From Top to Bottom Page 4

  I came for what seemed like ages, my body refusing to stop even as she pulled the brass handle from inside me and dropped it to the floor. “Not bad for our first time together,” she said as she rolled off and rearranged herself so she was lying next to me on the wide desk, her head pressed against my shoulder. “I can’t wait to see what our second time is like. And the times after that.”

  I kissed her. Our juices mingled on our tongues. “I probably have a hundred fantasies I’d like to try out with you, if it wouldn’t be a bother.”

  She smiled. “Do any of them involve me fucking you in the dance studio? Because I have one about tying you to the baby grand that I’d love to try sometime, now that you’re no longer my student.”

  I smiled. “Great minds think alike.”

  Serious Swimmer

  J. BELLE LAMB

  You think the women’s locker room is empty, so you peel off your swimsuit without worrying about who may be watching. You swam hard today, adding ten laps to your workout, and all you want is a quick shower before you head home. The water in the communal shower is hot, its warmth needling your sore muscles.

  But the locker room isn’t empty after all. She’s there when you step out of the shower, towel wrapped carefully around your body. You wonder if she saw you showering, but she seems intent on pulling her own suit off, and you decide that as long as you’re careful with your towel, you’ll avoid letting her see you naked.

  So you do a careful dance, bent over so that the towel drapes around you as you face your locker and rub lotion into your skin. You wiggle into your bra and tuck the towel back around your body to pull underwear on underneath it, then drop your loose dress over it, finally letting the towel fall to the floor once you’re mostly covered. She’s taken her own quick shower while you’ve done this dance, and is unselfconsciously naked as she’s drying off. You notice a tattoo on her thigh as she gets dressed, a snake, or a dragon, maybe, and then you remind yourself that you shouldn’t be looking. Still, as you pull on your leggings, and then socks and boots, you sneak another peek and realize she’s really attractive, short dark hair wet and spiky, the muscles of a serious swimmer lining her shoulders and legs.

  You decide to skip any primping you might otherwise do before heading out. You’re not going anywhere but home, and though you like to be well groomed, you want to get out of here just in case Serious Swimmer did get a look at you naked. You pack your bag, wet swimsuit, towel and toiletries, and walk out of the locker room, avoiding looking in her direction.

  You’re all the way to your car before you hear footsteps behind you. Keys in hand, you jump when you hear her voice.

  “Hey. Sorry to startle you,” she says. You turn to look at her. Up close, she’s even more attractive: laugh lines at the corners of dark eyes, a kind smile above her loose black sweatshirt. She’s just taller enough that you have to tip your chin to meet her gaze.

  “That’s okay,” you say. You’re dreading what comes next, the inevitable conversation with the concerned citizen about abuse, the questions she may ask directly or may hint at.

  “I just was wondering,” she says, a twinkle coming into her eyes, “if you don’t mind me asking: flogger or cane?”

  The ground lurches under you for a moment and you drop your keys. She bends down to pick them up, putting them back into your hand and gently closing your fingers over them.

  “Sorry… I…” you try.

  “You were expecting something different. Again, I apologize for startling you. I saw the marks while you were showering. They’re nice work.”

  “I… it was a flogger,” you finally say. “Lots of fun.”

  “Nice! Good to know someone’s taking care of you,” she says, a sharpness creeping into her smile. “I’m Lane.”

  “Trixie.” You shake the hand she’s offering.

  “Trixie. Trouble.” Her smile widens. “Well, Trouble, I hope I’ll see you around.” As she walks away, muscular ass filling out a pair of jeans painfully well, you regain sense enough to feel your heart slamming against your ribs, but you still cannot make words come out of your mouth.

  After about a car’s length, she turns, a truly wicked grin lighting up her face. “Oh, and Trixie—next time, use one of the family changing rooms.” You must look as dumbfounded as you feel because she chuckles as she disappears into the parking lot.

  Weeks pass and you don’t see her again. You’ve written it off as a chance encounter, maybe even a hallucination brought on by inhaling too much swimming pool chlorine. Your life proceeds in its usual rhythms: home, work, to the pool twice a week to swim. The bruises that Lane saw on your ass fade and are replaced with fresh bruises on your breasts and thighs. The hope that now accompanies your workouts is the only thing new in your world. You remember to shower in the family changing rooms. Just in case.

  And then one day, through fogged goggles, you see something on an upstroke. A thigh tattooed with a snake. Or a dragon. You still can’t tell. But you’re sure it’s her, swimming in the next lane over. You inhale water and almost choke, flailing inelegantly, not sure if you’re laughing at the pun—lane and Lane—or suddenly so turned on you can’t remember how to swim.

  You wonder if she recognizes you. You have a tattoo as well, hummingbirds and flowers on your left arm, but you don’t know if she saw it. And your swimsuit is different, a new suit that covers more of your breasts and ass.

  She’s swimming laps, moving aggressively through the water in a butterfly stroke, one you’ve never mastered. Short of ducking under the lane markers to swim directly into her you can’t think of a way to get her attention; besides, interrupting her workout would be rude.

  So you swim, trying to let the water work its magic of erasing all thought beyond the rhythmic counting you’ve always done while swimming, starting with one at the pool’s edge and ending the count at its opposite end: One, two, three, four. She is so hot. Maybe I could just wait in the locker room. Dammit. Where was I? Seven, eight, eleven. Would it be too forward to ask her for a drink? Twenty, twenty-one, that was not a big enough breath. Is she watching me swim? Dammit. Just swim, already!

  You give up after your minimum workout, too distracted to push for the extra laps you’d intended. Lane’s still pushing hard, those shoulders practically catapulting her body out of the water with every stroke. You watch for a few moments from the shallow end, but it’s getting busy in the pool, people starting to fill and even double up in the lap lanes, so you get out, abandoning your place to someone else.

  You try to shake the subtle sense of heartbreak that follows you into the locker room, where you duck down the hallway to the family changing rooms. It’s not really heartbreak, just the sharp frustration of a connection lost, like missing the last step in a set of stairs and stumbling your way onto solid ground. You get your towel and backpack out of your locker.

  Your hand is on the door to Family Changing Room number three when she steps up behind you, putting her hand above yours to push the door open. Lane says nothing, following you into the little concrete and tile room. You stay silent, afraid that if you open your mouth, what certainly must be a chlorine-induced dream will end. You set your bag and towel on the little room’s bench; she drops her own bag and towel next to yours. You hear the door’s lock click shut.

  You turn. She’s right there, still dripping wet from the pool. You can see now that the tattoo is a dragon, serpentine body picked out in green and red on her thigh. Its head rests right under her hipbone, tongue flicking toward her crotch.

  “Strip,” she says. Your heart has begun to slam against your ribs again. You don’t even think about doing anything else and soon your suit is lying in a sodden pile on the floor.

  She reaches into the shower stall and turns on the water. You can’t take your eyes off her as she peels out of her own suit, tossing it next to yours. Her breasts are lovely, a little larger than your small handfuls, and she keeps her pubic hair neatly trimmed.

  Lane looks at
you for a moment, eyes gleaming as she picks out the bruises on your breasts and inner thighs. She steps close to run her fingers over the chain of inch-long bruises that follow the line of your breasts. “Teeth?”

  “Some. And clothespins.” Your voice sounds strange to you, as if you’re standing next to your body as you speak. The hiss of the shower fills the little room.

  Lane reaches down to touch your thighs, tapping the inside of your leg to make you move your feet apart so she can trace the bigger bruises there. “Same here?”

  “Yes. Fists, too.”

  “You play rough.” Still tracing the bruises on your thighs, her fingers are so close to your cunt that you want to beg her to put them inside you now, right now.

  “Yes. Just part of who I am.”

  “Beautiful,” she says, and then her hand is in your wet hair, holding your head as she kisses you. It’s a demanding kiss, as if Lane has suddenly become aware that other people have been enjoying something she wants. You’re glad your back is already against the tile wall because otherwise you would melt to the floor.

  She kisses you there, moving to pin you against the wall, her dragon in between your thighs, her hand in your hair. She finds the bruises on your breasts with her free hand and pinches them, making you writhe against her as the sharp flashes of pain burn into pleasure.

  Lane breaks the kiss to look at you, eyes locked on yours. “Trixie,” she says, “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again.” She kisses the side of your neck, nipping lightly, and you gasp. “I want to fuck you,” she growls in your ear. “Is that all right?”

  “Yes,” you say, “please.”

  She dips her head to find your breast, taking your nipple in her mouth and sucking it, gently at first, then harder as you moan and shiver against her. She switches sides, fingers pinching where her mouth just was, both of your nipples quickly blooming into bright points of pleasure.

  Lane moves back to kiss you, letting go of your hair to cup your face, the gesture sweet and possessive. “Stay there,” she tells you, and you do, still grateful for the wall’s solidity. She reaches into her backpack to pull out a Ziploc bag: gloves and lube.

  “Planning ahead?” you ask, watching her snap on the black nitrile gloves.

  “A few weeks ago I met a beautiful woman at the pool,” she says, stepping close to run her gloved hands over your thighs. “I believe in being prepared.” And then she’s reaching a hand to find your clit, working it hard enough to make you need to grasp her shoulders for balance as the dizzying rush of pleasure sweeps through you.

  “Will you come for me like this, Trixie?” she asks, lips close to your ear, her free hand reaching up between your bodies to pinch the bruises on your breast again. You bury your head against her neck in response, trying not to cry out as you come, lightning searing through you from her lips to your breast to your clit and back again.

  She lets the orgasm peak and settle. “What a lovely treat you are, Trixie,” she says, slipping first one, then two fingers into your slick cunt. She fucks you in earnest, fingers thrusting deep inside you to reach for your G-spot as her thumb puts pressure on your clit. She lets you keep your face buried against her shoulder, the shower’s hiss not quite loud enough to keep your muffled cries from filling the small room.

  You come, long and hard, the orgasm thrilling in its rawness. Lane doesn’t stop, pushing your thighs further open with her knee so that she can use the wall to lift you, jamming your deeply bruised thighs against her body. It hurts, hot red pain pounding through your thighs to mix with the electric pleasure of being expertly fucked.

  “Give it all to me, beautiful,” she growls in your ear and then bites you hard, right where the line of your neck meets the curve of your shoulder. You’re choking again, flailing now in a rush of pain and pleasure instead of the pool’s deep end, and you sob against her.

  When you come, you feel like you’re falling through the air, buffeted by hard winds. Your cunt spasms around her fingers, fluid pouring from you to smear her glove and drip onto the concrete floor, and your heart threatens to break a rib. Lane’s good enough to bear down on your neck for one last second as the orgasm starts to fade, tearing a fresh cry from you.

  She holds you there for a few moments as you shake, ripples of pleasure and pain still fizzing through you. She kisses you, still possessive, still hungry, but sweet now as she takes her fingers from your cunt and eases your feet back onto the floor.

  Lane peels off her gloves and then smoothes your tousled hair back from your forehead. “We’d better shower quickly,” she says, and pulls you into the water’s spray.

  Call for Submission

  Elna Holst

  Selma took one last look at the burning orange letters that spelled out BOOKSHOP in the window, before turning them off for the night. The familiar ache in her lower back mingled with the sweet taste of pride in another night’s book circle passed with flying colors. The lecturer from the local college had gushed at their generosity for hosting these events, gushed about Carol Ann Duffy, and been in a state which could only be described as on the verge of delirium on the topic of ‘Warming Her Pearls’. The exuberant redhead had blushed vehemently as Selma smiled, leaned her head to the side and handed her a fresh batch of their discreet calling-cards. She promised to hand them out to everyone in her new class for the term. Business thrived.

  Selma smiled again, and silently scolded herself. She was a hopeless flirt. It was good for business though, and Edith never seemed to mind. Whenever she caught her at it, she would just raise her eyebrows slightly and look at her over the translucent frames of those reading glasses she insisted on wearing, and Selma would know, as she always knew, deep down, that she was bound. Body, heart and soul.

  Brushing ginger out of her mind, Selma went to lock the rickety stained-glass door that led to the stairs to the street outside. Their small second-hand bookshop lay in an austere red-brick building, half a floor below ground level, which was the only reason she had finally consented to let Edith put up that gaudy fluorescent sign.

  “It’s tacky!” she had exclaimed, a note of desperation apparent in her otherwise well-modulated voice.

  To which Edith had blithely averred: “It’s kitschy. Don’t worry. They’ll love it. Besides, we do need to call attention to ourselves down here.” She had turned her head as she was putting it up, to see the doubtful look on her partner’s face. She snaked an arm around her waist, whispering in her ear, “You’ll get used to it. Give it a week. Then we’ll take it down again, if you want.” Selma had stroked Edith’s corduroy-clad rump, giving it a sharp pinch that made the miscreant yelp and laugh. After that, Edith had been a very good girl indeed, for the entire week. The sign remained.

  Selma stretched, lynxlike, to alleviate the soreness of her tired limbs. She stacked the empty chairs up at the back of the shop, swearing under her breath at the pang of pain when one of them scuffed her toe. Where the hell was Edith anyway? It wasn’t like her not to come up and help close shop.

  She gazed around the twilit space, usually so cheerful with its inundation of books, stacked in cases, packed along the shelves, towering in yet-to-be-sorted piles, mingling with random curiosities and bric-a-brac. Now, it looked almost sinister, with the deepening shadows; there was a near tangible sense of something missing, when not a single being browsed the aisles. The quaint little mantelpiece clock by the till struck ten and Selma all but jumped out of her own skin.

  Her annoyance grew. Damn that silly old clock. And damned woman for disappearing on her. What was it she had said again? Something about books. Oh, the books, she recalled now, Edith was supposed to have gone to finish this month’s bookkeeping in the office downstairs. Selma frowned. She opened the squeaky wooden door to the basement and peered down. She couldn’t hear a thing from down there, but through the otherwise compact darkness of the hallway, she could just make out the thin strip of light from under the closed door to the office. Surely, she must have finished b
y now? Selma flicked the light switch by the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. She flicked it another four times, just to be sure. No.

  The bulbs had conveniently burned out all at once. Swearing in earnest now, Selma threaded her way back to the counter, and got the spare torch from the drawer under the till. Switching it on, and quietly blessing the benign goddesses of Luck and Chance that these batteries, at least, were in working order, she pointed the light source back in the direction she had come from, and made for the basement once more.

  Selma padded lightly down the wooden staircase, worn soft and sloping by centuries of use. As she went down, she was passing into the oldest part of the building. It always gave her a thrill, thinking of all the feet and their respective owners, in whose steps she trod. As though she was part of an age-old line of store owners and shopkeepers, linked together not by blood but by the place itself; something of each of them bleeding into the walls, leaving their indelible marks in wood and stone, even after their mortal dust had long since scattered and decayed.

  Selma took care not to make the floorboards creak as she came down into the hallway. Gold and bronze-embossed letters glinted at her from the finer antiquarian volumes they stored down here as she swung the light over the shelves, approaching the office door. Standing before it, Selma turned off her torch and bent to peek through the keyhole. She could see next to nothing, of course. Just light and moving shadows. But finally, she heard little rustling noises which she supposed must be Edith, leafing through the pages of some file. The familiar sound calmed her, lulled her. She shook herself. Being placated without even having crossed the threshold was not part of her plan. She felt for her keys in her skirt pocket and fitted the right one in place. Quickly, she turned the lock and let herself in, banging the door shut behind her.