Truth

She wears a laugh like strappy lingerie. Intimate and disarming. Her lips part into a goofy smile as she throws her head back. Her nose scrunches. She places a hand to her chest as if she’s some old cinema starlet even though she’s hyperventilating and snorting like a hyperactive piglet. When she laughs, I want to give her the whole world.

“Truth or dare?” I ask firmly, to snap her back to our game.

After four years, we still act like giggly teenagers together. Too shy to say things like “I want you to fuck me” or “Put your mouth on my clit.” We laugh, we hold each other close, and lob softballs until the tension is too much to bear.

She mulls over her options. Neither truth nor dare have been particularly scandalous tonight. Over the course of an hour, we have barely managed to whittle our way down to our underwear. She clings to my arm like a love-sick koala, her arms wrapped tightly around my bicep, my hand is nestled between her thighs. My knuckles pace a small circuit along the topography of her lace. I know these panties by touch alone. Her lower half has not come from the warmth of the covers since we laid in bed, but still I know these well. A bouquet of seductive black flowers stretch across her. These are her “Oh, we’re definitely having sex tonight” panties. And yet, here we lay, locked in our game. 

“Truth,” she says, eyeing me with a well-practiced expression that is all tease. 

My knuckle glides along the groove of her lips. Budding wetness clings to the fabric. Her expression melts, her breath catches. I remind her that I can tease as well.

Questions flash through my mind as I turn to face her. She pouts as my hand escapes the vice of her thighs. My heart worms its way into my throat. Its rough beating rattles my senses. 

Marie knows that I’m different. Our entire relationship, she’s been nothing but supportive since I came out as bi to her on our third date. She helped me paint my nails for the first time; a shiny cobalt that had the church ladies at the diner asking for the brand. I routinely remind her that my wedding dress is going to look better than hers. “You just have to get used to the fact that you won’t be the cutest one at our wedding.” I always tease. 

But every fresh confession brings its own fleet of panic attacks.

The silence grows as I wrestle in my mind. “Can you start referring to me as ‘they?’” “Can you include me in the next girl’s night?” “How do you feel about the fact that sex sometimes scares me, because I hate that I have a penis?” The questions crash like lightning, twisting my lungs into knots. 

She runs her small fingers through my chest hair, watching me with knowing, patient eyes. I think she’s gotten used to the conversational roadblocks. The way I stall out, idling restlessly as I struggle to find my voice again. 

“Truth?” I clarify even though I don’t need to.

“Mhm.” She nods.

I study her eyes; large, catching whatever light the darkness offers. I smile at the tangle of bedhead she’s sporting. Her pixie cut bangs climb into the air in some impossible structure. 

“Did you know your hair makes you look like a boy band reject?” I ask, my voice dripping with sweetness.

“Shut up!” she squeals, pushing off my chest and mussing up her hair.

“No! It’s a good look, babe!”

“Stop!”

And we’re laughing again. Air enters my lungs. I curse myself for always hijacking these games with my stupid earnestness. 

“That wasn’t your truth, was it?” 

“Nah,” I say. “Who is your celebrity crush?”

I already know the answer, but savor the familiarity of it. She launches into her monologue on some TV vampire. I, like usual, argue that he is decidedly uncute. 

“He acts with his eyebrows and his head looks like a Lego person!” I battle back. 

She gasps. Ever the actress. “What do you know?”

“I’ve slept with more men than you have. I know a thing or two about cute boys.”

She pokes fun at the list of professional wrestlers on my personal “exception list” and we call a truce.

“Truth or dare?” she asks as we settle back into a cuddle.

“Dare.” No doubt. I say it as definitively as I can.

“Ooo,” she giggles as if I’ve fallen into her trap.

I roll my eyes and wait to see what she can muster.

“Hmmm…. I dare you to touch me anywhere on my body for ten seconds.” She tells me this like she’s daring me to ask the cheerleading captain to prom. All titter and scandal. 

With a dramatic flourish, she whips off the comforter, presenting her body to me. I gather to my knees, taking in her form. Her small breasts that slope toward her armpits when she lays on her back; her stomach, hard with abs forged over a lifetime in the gym; her thighs, already parted slightly as we both know where I will choose to touch.

My hand slides along her neck. My thumb brushes over her throat. She softens at my touch and I kiss her. All laughter and jokes die away. The hum of the fan scores our gentle embrace. 

Our lips move against one another. Quick pecks give way to longer locks. Tongues mistiming entry into the other’s mouth. I savor the rush of air she sighs into my mouth as my fingers find their way between her legs.

“One…” she begins to count. Her eyes remain closed as I pull away from her lips.

I march my touch along the length of her labia before grinding the pad of my fingertip into her clit. I kiss her neck as my touch descends again. Parting her lips, I feel her wetness through the lace. 

“Five…six…” she continues. I’m barely listening. 

My fingers hook the elastic of her underwear. She squirms with anticipation. I pull the waist band away from her flesh and let it go. Snap. A tantalizing jolt shoots through her. 

“Seven…eight…”

My lips dance down her chest, settling on her breast. Coarse hair greets me as I slide my fingers beneath her lace panties. Touching her warmth. Rubbing firm circles around her clit fills my head with static. A shuddering breath escapes me, hot against her skin. Her lips part as I blindly explore my bible in braille.

“Ten…eleven?”

I meet her gaze and she knows the game is over. With a steadying breath, she fluffs her pillow and settles in. 

Her panties pull tight against her ass as my large hand begins its work, riding the length of her vulva again and again. She moans sweetly, a small note to let me know I’m on the right track. A finger enters her. The warm wetness of her pussy wills the heaviness from my late-night eyes. Another pleasure sound escapes me. She laughs. I’ve earned the title of the vocal partner. 

Tension grows beneath my boxer briefs. Small strokes inside her. Her hand wanders to my thigh. My palm presses to her clit as I use more of my wrist. She slides her hand to my crotch. I pull away from her touch. Tonight is one of those nights, I guess.

“What about you?” She draws each word with a purr. Her hand brushes against my persistent hardness, then slides along my shaft. 

“Oh no. I’m alright,” I say bashfully. “Just…it’s a bad penis day.” I say, as if that makes any kind of sense. 

“But I like your penis,” she persists. She says it as if I’m worried about its length.

“But I don’t. Sometimes I just don’t like it. I don’t like having it. Sometimes it’s fine. Others it’s…I don’t know it’s all weird.” And I’ve said it. Not gracefully or with a ton of clarity. But I’ve given her a peek behind the dysphoric curtain, and without the prompting of a childish game.

She looks at me. Confused but smiling. Like a puppy you just showed a magic trick to. 

“Okay.” She says it simply and easily. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” 

I breathe the biggest sigh of relief and pull her into another tight squeeze. “Thank you for understanding.”

She turns her back to me and pulls my arms tightly around her. I kiss her neck. My hand slides along her belly, diving toward her pussy once more. I want to focus on her. I want to finish what I started. 

I slide my finger back inside her. I feel her body slacken in my embrace. Her head rolls back to rest against mine as I work. A deep thrust punctuates my play. Her breath catches and morphs to a low growl. A second finger joins the first and they resume their small strokes. I feel her wetness in my hand. It spurs me forward. Firmer, faster, my fingers curling more fully. Building and building until I must taste her. 

I climb over her, clumsily. The rigid peak of my erection bumps against her hot skin. Settled between her legs, I remove her panties in an aggressive movement. Black lace disappears into the abyss behind us; adrift in unknown space as the known world extends before me. 

Laying on my stomach, I kiss her clit. The bristles of my mustache tangling with her own topiary. I brush her hair back with a sweep of my palm and run my tongue along her lips. I imagine this is what smokers feel like as they light up after a long, stressful meeting.

My forearms beneath her thighs, I guide her legs to rest on my shoulders. I navigate her pussy with long, wide laps, crashing to shore on her clit. Circling it, kissing it, taking it into my mouth. A hand roams her belly up to her chest, seizing her breast in my grip. Enthusiasm builds with my pace.

I savor how the clit stimulation makes her legs twitch. My loud smacking and the satisfying liquid slosh of my fingers’ strokes join the fan’s song in the silence. 

“Right there!” My favorite words are practically all air as my rhythm finds its stride. “Mmm. Mhm.” She grips tightly at the sheets. Her moans are stifled. Like she’s holding back despite the movement of her hips.

I curse the cramp in my wrist. I vow to do forearm exercises as I ask her to grab a vibrator. Excitedly, she rolls to the bedside table. There’s a heavy chorus of rolling as dildos, bullets, rabbits, and more, slide about. I’m always jealous of her bevy of options.

She tosses me a trusty black vibrator and settles back in. With a press of a button, it rumbles to life. It’s so strong it rattles my hand.

I come to a seated position and set to work. Focused, I trace her clit with the rounded tip of the vibrator. She shudders instantly. This toy never fails to catapult us into a new stratosphere.

My fingers continue to stroke inside her, but they lose their rhythm. The new position limits my control—it matters little. The firm pressure of the vibrator has her breathing heavily. Somewhere lost between a gasp and a moan.

“Fuck. Babe,” she whimpers. “Oh shit.”

I press harder. That sensitive little bit rolling under the pressure. I follow it. Her hips rise.

She lets loose a deep, throaty moan. 

“Fuck!”

Suddenly, she’s recoiling from that persistent buzz. “Okay. We’re good. Babe. Babe. We’re good.”

We share an accomplished laugh as I toss the whirring vibrator into the stack of pillows. I try to rub her clit with my fingers, but she slaps my hand away.

“Really. Woooo. We’re good. That was amazing!” she says, leaning over to kiss me. “Oooo those are some jelly legs.”

I pull her in tight to me, wrapping her in the blanket. She gets cold quickly once we’re done playing. Her fingers curl and uncurl in the tangles of my chest hair. 

“I’m glad you liked it,” I say, kissing her head. The airy coconut of her dry shampoo fills my senses.

Photo by алекке блажин