Best of the Best Lesbian Erotica (31 page)

I stand in my underwear, undershirt, and tallis. Do I take off the prayer shawl? I suppose I must. I lift it off gingerly, suppressing an urge to flick the fringes against her belly. I fold my tallis neatly on the nightstand.

“Undershirt, too,” she says. There is no graceful way to obey; I yank the shirt over my head.

And we stand, three feet of air pulsing between us. She gapes at the hair on my chest—is it enough? is it too much? I worry—and on my stomach. I feel each hair spring to life and reach toward her, like the fur on a jungle cat's back.

And Chana, my Chana, moves toward me.

But she stops, inches away. I can see every pore, every freckle on her shoulders. She smells like soap and wine and something else I've never smelled before. I want her all at once, hot and electric, inside and outside, I want her so badly, now and forever, I want her so, I almost cry with the wanting. I almost fall to my knees and cry. No one has ever before had such power over me; at this moment, I would trade my soul, sell myself into bondage for her. And at the same time, my desire could burst from my body, grip her, deliver her to me like a wave crashing on the shore. I am a king about to ravage a feast. I am a boy afraid to taste the wine.

I move not at all.

Slowly, sighing, Chana folds herself into me. First she touches her bare shoulder to mine. Then she rolls her bosom against my chest. And her silken hands slide to my back.

So much warm skin against skin.

My hands travel her spine. And the curls of her hair.

Now our kisses come fast, forceful. I kiss through the softness of our lips, into the hardness of her teeth and bone. My fingers press into not just skin, but muscles and joints. I push and she falls, we fall, into the bed.

The front of my shorts stands like a pyramid. Now. “Now,” I say, and bump my clumsy hands against her breasts. I tear at the fabric separating her from me. I must be rid of it. But the fabric clings to her.

“It's—” Chana's breath is as rushed as mine. “It's in back,” she says. “The clasp.”

I grip the back panel and pull, but nothing opens. Chana throws off my hands, then reaches behind her (again with that arm-breaking contortion) and unbuckles herself. And like the dress before, the brassiere melts off her body.

Oh, her breasts are small and soft; her nipples brown and wrinkled and large in my hands, between my lips and my tongue like sweet raisins in challah. I kiss and lick every part
of her, gnawing and kneading. I am on top of her, pressing myself between her legs. Chana is moaning; heat tumbles forth from her divide.

Suddenly, her hand darts down and grips me below, through the cotton of my underpants.

Never before have I been so touched, and I stop, shocked, simply feeling her fingers around me.

“Please,” she says. “Now. Please.” Her fingers find my elastic waistband. And they slide beneath to grip me again.

I am motionless, gape-mouthed, wordless. Her dry, warm hand travels up and down my length, burrowing into the thicket below. Her other hand tugs my underwear to my knees.

“Now,” she says, withdrawing her hand to strip off her underpants as well. I grab her buttocks in my hands, crash her body against mine, kiss frantically, swipe my palms against her drenched hairiness. My greatest sensitivity is extending, extending toward hers. With a gasp, I push my sensitivity into her wetness, where all is warm and dark and plump and throbbing alive. Oh, my sensitivity is in hers and we are rocking in and out, throbbing to throbbing, crying and spilling and oh, I am buried so deep, my whole body vaults to press deeper into her heat. Then we are rubbing faster, sweat and tears and slickness pouring off us.

Chana screams and arches first, shuddering over and over and clutching my shoulders. And then the world turns red and yellow and pink and I empty into her, each pulse sweeter and sweeter and sweeter, until there is no more. No more but sweat and warmth, and Chana in my arms.

 

I am suddenly aware that I am still standing—slack-mouthed, vacant-eyed, wet-crotched—in Rosenbloom's Jewish Books and Religious Articles.

My eyes focus forward on a shelf of small cardboard containers.

Shabbos candles, twelve to a box.

Anat. I remember: I came here to buy a present for Anat. And I have chosen the gift I will bring to her roof, the gift I will give with desire and certainty.

I will give Anat these wax sticks and say, “When I love a woman for the first time, it will be slow, on a clean bed, with red wine, by candlelight.” I will watch her eyes. And then I will walk away.

I take my candles to the Hasid behind the cash register. As he gives me my change, I notice he is careful not to touch my hand.

 

 

 

 

 

u be a gospel song
some a dat
ole time religion
where the tambourine git going
and the holy ghost sneak up
inside people's bones and
everybody dancin and shoutin
screamin and cryin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and the people start to clappin
and reachin back to african rhythms
pulled through the wombs of
the middle passage
and women's hats start flying
while the dance,
the dance they do gets hotter and holier
and just the music has brought cause for celebration

 

yeah, u be a gospel song, girl
like some a dat ole back in the woods, mississippi river
kinda
gospel
and i feel the holy ghost when you is
inside me
and the tambourines keep goin
and folks is stampin they feet
and oh no,
it's the neighbor knockin on the door
askin is we alright
say we was screamin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and i heard us but i
didn't hear cuz
i was bein washed in the gorgeous wetness of
your pussy
being baptized w/ ole time religion
the oldest religion there
is
2 women inside the groove
of each other
we come here
we come
we come here
to be
saved

 

 

 

 

 

Caught up in the Christmas spirit, Adolpha decided to go shopping. How nice it was of all the merchants to remain open well after dark. In downtown San Francisco, the antique steel-blue lights along Market Street were decorated with enormous candy canes and reindeer. Shop windows were lushly lit, golden boxes full of expensive and precious things. Well-dressed and well-fed men and women hurried along the street, loaded down with shopping bags and parcels, eager to pick up one last present or head for home with the bundles they had already amassed. Between them lurked figures who had not partaken of the season's bounty; dirty, thin people who begged change from their betters or begged their personal tormentors to leave them alone.

Adolpha had shaved her cornsilk blond hair at sundown. By now it had grown out to an inch of stubble. The cold was all the artifice she needed to put a cruel blush of color on her Teutonic cheekbones, and her mouth had always been blood-red. Tonight she wore a very brief leather miniskirt and a matching black leather jacket, lined with scarlet silk,
of course. The tailoring was Italian, very chic, very naughty. She thought the clothes would have been expensive if she'd had to buy them, but Adolpha never carried cash or American Express. Her big green eyes were her line of credit. Underneath her leathers she wore nothing at all, being immune to the chill. Her black stockings were held up by lacy elastic tops, and she maneuvered on seven-inch stilettos as if the brick sidewalk was just another Paris runway.

Before allowing the warm air, silver tinsel, and discreet carols of Nordstrom's to suck her in through its thick glass doors, Adolpha paused and took a deep whiff of the street. Really, she could not see that cities had changed much since 1887. Victorian London had its clouds of coal smoke; San Francisco in 1997 had carbon monoxide. The gutters still smelled of sewage and rotten food. Horse-drawn carriages and electric trolleys seemed equally indifferent to the welfare of pedestrians, and the street people were, if anything, even more desperate, despite the absence of snow. She took in the crowds with the delighted smile of a vegetarian gourmand contemplating the glossy rows of organic produce at the Berkeley Bowl, and swept into Nordstrom's, eager to enjoy her portion of greed, the joy that comes from avid consumption.

Riding the escalator was a treat, although she had to resist the temptation to rise an inch or so above the steps and alarm the shoppers thronged behind her. She had artfully positioned herself in line so she would be ahead of a matronly woman who was taking a young boy shopping for a suit. It was delightful to hear their twin reactions to the view, like an operatic dialogue in her head, the older woman's fear and dismay paired with adolescent disbelief and delight. It was sweet to be adored, and equally savory to scare someone. She resisted the temptation to introduce them to a whole new set of family values. There was time, still, she was fresh from her nap and wanted to look around a bit.

Of course, she headed straight for the shoe department. The buyers at Nordstrom's had to be perverts. Just look at all the thigh-high boots, platform heels, leopard prints, Lucite pumps, sharp metal spikes, little-girl shoes with padlocks on the straps. These shoes were positively pornographic, erotic verses in latex, patent leather, kid, and steel. She found a row of seats, made everyone who was seated there leave, and positioned herself in the middle of the row. The chairs were not upholstered with leather, and she frowned at the sensation of plastic against her half-bare bottom. It was annoying to be reminded of the store's faux elegance, its pretentiousness. Americans craved only the illusion of exclusivity.

Now, that salesgirl over there, perhaps she was the one to drag under the mistletoe for a nice, long kiss. Adolpha stared at the back of her head until she abandoned her customer, turned, and came to inquire submissively if there was anything that Madam would like to see. She was a cute little thing, with her dark brown hair cut in a Dutch-boy's bob. Adolpha liked girls who wore ties with boy's shirts. She was a little thin in her dark slacks and fashionable loafers, but there was no time to fatten her up. Her name was Jamie, this was not what she had in mind when she graduated from high school, she was from Santa Monica, San Francisco was so cliquey and drinks were too expensive, she was thinking about moving back to Southern California and staying with her parents for a while, and Adolpha did not care to pay attention to the rest of it.

“I think you should measure my foot first,” Adolpha purred, and crossed her long, long legs. Jamie sank to her knees and removed one of Adolpha's viciously high heels. The foot arched in her hand like a cat imperiously ordering you to pet it right there. So Jamie stroked it, and for some reason the rasp of the black silk stocking against the palm of her hand made her feel hot and sweaty inside the buttoned-down
Oxford shirt that concealed her small breasts. She wanted to loosen her tie.

Instead, she ran her hands up Adolpha's legs, confirming with her fingertips that the stockings were perfectly taut and the seams aligned as if they'd been painted on with a laser. The muscles in the calves bunched beneath her hands, and she kneaded them, and continued kneading up, shifting her hands to palm the inside of a pair of perfect slender thighs. The silk stockings were like sandpaper on the sensitive inner surfaces of her hands, and she wanted so much to soothe them against this woman's skin.

Somehow she had forgotten to put the scale beneath her customer's feet, and was kneeling instead between her legs. She could see Adolpha's sex, the pink lips clearly visible because the pale pubic hair had been severely clipped. Jamie's breath caught in her chest. She ran her hands off the tops of the silk stockings, toward skin. But she barely got to experience the downy texture of Adolpha's thighs before her head was rudely shoved down, into the gray Berber carpet.

“Measure me with your mouth,” Adolpha said, and the words were like a sonorous hymn in Jamie's head, a Gregorian chant that heralded and sanctioned the forbidden. She was afraid, afraid, but then there was a warm feeling like a touch behind her eyes, and she knew only desire. She took Adolpha's stockinged toes into her mouth, and adored them with her tongue. She was vaguely aware that customers were standing around in shock, watching a tall blond woman with a crewcut spread her legs and feed a salesgirl her feet. The manager of the department was heading toward them, and Jamie did not understand why he had not already shouted at her to stop, stop! But then it seemed to her that everyone was frozen in place, because Jesus told us to love one another, and here she was loving someone perfectly. It was like a nativity scene, she thought as she licked up toward Adolpha's knee caps. People
would stand in front of them with their hats in their hands and admire them and think deep and beautiful thoughts, they would be inspired and awe-struck because it was holy, holy to press her mouth against the elastic roses and hunger for Adolpha's symmetrical Art Deco labia and the pink topaz of her clitoris.

Then her mouth was on rose petals, skin at last, and Adolpha's long fingers were in her hair, guiding her. Jamie had vague memories of a drunken party long ago, falling backwards onto a friend's bed, an awkward pleasure provided with pearl-tipped cheerleader fingers and lips that tasted of peach, passing out more because she was not sure she wanted to reciprocate than because of her blood alcohol level…but this was not like that. There was no intoxication except the sweet smell of Adolpha's body, no awkwardness at all because she was firmly held, directed, and there was no possibility of failure. She would give anything, anything to do this perfectly, to hear just one small sigh of delight from the woman who had gathered her up and given her a purpose.