All Five Senses (Part 1)

Did you forget about the Sugarbutch Star Contest? I didn’t – not that you could tell, since the last story was in October. I’ve been working on this one since I finished Maze. Here’s part one – part two will come later this week.

Sugarbutch Star: Matt
ALL FIVE SENSES

It started in the Brooklyn library, the back row, the classics section; the air so thick with ink and brittle paper and crumbling paste. I pick up a worn leather copy of Antigone, its cover so oiled down with decades of fingers and hands opening, turning its pages, breaking its spine. So soft it feels like suede.

I sit on the industrial carpet and flip it open, easily absorbed: Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonor, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.

When I look up, a few minutes later, there she is: sitting on the floor in a row I can hardly see, at first she is only visible by her bare legs on the dirty carpet, seated like I am on the floor, knees all bent, one tucked under her gray skirt which is a small mess of cover for her thighs. I slowly shift my body further into the aisle. Her back is to me, and she holds up a mirror in front of her – I catch glimpses of her face reflected. The dark nerdy frames of her glasses, the line of her jaw, her chin, then her mouth.

She takes out a tube of lipstick, twirls it erect, and paints the perfect outline of her lips. Slow, real slow. She presses them together and presses them forward in a kiss, makes an O with her mouth and touches just the tip of her finger to the edge.

I hold my breath.

I find my hand brought up to my face without really noticing. Pads of my fingers against the butch stubble on my chin, I didn’t shave this morning, I didn’t think I’d need to, and now the tiny hairs are strong as teeth and my fingertips are burned with the day-old five o’clock shadow. I watch the soft smooth pillow of her lips over her shoulder in the mirror. I imagine smearing that lipstick across her cheek with my thumb, hard enough that the trail of red would feel like it was made without paint.

Carpeting scratching at the palms of my hand, I’m leaning so far forward that if I was in a movie, this is the moment I would knock over a pile of books and she’d look up at the crash. Instead, I feel a tickle in my nose and the ink and paper and dust smell is suddenly amplified. I scurry back to my small stack of collected books and satchel, but I don’t get to my handkerchief in time, and I let out a strong sudden sneeze.

“Bless you,” I hear, softly, from across the aisle. I can hear each letter in her words. I imagine the way her red mouth looks forming the shapes of the sounds.

I swallow, blow my nose gently, mumble, “Thanks.” I don’t look back over to her, but go back to the library stacks, sifting through the Dewey decimal numbers on the spines, fingering the worn covers, the different textures, letting my fingers stroke the books as I take a few steps and follow the books around the corner.

Soon I’m in the next aisle from her. I can see right through it and I try to justify that I’m here looking for books, classics, something to support a recent article’s thesis that there were some butch/femme roles for women in ancient Greece and Rome. The library is so quiet, I can hear when she shifts on the floor, still reading, now with her back to the stacks of books and both feet on the floor, knees bent and separated, short skirt sliding up her thighs.

I’m going to get caught, I know it.

But it is as if hands are pressing on my shoulders and I sink lower, eyes wide, praying my knees won’t creak or pop as I crouch, strain my eyes to get a look at her thighs. I quickly grab a big picture book out of the stack to flip through, to cover up my voyeurism.

She’s pinching her dark brown hair that is falling over her shoulder between thumb and forefinger, swirling her fingers around it, twisting. I see her eyes darting across the page of the book she’s holding in her other hand, the cover against her thighs. I can’t tell what the book is, but it looks modern, it does not live in the dust of the classics section, it is paperback and skinny.

She glances to where I just was and sees my small stack of books, but she lost track of me. Her eyebrows curl for just a moment, and she glances around the other direction but there’s no one there either. We’re alone – she thinks she’s alone. I hold my breath and try not to move. I know it’s voyeristic of me, but she is in public. She must know someone could possibly see her. That must be part of the thrill.

She shifts, knees together, pulls her feet closer to her body, and I catch the sight of her simple white cotton panties between her legs, thin, so thin I can nearly see through them. She pushes her skirt up her thighs just a bit farther and slides her hand into them. The fabric strains.

Her fingers move slowly and she keeps her eyes on the pages of the book. Clearly a good one, I wonder what she’s reading, if its contents are queer or kinky, if she’s thinking about the taste of sweat and salty skin, the sounds of moans that emerge out of places where bodies collide, the sight of a fist disappearing at the wrist, the sting of an open-palm smack on the ass or cheek or cunt, the scent of desire, like musk, like the ocean, like a fertile ground.

Her fingers move faster. Hair falls into her eyes and her jaw drops open just a little. (Really, this is really happening?) Her lips pinken, eyelids flutter as her eyes dart across the page. Her strong thighs are quivering a little and I can see if I fucked her she’d want them pressed together, bent deep at the hips. It’s the way her knees want to close but her hand is in the way.

My hand goes to my zipper. (Should I?) Hard packing today, as I often do on weekends, just for me, to feel the weight and bulk between my legs, the strain of the seam of my jeans. No one has to know, no one usually does; just a private, personal experience between me and my cock. I run my finger down the shaft of it, through my jeans, remember its girth as I watch her bite her lip, hand still moving slow and vigorous between her legs. I thumb the head, the little ridge, catch it in the instep of my hand between thumb and forefinger. I get enough of a grip to press it back into my clit and start pulsing against it.

I feel a stab of guilt and fight the impulse to unbuckle, unzip. Nearly unbearable. I can barely breathe.

She’s getting lost in the sensations, spreading from her pelvis to her thighs and belly and down and up. Her breathing is getting faster, hand is faster between her legs, fingers working her clit, I can see through the thin white cotton through the stacks of books. She leans her head back and closes her eyes entirely, lets the book start to slip from her lap as her thighs squeeze and close and she presses her hips forward. I have a perfect visualization of how her back would arch if she was on her stomach on my bed, ass in the air, thighs and knees strong together, my own hand buried in her cunt.

I stroke my own cock harder and feel my breath quicken to match hers. She’s gasping as she breathes in, I can hear her. I watch her hips buck, face flushing, as she comes in a quiet flourish, calm and sudden, eyes closed, head bent back. She brings her fingers to her lips and sucks, then opens her eyes, looking straight forward for the first time, right at me.

Panic. Does she see me? She glances right back down to her book as her eyelids flutter and adjusts her skirt and glasses, gives herself a minute to catch her breath, picks up her book and purse, and, slightly wobbly on her feet, leaves the classics section.

I let out a breath, lean back against the stacks, take my hand out of my pants, zip up, and head toward the checkout.

It’s nearly dark outside by the time I gather all my things and make it through the line. I finger the spines of the books and flip my wallet in the palm of my hand, remembering my cock just minutes before, thinking of this girl and her strong legs, swift fingers.

That should’ve been the end of that.

But ten minutes later, picking up take-out extra-hot red curry at my favorite thai place, I hear behind me: “Well, well.”

… continue reading Part Two of All Five Senses.