Sucking cock is like that. Fucking in a relationship, that’s expected, part of the deal. But her actually wanting to take my cock in her mouth, well, that’s pretty fucking cool, to say the least.
We make our way over to the corner in good time. It’s a good size patch, roughly teardrop-shaped. It’s thick, too, the stalks close together with no dead gaps. We walk around it. The traffic is relatively thin here. I grab her by the arm before she can analyze it too much and pull her and then we’re in the thick of it. We stare at each for the moment tasting the audacity. She’s not good at breaking the rules, and I let her have the thrill of it while I check things out.
People are making their way around us. I hear the crackling of the stalks and paper trash, and I can hear individual voices and snippets of conversation, shouts and shrieks as the kids play and parents try to keep them throttled back.
There is a piece of cardboard just right for her knees. She sees it too, and she nudges it then sinks to her knees. To her knees. Right in front of me.
I take my cock out and she tilts her thumb up to her mouth: drink. I hand her the tube for the water camel and she sucks. Sucks.
She hands it back to me and runs the back of her hand over her mouth and licks her lips. I gesture with my cock and she smiles as she takes it.
Her mouth is wet from the water and I slide in beautifully. I suppress a sigh and let her work. She really is skilled. She pulls it out to lick the head and run her tongue around it. Then she goes back to work.
Two kids rush by. I see them like I’m looking through a picket fence as a car drives by. I tense up wondering whether they will choose that moment to run in. I picture them running full tilt into us and knocking us down and me getting a reprise of the penis-severing scene in The World According to Garp.
Trish gets my tension and I’m not sure how far I can press the English teacher, so I decide to ramp it up. I have what I came to get, and I know what I set out to learn. She’ll rise to challenges, we’ll both set aside our fears and accept the risks our new love will bring. She trusts me and I trust her.
I slide my hand along her head, and my fingers find their grip in the thick rope of her braid and clench. Everything shifts and I have her full attention. I’m her whole world at this moment, and it has narrowed down to my dick in her mouth. She works it, sliding it smoothly in and out, in and out.
The sounds fade away, and I give it to her, bending my knees a bit to find that sweet spot in her mouth where I glide in perfectly and she takes it all. Takes it and comes back for more. That she does is heartening and pushes me over the edge, and I pour all our hopes and dreams and potential into her mouth.
And that’s a wonderful sign.
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
Nairne Holtz
When I turned thirty, I joined a lesbian basketball league, even though my experience playing team sports amounted to a few humiliating memories of being picked near the bottom for teams in junior high. In a dusty inner-city gym one Saturday night in September, I found myself surrounded by lean, nimble women dribbling and shooting baskets in organized lines. They were all wearing puffy sneakers and athletic shorts. From my wardrobe of mostly black dresses, I had managed to dig out a Marilyn Manson T-shirt, a pair of cutoffs and Converse sneakers. I was sitting on a bench wondering what I should do when a trim Asian woman with short hair tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hi there. I’m Nancy Chen, and I’m on the collective. I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” She stuck her hand out.
“I’m Sky.” I grasped her hand. Her shake was quick and decisive. “This is my first time,” I told her.
“Good to meet you, Sky. Don’t worry, there’re always a few beginners.” Nancy touched a strand of my long purple and black hair. “Next time, put your hair back. And you’ll need to take out your earrings. You don’t want to have someone accidentally tear one out.”
I fingered the numerous silver hoops on my earlobes while she jogged off.
Nancy Chen wound up on my team. Her friends called her Chen, and she called them by their last names like they were boys in private school, which, given their gender and racial and ethnic diversity, was kind of hilarious. We did not have designated captains, because that was too undemocratic for lesbians, but unofficially, each team had a leader, a woman who, by virtue of her skill, would call the plays and decide on a lineup; Chen was that person on my team. Even though she was only five-six, she had played varsity basketball and was very good. When cornered, she would charge through taller players and sink baskets from pretty much anywhere on the court. She was also kind and encouraging to rookies. On my second night playing, someone fouled me, and I had a free throw. I stood with the ball clutched to my stomach, my mind in a state of despair, while my team and the opposing team crisscrossed into matching lines in front of me. The ref blew the whistle, and I wildly threw the ball. It narrowly missed the referee’s head. “Nice try!” Chen yelled.
Yeah, right. I was a total loser, and Chen had probably been a camp counsellor as a teenager. I was the weak link on the team, but neither she nor anyone else held it against me.
I wouldn’t have been so lucky if I had been on Cavaco’s team. Cavaco was a handsome blonde with some anger management issues. She constantly challenged the refs and socially excluded the women on her team who weren’t jocks. She liked to win, and her team often did. She usually played center. She ran fast and was an outstanding shot, but her real talent lay in rebounding. She swooped up for the ball like a seal, always catching it.
I can’t remember why I criticized Cavaco to Chen, but I do remember her response: “Guess you don’t think she’s hot?”
I shrugged. I was more attracted to Chen, but I had heard she had just gotten out of relationship and wasn’t looking for one.
“Everyone else does,” Chen continued.
“The problem is she knows it,” I said. If I had been more honest, I would have admitted I did find Cavaco hot. She was solidly built, all muscle, a fact she flaunted in ribbed T-shirts and tight, faded jeans. And she wore a black leather jacket and drove a motorbike. Any one of these factors was enough to make me swoon, but Cavaco didn’t seem to like femmes. The women she dated were butch and androgynous, and one evening in the locker room after a game she made it clear to me just how little respect she had for girly-girls.
I was one of two women in the league who wore bikini underwear; everyone else had on boxers or big, plain white underwear. I was also the only woman who bothered to put on makeup and perfume after a shower. Along with a few hair-gel queens that tended to include Chen, I was inevitably the last woman out of the locker room.
On the night of my conversation with Cavaco, I was standing in front of a mirror applying lipstick. Beside me, wearing only a towel, Chen was slicking the front of her hair back with mousse. In the mirror, I noticed Cavaco standing behind us, dressed and fidgeting. Her motorcycle helmet was tucked under her arm, and she seemed to be waiting for Chen, who asked me if I was a member of the Y.
“I thought I saw you there the other day,” Chen said.
“Must have been someone else.” I smudged my lips together. “Working out is so boring, and I hate having straight men hit on me, which always happens at gyms.”
Cavaco curled her lip. “It’s not like you look like a dyke.”
Later I thought of many replies, but at that moment I simply froze. Cavaco didn’t see me as femme, didn’t see herself as butch; she just thought she was an out-and-proud dyke, and I wasn’t. She would have been surprised to learn that I was as out in my life voluntarily as she was forced to be by virtue of her masculinity.