seemed to be a lot sweatier than hers. She was silent, with a polite smile on her face, like when he had met her at the drug store. The traces of disappointment just barely showed. Why wasn't she saying anything? Rick wanted to say something, but he was finding it difficult through his rapidly pumping lungs. He couldn't be sure whether he was out of breath or hyperventilating, but either way he felt completely humiliated.

"I'm sorry," he said after his body calmed down a bit. "It was--"

"Don't worry," said Jackie, running her hand through Rick's chest hair. "It happens to everyone. Maybe just something you ate."

"No, it..." He didn't want to say it. It would completely ruin the cool image he had tried to create, and just further his humiliation in front of this women who would doubtlessly laugh about him to all her friends. After all, who was still a virgin at almost thirty? But it came out anyway. "It was my first time." Rick let out a long breath after that, almost a sigh.

Jackie turned over on her side and looked at him. It felt weird to see her breasts, sitting there inexpressively, and not really exciting him at all. He was used to the breasts going away the second you finished. "Really? Wow. I... you should have told me. I would have made it... special for you. I mean, I would have done things differently."

Rick shook his head. "I didn't want it to be special. I just wanted to get laid. And I... I'm sorry."

Jackie put an arm on his shoulder. "No need to apologize. Everybody has a first time." Her touch was still warm, but it was a comforting warmth, not an erotic one. She was looking at him with concern and pity, not lust. He was, as he had suspected, eternally lost as an object of desire for her.