Unsoul'd (11 page)

"Liberate! Your! Vagina!" another shouted.

"That's really terrific advice," Gym Girl said in a convincing facsimile of sober concern.

The lead girl nodded with self-importance. "It is! It totally is. We all need to liberate our vaginas." She spun around and shouted it to the sidewalk, where the only vagina-possessors were two elderly women and -- possibly -- the tiny dachshund they were walking. "Liberate your vagina!" she shrieked. The dog yapped and the girl spun back to us.

"Can we take your picture?" the college girls asked Gym Girl.

"Sure." She even struck a sassy little pose for them as they snapped at her with their phones.

"What's your name?" they asked Gym Girl, and I almost dropped to my knees and thanked God right then and there.

"Abby," she told them, and I remembered it at the same instant. Abby. Abby. Of course. What was
wrong
with me? How could I have forgotten that?

"How do they know my vagina isn't already liberated?" she asked as the college girls scampered off, no doubt to harass others with potentially imprisoned or impaired vaginas.

"That's so wrong of them to make that assumption," I agreed.

"Bitches," she said without rancor. "What do they know?"

"Clearly they think they know something about the liberation of vaginas."

She sighed theatrically. "What if they're right? What if my vagina isn't liberated? What do I do then?"

I swallowed. "Well, then, in that case.... They seemed to feel pretty strongly that you
should
liberate it."

"Do you think so?" she asked, holding my gaze. This time she didn't just touch my arm -- she held it, just above the elbow.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

I felt a pull to her, a magnetic, almost gravitational attraction, as though all the forces of the universe were aligned in dragging my lips to hers.

Dialogue ran through my head then. As though this were a scene on my computer screen, I imagined all the things I could say, all the responses she could give. They ranged from erudite and poetic to monosyllabic. I riffled through them all in the space between her body and mine, and by the time my lips touched hers, I still couldn't make up my mind, so I just tossed the dialogue out the window and kissed her. She tasted of Asian fusion and half a bar; I tasted of the rest of it. Her tongue was a wonder.

"I have a roommate," she said when we parted for air, and I wondered why I should care before I realized what she was saying.

"I don't," I told her, and raised my arm and -- in a moment proving miracles can happen -- a cab screeched to a halt right in front of us.

Wherein I Get an Assist from the Devil

We kissed like horny teenagers for the duration of the cab ride, sloppy and slobbering. I felt like I had a steel bar heated to white-hot in my pants. When I kissed her neck, she gasped and groaned the way Manda gasped and groaned when I touched her clitoris. I took this as a good sign.

By the time we got to my apartment, I had sobered up just enough to become worried. This was
Gym Girl
. She was a goddess. I was a slightly-in-shape dude from the gym. I had already seen her naked, of course, thanks to the devil's machinations, but this was different. She
knew
I would be seeing her naked, for one thing. And she was glad. She wanted me to see her naked.
 

But now she was going to see
me
naked, too. And it would not be nearly as glorious a sight.

"Don't worry about it," the devil said, and I yelped.

"What's wrong?" Gym Girl asked, nearly breathless.

"I--"

"Tell her you stubbed your toe."

"I just stubbed my toe. I should turn on a light."

"Forget the lights," she said, and proceeded to do something to my ear with her tongue that made all sense leave me. Together, the three of us -- I was aware of the presence of the devil -- made our way to the bedroom, where light from the moon and the lamppost across the street threaded through the Venetian blinds, turning Gym Girl (I had fantasized her as Gym Girl -- I couldn't think of her as merely "Abby") into something out of a very naughty noir.

"Remember, she can't hear me. I'm gonna guide you through this. Because you were starting to freak out a little bit back there, and man, I am
not
going to let you ruin this. She's a tasty piece of ass and you've been wanking it to her for months now. What kind of a wingman would I be if I let you blow it?"

I silently thanked him.

"Women
see
differently from men," he went on. "This is basic science. You're visual; she's not. You see all the flaws in your body, but she skips over them. It's not that she doesn't notice them; it's just that she doesn't focus on them, the way you would focus on hers. If she had any."

I peeled off Gym Girl's shirt. There were no visible flaws that I could discern. I kissed her shoulder and then licked my way to her throat. She tasted like slightly salty oranges.

"Female sexual perception is just plain different," the devil continued. "Yeah, they like ripped abs and all that, but they don't key their sexual desire to it. It's more abstract for them. So just get fucking naked and then get to naked fucking."

I was ready for that, but how could I perform with the devil offering color commentary? As Gym Girl unbuttoned my shirt, I glanced around until I picked out the devil, lounging against the windowsill near the bed. I jerked my head for him to leave.

"Moi? Nah, I'm staying for the show."

Get out of here!
I thought fiercely at him.

"Dude, if you can't get past me being in the room for
that
pussy, I'm worried about you."

I realized that I was actually cradling Gym Girl's stupendous breasts, kneading them, probing the nipples with my thumbs through her bra. Fuck the devil -- I had more important things to do.

There was a moment of concern when I couldn't get her bra unhooked (some of them are easy and some are so damn hard), but she rescued me, reaching back to handle it herself. I reluctantly let go of her for a moment and stripped out of my pants and underpants, then bent to attack her fly as she tossed her bra aside, her breasts erupting into my face like the most joyous thing that could ever erupt into a face. I captured a nipple in my mouth and went to town.

"Newbie mistake," the devil commented. "I thought you knew better than that."

I ignored him and maneuvered her to the bed, helping her step out of her pants and panties at the same time. I was so distracted that I didn't even check out the panties; I had always been curious. I suspected thong. I would look on the floor later, I decided.

We collapsed onto the bed, the devil still chattering away.

"She's not even wet at this point. She's not ready for you, man."

I tried not to listen, but suddenly my doubts had risen like my cock. A quick finger-dip confirmed that the devil spoke the truth.

More foreplay was clearly in order.

"You have to work the equipment," the devil said, exasperated. "You have to know the angles, dude. It's not about the length of foreplay; it's about the quality, not the quantity. For example," he continued, as I traced my tongue down her unbelievably taut stomach, "Gym Girl here happens to fall into a depressing category of women who don't like oral sex."

I paused between her navel and a delicate, sexy strip of neatly sculpted pubic hair. Really?

He couldn't read my mind, but as he'd said once before: He could read
me
. "I don't get it either," the devil said. "Cunnilingus is sort of like the Old Man's way of saying, 'Yes, yes, I know -- child birth's a bitch. But you won't believe what any human on the planet can do to you with just their tongue.' And she's not into it."

Unsure, I dipped a little lower. Gym Girl writhed on the bed and moaned.

"Oh, sure, she'll make a good show of it. She'll act like you're driving her wild with lust when you go down there. But give it a minute and a half and she'll be tapping on your shoulder, tossing you out for the relief pitcher, you know?"

He moved away from the window and crouched down by the bed, his piercing green eyes practically glowing in the dark. "What it comes down to is this, my man: Do you trust me or not? I showed you this chick's goodies a while back and now you're about to have what could be a transcendent sexual experience. Would I steer you wrong?"

Of course, he
could
. He was the devil, after all. "Steering wrong" was, if history was any guide, at the top of his résumé. But
would
he?

I decided to trust him.

"Good man!" He clapped his hands together. "Head north, young man. This one is all about the boobage. Very sensitive there. She was into that bit before where you were feeling them up. Get back to that."

I crawled up her body, luxuriating in the sensation of her skin against mine, the brushing of my cock against her thighs. I sucked a nipple into my mouth and closed my eyes and the devil smacked the top of my head, just lightly enough that I would feel it.

"Get off of that thing!" he chastised. "It's the most fundamental rule of breasts! The bigger the boob, the less sensitive the nipple. I know, I know -- it hardly seems fair, right? Just trust me on this. Fi and Manda have nice tits, but these are bigger than what you're used to. Nice, firm massage. One hand per boob. Start slow, then lick the outside of the breast. Avoid the nipple until she's ready. Guys always head straight there. She'll love that you don't. Tease her."

I obeyed. Gym Girl responded with moans and dug her fingers into my skull.

"Now go underneath. That's right -- lick underneath the breast. No one ever goes there."

I hefted one heavy breast and applied my tongue to its soft, smooth underside for a few moments. When I finally moved to the nipple, I was rewarded with an "Oh, God!" from Gym Girl.

The devil sniffed in derision. "He had nothing to do with it. I mean, I
invented
sucking on nipples."

I was pretty sure
babies
invented sucking on nipples, but my tongue was too occupied to say so.

"Fuck babies!" the devil snarled. "I invented sucking on them for
fun
. If it was up to the Old Man, you people would never have learned the joys of boobs as sexual playthings. He wanted them relegated to baby-feeders. Can you believe that? What a waste."
 

OK, thanks, I think I've got it from here.

"I bet."

I could feel her slickness already against me. I adjusted my position and slid inside her as though I belonged. We gasped together.

I've never thought of myself as particularly good in bed. Not bad, per se, but nothing that would compel women to call their girlfriends to say, "OMG! You won't believe what happened last night!"

That night with Gym Girl was the first time I ever felt like maybe she would be telling her best friend about this in the morning.

Wherein I Wake Up

I woke up at six, hours before my usual awakening. I was aroused in every sense of the word.

Gym Girl lay next to me in a rumple of sheets, turned away from me. When I turned a bit, the sheet moved, revealing more of her. Looking at the complex arcs of her under the white sheet, her lightly tanned skin in contrast, her black hair a higher-contrast fan against the pillow, I felt the tug of my complete obsession with her. The sheet came up not quite to her waist -- the dimple of the beginning of the cleft of her ass was visible. I was seized with a desire to run my tongue into that dimple.

I looked around. The devil was nowhere to be seen. I had forgotten about him as soon as I'd entered Gym Girl. Had he stayed to watch?

Well... Fine. I hoped he enjoyed the show.

For the first time in hours, I thought of Manda. I had made love to her in this same bed -- on these same sheets -- just a couple of nights ago, and then I'd thought of her not at all, since even before Gym Girl and I had shared our first drink.

Shouldn't I feel something? Guilt? In the recent past, I'd felt guilty having just
looked
at Gym Girl. Now I'd fucked her -- well, I might add -- and I didn't feel guilty at all. Why?

Maybe... Maybe because, deep down, I thought I deserved it, I decided. It was one night. People did this. It happened, these one-night things. Was it so bad? Had I maybe earned this for myself? I was writing a great book. Something far beyond what I'd done before. Something that -- given the proper promotion and a bit of luck -- could change people's lives. Could change the world, even.

That sounded sort of grandiose and smug, but I kept thinking of what Aristotle said:
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world
. I was used to my dreams not coming true, but this time felt different. Even without the devil's promise to give me a hit book. The vibe of the new book was unlike any of my others; the words flowed fast and sure. The whole arc of the story and evolution of the characters -- they were all fixed in my head with a confidence I'd never before experienced.

More importantly, I wondered, was it too early to wake up Gym Girl for some morning glory? Was there a time when I should wake her up, so that she could go to work at...