‘Will you always greet parts of my body?’ she asks, her words tremulous with laughter. ‘They’re not independent of me.’
‘Oh, I know...’ With the point of my tongue, I press her clit, licking it a little before sucking it into my mouth. I’m drunk on the woman. Drunk on her taste and her earthy smell. Drunk on the reactions as she whimpers softly, her hands finding her breasts, her hard nipples peeking from her splayed fingers as she squeezes. ‘Those reactions, sweetheart? That’s a dead giveaway. And the sum of your parts is exquisite.’
‘So stop saying hello to only bits of me,’ she murmurs.
I lick her again with the full flat of my tongue this time in one long swipe. ‘I wasn’t saying hello. Namaste is an acknowledgement. I’m recognising the divine in you.’ And with that, I pay my divinity some serious attention.
~*~
Later, we still haven’t moved from bed, though I’ve promised to feed Nell before she leaves. I’d eventually given in and gone to the supermarket. Man cannot live by pizza alone. Not if he wants to hang on to his six-pack. We have an hour, maybe a little less, and I won’t see her until Sunday. She’s meeting Melody straight from the hospital and says they might share a cab back to Tim’s place.
I despair for my two favourite women’s taste in men. Well, apart from me. As both brother and lover. Big-headed? Yeah, maybe. But Tim is.. . an acquired taste? Maybe if you get fed shit often enough, you reach the point where you no longer register the taste. She’s my sister, and I love her, but her taste in men is terrible. And Tim is one of frogs she seems intent on kissing on her delusional quest to find her prince.
‘So we’re agreed,’ Nell says. Propped a little on the pink pillow, she pulls the sheet over her chest before tucking it under her arms. ‘We’ll keep this from Mel. At least, for a little bit. And I’ll feel her out—discover what her objections really are.’
‘Absolutely, whatever you think,’ I reply. Rolling onto my side, I prop my head on one hand, balling the other in the sheet by her thigh as I begin to tug it back down.
‘Would you stop that?’ she says, slapping my hand away to cover herself again.
‘But I haven’t seen boobs for months.’
‘You know, I heard there were women in the Army.’
‘Not who want to flash me, it seems.’ The women I normally come across in the course of my work are usually covered from head to toe in their blackabayaatcloaks and often hiding their murderous husbands. I inhale sharply, erasing the images of black cloaks billowing in the desert breeze, of desert camo covered in blood.
‘Hey where’d you go?’
I look up into Nell’s concerned expression. ‘I was just thinking. You know, the only tits I’ve seen lately, other than your gorgeous, bountiful—’
‘Really?’ she says, giggling softly.
‘—breasts, belong to Private Smith’—not his real name—‘and while they are pretty magnificent,’ I continue, ‘I put their size down to steroid use. Sorry, but they just don’t do it for me. Not with his tattoos and stuff.’
‘Flattery will get you—nope. Flattery won’t get you there,’ she cautions, pulling the bedsheet up from her thighs again. ‘I imagine it’ll be a little awkward for Mel,’ she then says, picking up the previous thread, ‘but once she knows things aren’t going to get weird between us, I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
‘Things won’t get weird between us,’ I answer flatly. ‘I won’t be here more than a few weeks.’
‘Not weird between us—between me and Mel.’
‘Oh.’ A sudden stab of jealousy comes out of nowhere.
‘Things between us,’ she begins, her words hesitant, ‘won’t be weird because there wasn’t really anusto begin with, was there?’
I grunt in answer, unable to supply her with the answer she’s looking for. Fucking pierced again, this time by her opinions of our one-sided relationship. Of course, it’s one-sided because it’s all in my head and it’s not like I expected or wanted tears. But I also don’t want to think about the end. Not right now.
‘Hey.’ Nell brings a soft hand to my cheek. ‘What’s with the jaw flexing?’
‘Hunger. I think I might go make a sandwich,’ I say, stretching and rubbing my stomach for effect.
‘God, yes,’ she replies with a smile, and that brings back the piercing sensation again. Is it that easy to brush off her concerns?
‘What is it you want, Nell?’ My chest aches at the thought of this being enough for her—one night. A fleeting experience, over and done.
‘Other than a sandwich? I guess I’d prefer not to have to go to work today, or even out tomorrow,’ she answers, oblivious to the demands running through my head. ‘I love Mel, but I’m so tired. I could do with a night in of doing nothing.’
‘Would you settle for a night in doing me again?’ I’m a fucking coward. Why can’t I just ask her outright? Are. We. Going. To. Do. This. Again. See? Easy.
‘That’s not settling,’ she answers, all tender eyes and with a genuine smile. ‘It’s all pleasure, Ben.’
