Taken

“Guess we fell asleep,” she whispered, handing me the cordless phone. I was instantly flushed as I looked at the tips of her nipples, growing harder as I watched, probably just the transition from asleep to awake, from cuddled, fleshy warmth to out-of-bed shivers.

“Guess so,” I whispered back, our eyes meeting again. I dropped mine and cleared my throat, dialing in the dimness. Ringing. And ringing.

“Are you okay?” Sarah whispered, running a finger against the fine hairs along my forearm.

I nodded. “Yeah.” I wasn’t quite sure what I was. Then I looked at her again and smiled. “Why are we whispering?” I whispered.

She laughed, softly still, as if we might wake some invisible presence. “I don’t know!”

“Lizzie?” It was my mother, sleepy but sure.

“Yeah.” There was my voice! “Listen, I’m at Sarah’s house. Sarah from work. I’m going to stay over, okay?”

“Call me in the morning.” She was already falling back to sleep. “Love you, ’night.”

“Love you, too, ’night,” I replied, our standard goodbye. I was startled by Sarah’s expression as I handed her the phone. “What?”

She looked a little sad, a little surprised as she hung up the phone and turned back to me. She shifted herself so she was turned towards me, her posture mimicking mine, hugging her knees to her breasts. My eyes quickly dipped down those long, tawny-colored thighs and caught a glimpse of the soft, fuzzy patch at their union. I felt the world slip sideways when I saw how slightly open and still glistening she was, remembering the feel and taste of her in my mouth. I felt a familiar flicker in my lower belly.

“What?” I asked again, still seeing that expression, slightly taken aback, on her face.

“I just seduced a girl who still tells her mother ‘I love you’ before she goes to bed at night,” Sarah said with a small snort. “Wow. What was I thinking?” She shook her head at the fire.

And like that it was gone, the liminal space we’d been in since we both startled awake, that sleepy, not-quite-real place. I reached behind me onto her couch and pulled a blanket from the corner, slipping it over my shoulders.

“I should probably get my clothes and go home,” I said finally, not looking at her, drawing the blanket around me and pretending to shiver. The fire was too warm for me to really be cold.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it, and turned slightly to see her. Her chin rested on her knees and her eyes were warm and full of something I couldn’t quite grasp. Okay, fine, so she wasn’t going to say anything. I stood up, pulled the blanket around me, and went to step around her. She touched my thigh and I stopped, looking down the waterfall of blanket, seeing her arm disappearing at the wrist underneath it, feeling the warmth of her palm on my thigh, not grasping, not stroking, just a solid, gentle pressure telling me to stop. So I did.

“Elizabeth.” She breathed it, out and in-like she was inhaling me with the sound of my name. My knees actually felt weak when I felt her fingertips move and shift slightly against the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thigh. She didn’t say what I wanted to hear-

she didn’t say I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, that I implied you might be too young for me, that I might be saying I regret doing this. She didn’t say that…but she did.

She said, “I want you to stay in my bed tonight. Will you?” I swallowed. Her eyes and mouth were soft, her hair a golden halo in the firelight.

I just nodded. And she took me to her bed.

Chapter Two

I couldn’t stop. Once we started, I just couldn’t stop. And I didn’t tell Tim. I tried, a few times, after one of our quick and fumbling encounters in the back of his Firebird, to tell him about the sweet and magical and amazing thing I’d discovered with Sarah. I loved Tim-he was kind and thoughtful and he tried very hard to please me-but we’d been having sex for over a year and I still hadn’t once had an orgasm in his presence.

Since my relationship with Sarah began, I’d asked myself more than once if I might be gay instead of just bi… but my love for a hard cock and, more importantly, men, simply made that impossible. Still, I didn’t think of my relationship with Sarah as

“cheating” on Tim. How could he possibly compete? It was like apples and oranges.

Where he was hard, she was soft-there was just no comparison to be made. They gave me such different things.

But I admit, it became problematic. Sarah wanted more and more of me, and I wanted to give her what she wanted. I couldn’t seem to say no to her, and all of a sudden I found myself doing and saying things I’d never imagined myself doing or saying.