The Bonfire: Her Birthday Pt. 02

"I had a weird time at college. It was the first time in my little life I'd had freedom. Freedom to do what I want, wear what I want, be who I wanted to be. And do you know what I did?"

"Of course not."

She laughed. That was the perfect answer. She turned in her chair, throwing her legs over one of the arms and leaning against the other. She took a sip of wine straight from the bottle and stared into the fire a bit. For dramatic effect, of course. Not to stall. Not at all. "I did what all kids do when they escape. I ran wild."

"Did you?" He laughed, the sound soft on her eardrums. Soothing.

She sighed. "Well, within reason. I cut my hair. Wore shorts. Drank. Swore. Played video games. Skipped class. Changed majors. All the hallmarks of a good little ex-Catholic gone wild." She smiled at herself. "Even dabbled in good ole lesbianism." She heard his chair creek as he sat forward. "Oh? That's got your attention?"

"You've had my attention for a while now."

Jesus. What a charmer. She rolled her eyes. "Sure I have. Any way, there was this girl. Friend of a friend of a friend. She was beautiful and a confirmed lesbian. She was my first date, actually. Well, kind of. It was...not a regret really but if I could've done things differently..."

Her mind went to that dark car parked outside the house she shared with too many other students to invite the girl in. The buzz she'd felt from whatever she'd been drinking that night. The urge to lean towards her. To do what she'd only seen in cheesy teen rom-coms.

She shook her head. "She had a birthday party. A themed birthday party. Under the Sea. It was lame and cheesy but it was hers. Her place was within walking distance of mine. I put on some random clothes in an attempt to match the theme. Followed her directions. Sat down around a little fire like this one. And was promptly hit on by some random guy I'd seen around campus.

"It was...strange. I'd come for her and here I was fielding questions about myself and declining offers to go out for coffee. I half expected him to pull out a guitar and start playing 'Wonderwall'."

"Not a fan of guitars?"

"Oh, I've been playing since I was a teenager. I love music...I do not love the 'Wonderwall' trap."

"Excuse me?" She looked at him. His head was tilted, waiting for an explanation. Her eyes flickered down to the hands gripping his beer bottle. They were strong. They were safe. She looked into his dark eyes and shook her head. She laughed to calm herself.

"It's - you know, you're at a party. Some douche brings out a guitar they only got to pick up chicks, spews what they think is panty-dropping philosophy, and then plays the one song they know how to play with all the grace of a walrus

"Of course, that's about as arousing as a sandpaper dildo so they never achieved what they wanted. At least not with me. But it's awkward and you can't leave because it'd be rude. Here's this man, or would-be-might-be man, playing his heart out, crooning a mating call. You can't walk away without being labeled a bitch. I didn't know who I was back then but I knew I didn't want to be a bitch."

He'd been laughing the entire time she explained the "Wonderwall trap". She felt a swelling of pride in her chest. She'd made him laugh. Not just a soft laugh either, a deep belly laugh he had to hold his chest for, like he had to keep the laughter from growing too great and bursting out like in that alien movie. He laughed harder at the words "sandpaper dildo". He wiped tears from his eyes.

She took a deep swig from her wine bottle, content to watch him come down. With his eyes closed she took time to take him in. Firelight was flattering. That was certain. Yet, he seemed to be the type who would look good under even the harshest fluorescents. He took several breaths. She watched his chest rise and fall as he took deep, steadying breaths. Jesus. He was beautiful. In all the ways a man could be beautiful, he was and then some.

Where did she know him from?

"Are you good?" She teased, ignoring the heat buzzing through her body when he smiled and her and nodded.

"I'm good. Please continue."

"As you wish." She took another sip of wine before resuming. "So, I'm at this party. I'm drinking partially because it's a party, partially because this was my 'rebel' phase, partially because I'd declined coffee three times in thirty minutes, and partially because I could feel her...floating around, soaking up the attention, just being herself."

She sighed, slipped further down in her chair to hide a little from him as she remembered the way the light from the pool had flickered over the birthday girl's pale skin. It was magical. "I kept it coy, stayed in my little circle of people, and endured declining coffee a fourth time. Just to be there. Just to be where she was."

She smiled to herself, remembering the glances she snuck at the birthday girl and the smiles she was rewarded with when the girl noticed. "We might've talked maybe all of five minutes at that party before she declared herself drunk and tired and asked everyone to go home. I didn't hug back then but I wish I'd hugged her goodbye."

"That's the regret?"

"No." She shook her head. "Not at all. Maybe a little, like the date but..." She took another drink. The warmth of the fire. The warmth of the wine. The heat of his inescapable gaze. It all emboldened her. "I never told anyone about this but, after I walked home and took off my costume we started texting. The birthday girl and I. I don't remember who texted first or how the conversation turned the way it did but, in about a blink we started texting a little dirty."

He laughed. "You sexted the birthday girl?"

"Of course," she nodded to avoid looking at him, "it was her birthday and I'm very giving." She took another swig, her head was starting to buzz. She looked up. The clouds were still covering the moon. How late was it now? When were the others getting here? "At one point I had her, in the text mind you, tied up and blindfolded."

"Oh?" His chair creaked again as he leaned closer. Why didn't he just move closer? There were plenty of empty spots.

"Mmmhmm." She closed her eyes, trying to remember the texts. Instead, she remembered the birthday girl and the tight costume she'd worn to the party. The glittering pants she wore to look like a mermaid just made her seem like a lost member of ABBA. Even so, the birthday girl was beautiful.

She'd never gotten to the girl's bedroom but she imagined it back then, and now again. "I'm sure she'd said something about not being tired anymore. I'm sure I told her I would tire her out. I'm sure she asked how and I'm sure I was drunk enough to tell her."

"Tell me." He pleaded. His chair creaked again but he didn't move closer, just shifted in his seat. "We're supposed to be honest, y'know?"

"Here or just as a general rule?"

"Both, I think."

She sighed. "It's a bit embarrassing."

"Doesn't sound embarrassing to me."

"Not yet. I'm sure we'll get there."

He laughed. The chair creaked again as he settled in. "We'll get there together."

Something about that phrase made her squirm in a delicious way. She brushed it off with another drink of wine. "It wasn't her, not really. It's that I never..." She took a breath. "The things we sent to each other, the roles we played. I realized that night that I wanted them. With anyone. I wanted to tie someone up and make them..." She couldn't bring herself to say it. Instead she took another small sip of wine.

"Come?"

The word coming from him, so matter-of-fact, struck her, made her squirm again. She shifted her legs, trying to get comfortable but she couldn't. "Yes. That."

"Is your regret that your obvious sexual repression from an early life as a Catholic stayed with you?"

"What? No, it didn't!"

Her protest made him laugh. "Then say it. Tell me everything. Every gory detail that was and every one that wasn't."

"What're you? Some kind of pervert?"

"In all the best ways." That smile. The way it spread so slowly across his face. The deepening of his dimples. Who was this man? Her heart was pounding. How had this happened? How could he speak so freely? He was leaning forward again. The fire illuminated his eyes and the daring look in them.

Dare accepted. "Okay then." She sat up and put the bottle of wine between her thighs and clutched its neck tightly in her hands. "I told her I was going to walk back to her house and slip into her room. I didn't want her roommates to see. I wanted this to be a secret. It's better when it a secret. Sexier." He set his beer down to clasp his hands in front of him, elbows on knees, eyes shining. He nodded.

She continued. "I'd gone as the freaking fish from the Little Mermaid because I had a yellow dress and blue shoes and a blue scarf and a blue sash from when I did dance in middle school. I was going take that scarf and blindfold her. That was first. Always first.

"Then I was going to undress her. Unwrap the birthday girl like a present. I was going plant a kiss on her skin for every year she'd been alive. Starting with her shoulders and ending at her calves. I wanted to inhale her scent. Of her skin. Of her," she paused. She couldn't say it. He opened his mouth and it burst from her lips just so she would say it first, "arousal. I wanted to smell how wet she was getting. I wanted to caress her skin. Feel how soft it was. I would be sweet, so sweet. In the beginning.

"But that sash needed a job. So I'd tie her hands together and then to the headboard so she was stretched out and bare before me. And I was going to wait. Silently. Until I saw her start to squirm. Until she was desperate to be touched. Or for me to speak. Desperate for anything to happen. I wanted her desperate. Needed it. Needed to be in control but at her mercy. In the text we talked about a safe word but it could have been 'barnacles' for all I remember."

He smiled at her but said nothing. She watched him reach down for his beer and take a long, slow drink from it. She wondered what he would taste like. How it would feel to bury her face in that neck as she sat on his lap and... She shook herself. How was he both beautiful and sinful in so many ways?

She gripped the wine bottle harder. "So, we had a safe word. Not that she'd need it in my fantasy but that made it that much sexier. I was in control but only on the surface. I could have her upside down with my tongue in her ass and if she said 'barnacles' I would stop. Be an obedient dog and listen to my master."

"Jesus." He sighed. Or groaned. The roar of her heartbeat was too loud to determine with any certainly which it was. He might have moaned it for all she knew.

"Oh that's tame, kiddo. Trust me." The fire. The wine. His lips slightly parted as he hung on her every word. They urged her on. "In this fantasy, I had her on the bed, naked and waiting. I'm in control but she has all the power. I would tell her to open her legs for me. I always imagined her as a full bush kind of girl so I would see a dark patch of hair, glistening with her arousal, and that cute little slit right in the center. I would tell her to spread them wider and wider until I could see inside her, just a little. And the scent." She sighed, imagining what it would be like. "And the taste." She took a few deep breaths.

Her cheeks were flushed. The fire's warmth didn't touch what she felt between her legs. She took a sip of wine. "I would be sweet again. For a moment. I would take one of her legs and put it on my shoulder. I would kiss every inch of it from ankle to thigh. I would get so close to that sweet cunt of hers. And then I would take the other leg. It's about patience with women, you know? I wanted that the most. To take my time. A man, well, they're easy. No offense."

He only shook his head in reply.

"But a woman? We make you work for it. Kind of. It's easy but it takes patience. Or maybe it just takes knowledge. By the time I finished with her second leg I imagined she would be panting and somehow even more desperate than before. So of course, as a giver, I would move my kisses to her stomach and trail them upwards. I would take my time on her ribs, right under her breasts where the skin can get so sensitive. I'd lick and kiss and nibble her flesh. I'd consume her. I'd worship her. I'd tease her. But as patient as I am I'd have to taste her. I wouldn't be able to hold off any more. So, I would leave her. I would move away from the bed. Just for a second, I had everything I needed but not a hair tie."

He laughed heartily, his hand over his stomach and his head tilted back. He took a deep breath before saying, "Well, you weren't expecting this."

"No, I wasn't." She laughed with him and for a shining moment it felt as if she knew him, as if she'd known him forever. She leaned back and took a sip of her wine. Then took a deeper drink. The temptation to rub her thighs together was great. The story, him, the wine...she couldn't deny that it was all...exciting. She laughed, trying to calm herself. "I'm sorry, this is - that was inappropriate." She lifted the wine to her lips again and drank deeply.

"Are you wet?"

She sputtered, wine spilling from her lips. He'd used that voice again. The hard one that make her stomach flutter. "Excuse me!? Now that is inappropriate. Am I -?"

"You are. Aren't you?" He leaned back in his seat. "It's okay. That's quite a story."

"I-"

"And you haven't even finished it."

She crossed her arms, the wine bottle clutched in a shaking hand. "And I won't now."

"It's okay, you know, if you are."

"It's not okay for you to ask!"

"Why?"

"Because it's just not polite!"

"Why not? Don't you wanna know if I'm hard?"

Yes, I want to know if the story was effective. "Ew, no!"

"'Ew?' So you became a full lesbian?" There was a gleam in his eyes. He knew the answer. He was teasing her now.

She crossed her legs and stifled a groan at the contact. "No!"

"So you just think I'm gross?"

"What? No!" He had a shit eating grin on his face now. She was contrarian enough that it did more to calm the fire she'd felt than feed it. "You're annoying."

He took up his beer again and drank. "Continue, tell me more."

She scoffed. "No."

"You're still thinking about her. In the back of your mind you're still wondering, imagining what she tasted like. You're so close. Why not finish the story?"

"Will you be able to contain that filthy mouth of yours?"

"If you want me to. I can find something else to use my mouth for."

She wanted to throw the bottle at him. Instead she took another drink. He followed suit, his gleaming eyes on her as they both tried to reach the bottom. She stopped first, swallowing loudly, angrily. She wished he would look away. She wanted to know. Needed to know if she was affecting him. He stopped drinking and smiled at her. There was a warmth in it mixed in with all the confidence that came from him knowing he'd rattled her. "Fine. But you're next and it better be good."

"It always is."

She didn't know how to respond to that. "Yes. I imagined for years what it would have been like if I'd had the balls to actually go to her. In my fantasy I come back to her and my mouth is the only thing she feels. It would have been my first time eating a girl out but it's my fantasy so I'm amazing at it and my jaw never aches. And she tastes like heaven. Like every dream I'd ever had and ever would had been liquified and pouring from between her legs. I would have settled there, buried in her, for hours. She'd come so many times she'd have to beg me to stop."

"You're holding back."

The vivid images in her mind disagreed. "I'm not. Not in my fantasy."

"So you're holding back from me? Why?"

"Because. I'm an asshole." She laughed.

"You're not." His voice demanded he look at her. His face was drawn. If he'd never said anything serious in his entire life it was only to save it for now.

"Okay," she put her hands up in surrender, "I'm not. But...I don't know, I don't have the words."

"I can give them to you." A whisper, almost. Low words spoken as if he was right at her ear. She shivered.

"What do you mean?"

The fire glowed on his face, he leaned back in his seat, the bottle perched on his leg. "You worship her, right? You start with your mouth as the only contact but you have to grab her. Your hands ache for it. You grab her thighs and hold them apart. Your tongue explores her lips, you suck on 'em, taking measure of which places make her moan the loudest. And if her taste is Heaven, how she sounds...well, that's the chorus of the angels welcoming you home. You drag your tongue from the bottom of that pretty pink slit all the way up but you're a tease. You're in control now, even if you don't want it. It's yours. You miss her clit on purpose, flicking just barely at the hood and she jerks her hips towards you. She's desperate for it.

"You've had her desperate for almost an hour now. She needs it. You spend a little time at her lips again. Your hands grip her thighs but then they move up. Slow, so slow, like a snake stalking its prey. Then, all at once you strike. You put your hands on her hips so she can't squirm away and then you envelope her clit in those beautiful lips of yours and suck. Not gently. The time for being gentle passed a while ago. Now you attack. You're rough. You slide one arm over her hips to keep her in place and take the other to tease her with your fingers. She comes from just that and you smile and you're floating 'cause you did that. You made the birthday girl come but of course you're not done. No. Not you.

"You plunge your fingers into her. She's wet enough it's no trouble. And you curl em up towards that place you know will hit her like lightening. Cause you've done it before. Sometimes while thinking about her. You've touched that place in yourself. That was your homework and this is your test. And you ace it. You move away from her clit when it gets too sensitive and look down at her while you make her come around your fingers. She's not a squirter but it gushes all over your hand and up your wrist and you can swear you hear those angels singing with the way she's moaning your name.

"She's shaking now, her whole body electrified as you keep moving inside her and it's bliss. You bow and kiss those ribs again and that damn near makes her come harder. You test her clit with your thumb and she jerks away, it's still too sensitive so you just massage her inside, sliding a third finger in to really spread her. 'Cause in my fantasy there's something you did bring. You take your mouth and explore her breasts and she comes again. Are you counting, girl? How many times is that now?"

She couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.

"I bet you're wet now." He smiles. He takes another long drink from his beer and swallows slow enough she can count a dozen racing heartbeats between the time his Adam's apple moves up to the time it returns. Jesus. "So she's coming and you're nibblin' at her sweet little nipples and she's begging you for something but you can hardly hear her between her gasps for breath. So you kneel. You take your hand away. She moves her legs so they're bent and you place one hand on her knee. The other, you're licking clean. She catches her breath but all she's saying is 'please, please, please...'. So you ask her what she wants. You know what it is. Or at least I do." He laughed. That sound alone was so sweet if he did it just one more time she'd have to go to him. There'd be no choice.

She took a drink of wine. "All right, tell me what she's begging for."

"Your cock."

"Pardon?"

"The one you brought. See, you'd been so eager you forgot your hair tie but you didn't leave that at home. No, you've got it. All you have to do is strap it on. But you are wet. You're so wet you're burning. So what do you do?"