Under the Tiger's Paw

We kept the light on. It showered a warm yellow glow through the room. It cast a half-light on heaps of clothes stacked on chairs, make-up jars and oddments scattered on her dresser, and two sewing machines left for dead in the corner. And the light fell on her too. Her red hair clashed with the blue of her top and the fairness of her skin; I ran my fingers through the tangled locks with an abandon I had never dared with her. I pulled her head back and brought her lips to mine and kissed her not out of love this time, but out of a need to taste her and keep her as my own.

I pushed her back towards the bed. I hovered over her, looking into her eyes and then nuzzled in her neck. I ran my hands over her arms, across the flimsy fabric of her top and caressed and squeezed her breasts through the material. She arched her back, as if offering herself to me all the more and nothing in the world could have made me hold back at that moment.

I removed her panties and greedily spread her legs, forcing them apart with only the barest of resistance from her. I brought my head down to her tummy, where I saw that delicate skin and just below the edge of her wispy top, the 'smiley face' she had described. There were three small divots arranged like a pair of eyes and a small mouth. And just below that, the tightly curled auburn of her pubic hair; a small little triangle that I had seen from a safe distance these many weeks at the club, and that I now ran my fingers through until finding the hot, soaking wet folds that I sunk into. She made a gasp and a sigh and opened herself wider and I slowly played with her, feeling that beauty and wanting to whisper something in her ear.

I lifted my head and kissed the inside of her thighs. I brought my mouth closer and closer, savoring the feeling of her skin on my lips. I felt her tense and then present herself, moving her hips, her pussy, just that small bit closer, and I couldn't wait any longer, pushing my tongue deep inside her, lapping up all of her juices and tasting her just as I dreamed.

She let me do it, and it still seemed as if I was broaching a line better left uncrossed. I pushed my fingers into her, I caught the scent of her, and I loved her with my mouth and thrilled at the pace she asked for more and more. It slowly became also about her - not only my cravings - and then I paid attention to the way the she moved, and how she pressed against my mouth and tongue. She breathed just that little bit different when I ran my fingers across a certain spot. I let her stay at that point, just on the edge, and ran my hands under her top, reaching for her tits, groping at her with abandon. I felt them, felt her nipples, and went ecstatic as she moaned with my lusty touch and reckless licks on her pussy.

She let lose a sweetly tinted "Yes, oh yes," and I felt the wave wash over her as she reached down with her hands to steady my head and mouth at just the right spot. I sensed the heat roll through her body, starting right where my lips met her, and then up and down, into her breasts as I gave them a pornographic feel. She rested and let my eyes capture all of her. She caught her breath and I started to lose mine.

I committed every last detail to memory: the folds and lips, the auburn of her hair glistening wet from her juices, the wide submissive spread of her legs, the chipped toenail polish on her feet, and the mounds of her breasts under her top, which was now pushed far enough up that I could see the bottom quarter of her scar.

Yes, it was like a zipper. It still burned a painful looking red, and faintly visible were the suture marks. And from their thickness, and how the lines of the two halves of her did not match-up, I understood what she meant when she said it was 'rushed'. It was an incomprehensible thought with something so delicate.

*********

The following day I counted down the hours until she was due to show her face. I sat on that same barstool and twisted straws around my fingers, trying to wish her through that door a half-a-day early.

Last night she and I stood on the stoop and contemplated the snow and the wind, and then she opened the gate and I took advantage. I let my passion for her run wide and unchecked. We rested and then I threw myself at her; I turned her to my needs and urged my cock into her at every opportunity. I thrilled at the idea of it – my stripper girl become my sex kitten – and imagined her on stage and then opened my eyes to see her beneath me, eyes half-closed in pleasure, and those lips open in an invitation. Her lipstick was smudged enough to render it clear that her mouth was always waiting, and that I was always willing.

I let my hands roam across her body, sometimes pushing her top up and then massaging her breasts as my mouth sucked and nursed on her nipples. But not for long, as she was soon covering and pulling the gathered wisp of fabric back down over her torso and thus keeping me at bay for another few minutes. I came in her pussy, I came in her mouth. I opened my eyes as I let myself finally succumb to the way her tongue pressed against my shaft and the insistent pull of her lips, but more than anything it was the sight of her, lost in the act the same way I was lost in her.

Later I would realize I mistook her lust for love. I meditated on the way I filled her up completely and somehow imagined it was like a brilliant light that would guide us forward. I pulled her top up one final time and off her shoulders and flung it aside. I pushed her legs far apart, hung them around my arms and bent her knees near to her ears. I treated her as the sex-starved fantasy I saw her as - and deep inside, listening to her moan, seeing the little drops of perspiration on the top of her lip and grabbing a fistful of that hair, I pushed and thrust without thought.

I felt her come and made a leap in my head. Before she was even ready, I was kneeling by her face, opening her mouth with the tip of my engorged cock, and wondering at the size she brought it to. I wanted to say, "Let's run away together. Let's put this whole damn barren place in our review mirror and never look back. " I wanted to stop everything and take the moment and confess my undying love.

And without contemplation or care, I straddled her chest. I pushed her tits together and thrilled at their warm embrace and drove my cock between them with all of the burning need I felt. The scar touched my skin for the first time, and its roughness shocked me and then disappeared into the fog of my fantasy of her. It felt like a corrugated mess of skin and sinew against my cock, and yet it meant nothing like disfigurement. I said nothing. I came and throbbed and grunted in ecstasy. I nearly collapsed in a heap as my cum shot between her tits, onto her neck and cheek. It seemed at that moment I finally had all of her to myself. There were no more secrets between us.

*********

I sat at the bar, waiting. She missed her scheduled night, and I put it down to weather. There was that wind, I told myself, blowing drifts across the road and there was all of that distance for her to drive. But then there was the next scheduled night, and the next that she missed. And when I called her number there was the inevitable series of beeps and the message that said her number had been disconnected or was no longer in service.

And so I now wait and wonder over her names. I think back to the way she moved around the stage, the way she goofed on her height, and the near-complete-lack of grace she showed. And then I think about the way she sometimes disappeared into the boss-man's office for far too long. I think about that hideous, beautiful scar and what I never said or bothered to ask.

I knew what upset her most was the helplessness. We saw and heard the sound of those feet scratching and looking for traction on the slick floor of her kitchen. And then there was her beloved cat. He was looking down – transfixed – on his prey. Her cat was toying with the animal and would soon follow the urge to lower its jaw and finish the game by tearing apart the mouse's neck. That was the nauseous moment in between life and death. But what can a mouse do at such a time? It's just a mouse.

And so she swooped down and saved the little animal. It was the very thing I wished I had done for her.

She ran away, I told myself, although that never stops me from turning to look as I hear the front door open and smell that acrid air moving in. I catch a glimpse of a woman's silhouette against the bright outside world - and I wonder what I'd say to her differently if I ever got the chance to see her again.