The Red Dress

(Author's notes: This is a work of fiction.

Special thanks to Jashet Hon and Candace. Their observations and suggestions made this a better story.

All persons involved in sexual activity are at least 18 years old.)

: : : : :

I'll be the first to admit, there's a lot I don't know. But late that afternoon, there were two things I did know.

First, it was hot. When I checked into the cheapest room I could find, the man on the lobby TV said it was 99 degrees and 95% humidity. But those numbers don't begin to capture how freakin' hot it actually felt.

The motel was 1950s old-school -- a single row of rooms, turning two corners to surround a square asphalt parking lot on three sides. I parked my car directly in front of my room. In the middle of the parking lot, there was an oasis of dead grass surrounding an empty concrete swimming pool, enclosed by a corroded chain-link fence, the gate secured with rust -- no padlock needed. The fourth side of the property was bounded by a two-lane highway.

Second, she was gone. Again. This time, probably forever.

This morning's argument wasn't the worst we ever had, just the latest. Not much different than the dozens that came before. We seemed to operate under a single rule: whoever said the harshest, cruelest thing was the winner. Ten minutes in, though, where she usually began to hit her stride with a burst of adrenaline and endorphins, she seemed to deflate. Instead of yelling louder, instead of focusing her creativity on inventing new, crueler insults, she just slumped over and barely whispered, "Just leave."

Nothing more. No inventive criticizing my family. No ingenious insulting my intelligence. No imaginative lashing out at my masculinity, no inspired disparaging my ability to feel normal human emotions. Nothing. She just looked tired. Worse, she looked older than her years. "Just leave."

: : : : :

There was a diner next door. I set out toward it, but before I even stepped inside, I returned to my room -- it was too hot, and I felt too alone to be hungry.

There didn't seem to be anyone driving toward town, only people leaving. I found myself thinking that maybe it was time for me to join them. She had been the only thing holding me here.

Based on the number of parked cars, the motel was less than half full. Based on where the cars were parked, the clerk was clever enough to place guests in every other room. Smart -- the walls were paper thin, and using vacant rooms as buffers would reduce the number of noise complaints the overnight clerk would receive.

The TV in my room didn't work, so as midnight approached and I lay in the dark, I hadn't had a bow-tied weather idiot telling me what the 'feels like' number was, or what the current temperature was. It didn't seem to have cooled much. The asphalt outside retained the day's heat, radiating it at my room like a quarter-acre-sized oven set to 'broil' and forgotten.

The TV wasn't the only thing broken. The a/c, for instance. It was one of those big bulky lumps under the window. They're always loud as hell, which is a good thing when it drowns out the sound of trucks whining by at 4 a.m. I've never understood how 18-wheelers sound louder on narrow highways, or how they can sound lonely as they pass, but they do.

This air conditioner seemed even louder than usual. That would have been fine if it blew cool air. For all the noise it made, though, it hardly blew any air at all. I tried all possible combinations of its old-school pushbutton controls. Nothing. I jimmied the cover off to see if there was a blockage I could fix. Nothing. What little air it did blow actually felt hotter than the ambient temperature, so I turned it off.

I opened the windows -- the large one in front, and the tiny one over the shower/tub in the bathroom. I hoped the breeze wouldn't billow the drapes out from the window and let people see in, but I needn't have worried -- there wasn't any breeze.

Surprisingly, the room had a ceiling fan. Not surprisingly, it didn't work. I tried every combination of the two chains hanging from the motor and the switches on the wall. Nothing. I walked up to the office to complain, saying, "The sign says air conditioned rooms."

The clerk said, "It's an old sign."

When I glared at him instead of leaving, he reached under the counter and handed me an electric fan. I sighed and said, "Really?" He said, "Last one. You don't take it, the next guy will."

I took it. It was old, but it worked. Black metal motor and stand, minimal black wire cage surrounding the blades, plenty of open space to stick your fingers in if you wanted to. It even swiveled back and forth to blow across a larger area. The room had no nightstands, so the only place to set it was on the dresser next to the dead TV. I could hear it, its lonely drone rising and falling as it oscillated from side to side, but I couldn't feel any air moving.

: : : : :

A black hole of anguish in my chest told me that this time we were actually through. When I thought about it, though, my brain told my heart it was wrong, we weren't, she would never end things so sloppily. She would need things to be much more buttoned up. Maybe the word 'goodbye' wouldn't be invoked, but she would need to do something far more final and demonstrative. We had many loose ends, and she wouldn't want to leave any.

Meanwhile, I had no idea what the next move should be. I'm a doer, it's never been my style to sit back and leave things to the other person, but if the next move was mine, I had no clue what it should be. My inner voice said that doing the wrong thing would be worse than doing nothing, and since I had no idea what the right move would be, I did nothing.

: : : : :

Sleep would not come. I tossed and turned, tried to get my inner voice to shut the fuck up, and tried to reason with my body that sweating was just wasted effort -- this hot, this humid, sweat didn't have any ability to cool. My body missed the point, and kept sweating anyway. I tried lying there in my boxers and a t-shirt, but it was so hot they felt like long johns and a winter parka. I tried lying there naked, but I was so sweaty the sheets clung to me, stifling me.

I went to get a bucket of ice so I could cool down by chewing on some, or maybe rub it on my chest. The ice machine was broken. I tried taking a cool shower, but the water was warm rather than cool, and I was sweating faster than the water could rinse it away. I finally lay back in bed in my boxers, resigned to no possibility of sleep.

A knock on my door woke me -- I must have dozed. I glanced at the clock -- 3 a.m.

"Who is it?" I said. No answer.

I opened the door. It was her. Wearing her red dress. Nothing with her -- no suitcase, no duffel, not even her purse. Just her. Wearing that dress. She knew it was my favorite. I glanced around the parking lot, and didn't see her car. I stared at her like she was an apparition, and if I looked away, she would disappear. She finally gestured inside the room, silently asking if I was going to reject her or invite her in. I stood aside, letting her enter.

I said, "Laura, I-" She cut me off by putting her finger across my lips.

Her dress was simple, sleeveless, a rather conservative neckline in the front, but plunging halfway down her back. It was snug around her waist, flaring out slightly from her hips, hemmed above her knee -- the classic little black party dress, only in Ferrari red. It was my favorite not because it was an exceptional dress, but because it suited her so -- it made her look even more spectacular than usual.

She couldn't have seemed more out of place in that cheap hell-hole. Even in the near-darkness, she radiated elegance, beauty, and class. Her hair coiled around her face like a Greek goddess, reflecting highlights from a light source I would have sworn wasn't there.

Her face, though, which normally radiated care-free joy, showed all the stress and regret I felt, mixed with what might have been a vestige of hope. We had been through so much, and her expression implied she agreed with me that if we just tried a little longer, worked a little harder, and found a way to get past the petty arguing, we could thrive.

"What are you-" I began, and again she cut me off. She pushed me the few steps back to the bed, and shoved me back onto it. She stood over me, mired in indecision, her face a conflicted mix of self-doubt and desire. She took a tiny step toward the door, then stopped. Her face relaxed, and she seemed to have decided something important.

She turned to me, slipped off her shoes, and stepped up onto the foot of the bed, standing over me. In a more elegant setting, with a plush, cushy bed, I'd have worried she would wobble and fall. She wasn't going to lose her balance on this one, though, it was hard as plywood -- an old, worn-out mattress, no box springs. Her stance was solid, her footing was secure.

She unzipped the back of the dress, letting it fall off a shoulder. She pulled her arm out, and the neck sagged slightly. She shrugged off the other side, revealing a bit of her upper chest, the smooth, delectable skin that led to the best tits I had ever known.

She let gravity claim the neck, revealing the foothills of her breasts, but the dress still covered everything interesting, constrained by the zipper not being all the way down. It was almost too perfect -- had she rehearsed that in front of a mirror? A droplet of sweat trickled down her neck. I followed it on its downward trek until it disappeared between the hints of the twin swells below.

She reached behind her and unzipped to the waist, allowing the front to slump a little further. She paused, as if undecided whether to continue, but I think this 'uncertainty' was pretend, a little bit of play-acting intended to pique my interest. It was unnecessary, she already had my undivided attention. She bounced lightly on her heels, the visible upper surface of her breasts rippling enticingly.

She reached across her chest behind the sagging fabric, cupping one breast and covering the other with her arm. She allowed the neckline to slump to her waist, revealing that she wasn't wearing the usual strapless bra that went with this outfit. Carefully keeping her tits covered, she cupped them both, pushing them together, exaggerating her ample cleavage. She turned her back to me, and raised both hands to her hair, fluffing it back off her neck. She slowly turned back to face me, her arms at her sides. Her face was neutral. I couldn't read her feelings from it, but I wasn't exactly looking at her face.

I admit, I stared -- her tits are wondrous things. Not the biggest I've ever seen, but by far the nicest, elegantly round, firm but soft, topped with large pink nipples. They always looked better than I remembered -- I never understood how they did that. Every time I saw them they took my breath away like I was seeing them for the first time.

They were glad to see me, too -- her nipples stood at full attention. She bounced on her heels again, causing them to ripple alluringly. If she did that for my benefit, I hope she knew she didn't need to, but I don't think she was aware she was doing it, I think it was sheer nervous energy.

She bent over, grasped my boxers by the waist, and pulled them off -- she needed to see the effect her strip-tease was having on me. She needn't have worried, I was already hard as a steel spike. I think she would have left if I wasn't.

She clasped her hands behind her back, and stood stock still, giving me the opportunity to feast on the view I had of her chest. I think she was indulging herself as well, taking a long moment to revel in the power she had over me. She knew I had no idea what she was planning next, that I was dying to know whether it would stay purely visual or if there would be any touching.

She stood there, unmoving, her hands locked behind her back. Her stillness was an illusion, though, she must have lowered the zipper the rest of the way, because the dress began falling, glacially slow.

My eyes feasted on her waist, the graceful curve that reversed and completed the sweeping arc of her hips. It was the sexiest S-shape in the world, and she had two of them, perfect mirror images of each other. I loved kissing her there. It led to her soft, flat tummy, and from there directly down to the delight of her slit. All that aside, beholding her waist was its own reward, and I never tired of it.

Her dress began to clear her hips, revealing only nakedness -- no panties. She held her cupped hand in front of her sex, shyly shielding it from view as the dress slipped past it. When I realized that she had been commando the whole time, my cock twitched in appreciation. She probably thinks she hid the trace of a smile that crossed her face when she saw that, but I noticed.

She let the dress fall to the bed and kicked it to the floor. She turned away from me, placed her hands on her knees and arched her back, thrusting her butt at me. Her ass was another miracle of femininity, magnificent, graceful perfection, two delicious orbs topped with glorious sacral dimples. She swung it from side to side, a sinuous, teasing hoochie-coochie dance. I was mesmerized by the rippling of her muscles, as she swayed to a sensuous slow song that only she heard. Her smooth skin shimmered, perfect highlights glinting off an iridescent film of sweat.

She dropped her hands to her sides and turned to face me, continuing to sway elegantly, revealing that she had shaved what she called her 'lady parts.' That spoke volumes. I love that look, always have, and had asked her many times to do it for me. She had always refused. I tried to beam 'thanks' into her eyes from mine, but when my gaze met hers, she rolled her eyes and looked away.

She was completely shiny smooth, no landing strip, no racing stripe, no dot, diamond, or triangle remaining. Her slit was a bit of an 'outie,' with a tiny pink hint of crinkly inner lips peeking out from between her smooth labia. I admit, I stared -- it was about the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

She arched her back and joined her hands behind her head, stretching her tummy, thrusting her breasts upward. She had never been shy about being naked around me -- doing weekend chores around the house, sunning in the backyard, camping if there was no one around, and at the beach sometimes even if there were a few people around. She wasn't an exhibitionist, just uninhibited -- a free spirit. Her nudity had always been natural, an extension of the moment, nothing prurient about it.

This was different -- this was stripping, and she was doing it solely for my arousal. She appeared to be enjoying herself, but she also seemed a bit self-conscious to be showcasing her charms so blatantly. It made her look far more exposed than merely naked, and it made my cock so hard it throbbed.

I lay on the bed with my feet apart, and she stood between them. She used her feet to nudge mine together. She gazed intently at me again, seeming to cross another barrier in her mind. She slowly slumped to her knees, straddling my shins.

She leaned forward, supporting herself with her hands on either side of my hips. We touched only where her thighs contacted my lower legs. She leaned further down, brushing her breasts across the tops of my thighs. She swayed slightly, left and right, her tits swinging sensuously side to side. They barely brushed my thighs, teasing them, skin faintly touching bare skin, hardening her nipples into tiny little bullets.

She lowered her face, flexing her arms in a half-pushup. She captured the head of my cock in her mouth. She sucked, and swirled her tongue around the underside of my glans -- she knows that drives me wild. She sucked and swirled, swirled and sucked, and sucked and swirled some more, shrinking my universe to nothing but her mouth, her tongue, and the head of my cock.

She didn't take any length in, just the tip. The intoxicating tingle of the the suction and the incessant swirling was surpassed only by the luscious warmth of her mouth. It welcomed me inside, letting my dick know that it was home, one of two places on earth where it belonged more than anywhere else. I wanted -- I needed -- to bury it in its other natural home between her legs, but that would have to wait -- it didn't seem to be on her agenda yet.

She let me escape her mouth with a sharp pop, and crawled forward, inching up the length of my body. I was enthralled, consumed with desire for this magnificent creature. The sweat drenching my body was rude and crude, but somehow the sheen covering her was alluringly feminine. It made her look like a lingerie model, her body delicately and precisely sprayed with designer droplets to emphasize the perfection of her curves.

She placed her hands on my upper arms and leaned forward, lightly pinning me to the bed, immobilizing my arms. I longed to cup those sumptuous breasts, caress them, roll the nipples between my fingers, feel them stand at attention under my directive, but at the angle she confined my arms, I couldn't reach them. I could easily have overpowered her, escaped her confinement, flipped her over, and had my way with her, but she clearly wanted to do the driving. I willingly surrendered the moment to her -- I was sure that whatever she was planning, whether it was a premeditated script or she was making it up as she went along, it would surpass anything I could come up with.

She arched her back, presenting her breasts to my face. I leaned forward, but she hovered just out of reach, her nipples fractions of an inch from my mouth. I strained to kiss them, to suck them, but she kept her distance. By stretching my tongue to its limit, I could just reach the tip of a nipple. At first touch, a tiny squeak escaped her throat, and a single droplet of sweat oozed from her little bud onto my tongue. Saltiness never tasted so sweet.

She hovered where I couldn't reach her with my lips. By straining with the tip of my tongue, I could flick it rapidly over the energized little diamond. She moaned in pleasure, letting me romance it with vibration, then she pulled it away. She presented me with the other one, gifting me with another drop of lady sweat. I circled it slowly, caressing it with the slightest of touches, feeling it react to the tenderness.

She straightened her arms, pulling her chest out of reach, continuing to press herself onto my biceps, pinning me to the mattress. She rolled her hips, locating the base of my cock with her slit. She settled over it, straddling the roundness of my shaft with her cleft. She massaged me, mashing her clit onto the base of my rod. She rocked her hips ever so slightly, pressing down on me, sliding faintly along the base of my hard-on. I peered into her eyes, but although they were open, they were unfocused, unseeing.

Her pussy glowed against the underside of my dick where it touched -- it felt almost nuclear it was so hot. I couldn't help myself -- I began to thrust, trying to sink my poor frustrated cock into her. She put an end that by lowering all her weight onto my hips. She waited until she was sure I had settled down to resume her rocking motion. She gradually lengthened it, eventually tracing the full length of my rod with her moist warmth.

She worked herself into quite a frenzy. That small amount of friction wasn't going to come close to getting me off, but it did the deed for her. I was entranced watching her as she began to cum. It seemed to surprise her. She ground down onto my rod even harder, and began to quiver fiercely. She abandoned stroking my full length, but kept me centered between her lips, vibrating her clit directly down on me. Her concentration was total -- eyes half closed, mouth half open, face completely slack.

As the wave of her orgasm receded, she slumped forward across my chest. She rested her head under my chin and kissed my shoulder. It only took a nanosecond to realize it was too hot to be that close, and she raised up off me.