Making the Hook-Up (29 page)

Sara's thighs quivered from the ache between them. “Nice” wasn't quite the word. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment as she moved against the sofa to pull down her dress. She bit her lip. But the older girl's eyes glowed in the dark as if she still wanted to devour her. Sara blushed then, feeling somehow special.

“You can stay with me tonight, if you want.”

But Sara heard the token offer for what it was. Smoke. She shook her head and adjusted her legs next to Rille on the sofa,
trying to take up less space. The older girl patted Sara's still smoothly French-twisted hair and peered around the balcony door to see what was going on inside.

“Go inside,” Sara said. “I'll be fine out here.”

Rille smiled, gratefully, Sara thought, and left her outside with the lanterns and the faint strains of music and the laughter floating up from the courtyard. Sara didn't know how long she stayed, but the sky was lightening and the party was at its lowest with almost everyone on the bed or on the floor or in the bathroom. She didn't see Rille's bright head anywhere.

So this was college, Sara thought, looking around. The beginning of everything. More laughter rose up and died from people in the courtyard below. No one noticed when she left the party, passing slowly out the door in her crushed red-velvet dress.

 

Sara's room was silent and dim. After the abundance of the party, it seemed especially lovely now where before she'd only found comfort in it. The display on the answering machine flashed. A message waited. She sat on her bed, carefully arranging the soreness between her legs. Her thighs felt sticky. She was sure there would be more blood. That was what all the books said.

Sara ran a hot bath and sat in the water with her head resting against the tiled wall. Rille's shadow rose up, kneeling again between her thighs, her mouth on Sara's, her body vibrating with want. Sara closed her eyes.

When she opened them again it was fully light and Raven was shaking her shoulder. A shiver raced through her as she shifted in the water. It was cold.

“You need to get out of there.”

Raven brought a towel and spread it wide for her to step into. Disoriented, Sara stood and stepped out of the tub. Her roommate dried her unresisting body.

“What time is it?” Her mouth felt sticky as if something old had finally died in it. She shivered again.

“After nine, I think. I called, but you didn't answer the phone.”

“I didn't get back from the party until late.” Sara registered, dimly, that her roommate should've still been in Tampa over fifty miles away with her boyfriend, not crouched over the tub, worry carved into her forehead.

Raven's touch through the towel was clinical but concerned. She only lightly skimmed over Sara's thighs with the cotton, not drying between them. Sara looked down at her body. The glaring red towel looked too familiar against her skin. She wanted to rip it away from her body. But that wasn't a normal thing to do.

“I think I stayed in the water too long.” She cleared her throat to get rid of its croak.

“Yeah, a little.”

They both looked at Sara's skin, wrinkled and gray from the soak.

“At least you weren't under it.”

“The party wasn't that traumatic,” she said, stirring finally. Sara gently pulled away from Raven and from the towel, reaching over the toilet to her small stack of clean towels to get another, a green one this time, and securing it like a sarong around her body.

Raven looked away from Sara to the discarded velvet dress on the floor, the balled up panties. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing I didn't want.”

“Is that really true?”

Was it true?
Had she wanted Rille to feast on her like a snack, to peel away her wrapping, gorge herself and leave Sara vulnerable and empty, on the balcony?

“I swear. Yes.”

Raven sighed, but said nothing else. Sara looked away from the concern in her friend's face. She was all right. And even if that wasn't completely true, she would be soon. Sara left the bathroom and Raven followed.

“Are you going to see her again?”

The question echoed in Sara's head as, “After tonight, do you think she's interested in you anymore?”

“Yeah, why not?” she murmured. “I think we had a connection. Something.”

Raven opened her mouth, dark eyes flashing a familiar fire, but whatever she saw in Sara's face made her sigh instead. Then: “Okay.”

PRESTON ALLEN
is the author of the novel,
All or Nothing,
and the short fiction collection,
Churchboys and Other Sinners.
A recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Fiction and the winner of the Sonia H. Stone Prize in Literature, he has published stories in numerous anthologies such as
Miami Noir, Las Vegas Noir, Wanderlust
and
Brown Sugar
. His new novel,
Jesus Boy
(Akashic Books) is due out early in 2010. He teaches writing at Miami-Dade College.

 

SHANE ALLISON's
poems have appeared in
Mississippi Review, Oyster Boy Review, Chiron Review, Absinthe Literary Review
and others. His chapbooks,
Black Fag
and
Cock and Balls,
continue to wreak havoc.

 

TENILLE BROWN
is a Southern writer whose erotica can be found online and in more than twenty anthologies including
Dirty Girls
,
Rubber Sex
,
Iridescence
,
Sex and Candy
,
J Is for
Jealousy
,
Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica
,
Tasting Him
and
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers
. She keeps a blog at
myspace.com/tenillebrown
.

 

ZETTA BROWN
is editor in chief of LL Publications. She is the author of
Messalina—Devourer of Men
and several short stories. In 1998, her short story “Black Water” was a regional first-place winner for the National Society of Arts & Letters (NSAL) Award for Short Fiction. She lives in Scotland with her husband.

 

DEEPBRONZE
, whose work has been previously featured in classic anthologies by Zane and Carol Taylor, writes erotic tales of adventure, sexuality and excitement. A Chicago native, she holds advanced degrees in speech and is a college lecturer. She is a mother of two.

 

JOLIE DU PRE
is a full-time article writer, a ghost writer, and an author and editor of erotica. Her erotica has appeared online, in e-book, and in print. She is the editor of
Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica
and
Swing!: Adventures in Swinging by Today's Top Erotica Writers.
She is working on an erotic horror novel and the anthology,
The Cougar Book.
Visit her site at
joliedupre.com
.

 

MONICA ELAINE
loves a good naughty story. This is a pen name for a well-established novelist with a major fan base. She lives in the Midwest with her daughter.

 

ASHA FRENCH
is a writer and a doctoral student at one of the leading Southern universities. She wants to build a readership for her stories of love and lust.

 

R. GAY
is the editor of
Girl Crush
(Cleis Press).

 

REGINALD HARRIS
is an acclaimed poet and writer, who is the recipient of the Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is responsible for IT Support and public computer training for the Enoch Pratt Free Library. His work has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.

 

JOLENE HUI's
literary fiction has been published in
Tonto Short Stories, Tonto Christmas Stories
and
More Tonto Short Stories
. She's been published by a variety of newspapers, magazines, websites, Cleis Press, Pretty Things Press, Logical-Lust and Alyson Books. She is based in Los Angeles.

 

SHAKIR RASHAAN
broke into the BDSM erotica genre with his debut series,
The Awakening, Book One of The Chronicles of the Nubian Underworld
in March 2009. He is also the author of the novel
Obsession
. He founded Kemi-Ka Publishing to promote African American writers in this genre. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his family.

 

LEONE ROSS
, a writer of Jamaican-British heritage, has published two novels,
All the Blood Is Red
and
Orange Laughter
, and her many stories have appeared in the United States, England and Canada. She is working on her third novel.

 

KWELI WALKER
has been a journeywoman electrician for the last twenty-five years. She simply loves to read and write. Also, an artist and designer, she created the cover of
Chocolate Fetish
,
a popular Black erotic collection. She lives in Long Beach, California.

 

GARNELL WALLACE
is a freelance writer and native Bahamian who loves using her beautiful and exotic country as the backdrop for her stories. Her writing credits include everything from poetry to romantic erotica. She has written for American and British publications. Visit her at
myspace.com/garnellwallace
.

 

ZAJI
is a writer and webmaster who lives on the East Coast, but her heart and bloodline belong to the tropics.

 

FIONA ZEDDE
is a transplanted Jamaican currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of four novels, the Lambda Literary Award finalists
Bliss
and
Every Dark Desire
, as well as
A Taste of Sin
and
Hungry For It,
and the novellas, “Pure Pleasure,” “Going Wild,” and “Sexual Attraction.” Readers and voyeurs can find out more at
www.fionazedde.com
.

COLE RILEY
is the writer of several street classics:
Hot Snake Nights, Rough Trade, The Devil to Pay, The Killing Kind, Dark Blood Moon,
and recently,
Harlem Confidential
and
Guilty As Sin
. His erotica and reviews have been featured on several websites and anthologies including
Intimacy
and Maxim Jakubowski's
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica
. He lives in New York.

Copyright © 2010 by Cole Riley.

 

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

 

Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc.,
2246 Sixth St., Berkeley, California 94710.

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-573-44539-9