Penthouse (19 page)

“I love you, Maria,” I said, meaning her dress, her dance, her flawless ass, her creamy skin and long dark hair, her flaming
spirit.

We kissed Fred and ran out into the night.

BY
J
O
A
NN
B
REN
G
UERNSEY

I
rush into the dance studio, certain I’m hopelessly late, but my instructor has waited. It’s after ten, and everyone else has
left for the night.

“So very sorry,” I tell him breathlessly. “Flat tire… damn rusty lug nuts… such a mess.…” I gesture with dirt-streaked hands
to my torn dress and stockings and give up explaining further.

No tears, I warn myself, but I can’t believe the bedraggled state I’m in. Especially after all my careful preparation for
tonight’s ballroom-dance lesson—my sixth and last with Tyler. My new dress (a skin-hugging knit, so short it barely covers
my ass) and the sheer black panty hose fresh out of their package are equally ruined.

Tyler is leaning against the desk, smiling and shaking his head in sympathy. I notice, not for the first time, how this man’s
body suggests music and movement even when he’s standing perfectly still. “Go ahead and take the washroom key,” he says.
“I’ll wait.”

“We can reschedule the lesson if you want,” I say.

“No. It’ll be nice having the studio all to ourselves, and you’ll feel better after washing up. Take off those stockings if
you like.”

“Well, I’d like to, but I can’t.” I feel myself blush, and figure that’s about all he needs to guess that I’m wearing nothing
but the panty hose underneath my tight dress.

After washing my hands I check out the damage in the bathroom mirror. My hair and makeup are easily repairable, and even the
dress can probably be salvaged. The main problem is a dime-size hole in the fabric, right in the center of my stomach. Oh
well. Practicing the erect dance posture I’ve learned from Tyler, I watch in the mirror as my skin flashes coyly through that
hole.

When I rejoin my instructor, he starts up the music. A nice mellow waltz. It seems as if he has somehow filled the studio
with warm, heavy, fragrant air—the kind of air on which it seems possible to float. His strong lead makes me better than I
am, and he nods his approval each time I pick up his nonverbal cues—now this direction, now that turn, now this variation.
My body has learned his, and he has trained mine well.

The music switches to a foxtrot. A bouncy forties arrangement of “Let Yourself Go” inspires me, and I do really let myself
go. All this motion makes me sweat lightly and releases moist whiffs of my perfume. I feel the cool air through the hole in
my dress as though someone is blowing on my belly. I like it.

The studio has floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three sides and a full wall of glass facing the street. In the mirror I catch glimpses
of Tyler and me, and decide we are, in fact, a rather striking couple. Both long and leggy, similarly built. His darkness
complements my blond hair and pale skin. We are practicing all that he’s taught me and moving
quickly beyond, both avoiding the painful fact that I can’t afford to take any more lessons. I concentrate instead on how
solid his shoulder feels under my left hand and how his grasp of my right hand seems almost to swallow it whole.

By the time the music pulls us into a deliciously dramatic tango, I notice that we’ve attracted an audience. Outside the window
a few pedestrians have clustered to watch. I know how difficult it is to resist looking in at dancers in this brightly lit
studio, especially late at night. It was this sight that drew me into the studio in the first place. Now it is me gliding
around the floor in the arms of this smooth, elegant partner. But the mirrors and windows have turned me into a show-off,
and the result is a major misstep on my part. Tyler and I collide—my stomach against his belt buckle, my forehead against
his nose. “Okay, enough gazing around,” he tells me in his mock-stern instructor voice. “Time to focus.” He leaves me for
a moment to dim the lights, and our mirror image is no longer clear. But our audience outside the window is not deterred.

Now Tyler pulls me into a slow, sensuous rumba. Oh my—the dance of love. I feel his large hand on my back. It seems to be
burning through the fabric, and with the continued sensations from the hole in front I’m beginning to feel as if fabric is
being eased away from my body in pieces. Moisture is gathering between my legs, and I let myself wonder if Tyler’s lessons
sometimes give him an erection. Or if he ever dances naked.

He lets go of me for a moment, shifting his hands downward to ride on my hips. “Like this,” he says, guiding me to undulate
with the music. I’ve been struggling for weeks to loosen up and move my hips properly, but now, finally, Tyler’s lower body
lures mine into natural, seductive Latin motion. Looking directly into his dark eyes, I notice
that he is changing somewhat. Softening. The teacher-pupil barrier seems to have dissolved. My heartbeat quickens, and the
space between my legs becomes more warm, more wet, with each step, each movement.

This is beginning to frighten me a little, and I lower my gaze. He seems to understand, and twirls me around into shadow position—his
chest is against my back and our feet are moving in unison. With his left hand flat on my stomach, I fight the urge to move
it up… or down. And I feel an unmistakable stirring behind me in his trousers.

Then he finds it—the hole in my dress. At first his fingertip just brushes across my skin by accident, then it zeroes in.
He slowly inserts his finger until the tear stretches and becomes completely filled with Tyler. The skin on my stomach becomes
electrified. I realize that my erratic breathing and pulse are no secret to him, not with his finger probing and tracing the
center line of my stomach. Up to my breastbone, down to the shallow pucker of my navel.

Now I want all those people outside to go away. To leave us alone. My temporary urge to flash has given way to a longing for
intimacy with this man. I know he is feeling the same longing by the way he’s breathing into my hair and beginning to move
his hand in a decidedly non-dance manner. His touch grazes my left nipple, then pauses to let my breast fill and warm his
hand.

“Wait a moment,” he whispers, then goes to turn off the lights. Only the neon sign on the window remains lit, and it leaves
us in near-darkness, tinged with gold. Most of the people outside leave. Only one man remains on the sidewalk. I’m dancing
alone for the moment, touching my own body, engrossed in the sinewy action of my stomach and abdominal muscles.

Even though I can’t see the observer’s face, I feel his
eyes fixed on me and am surprised by the extra dash of arousal this adds.

Tyler brings a chair when he returns, and sits down behind me to watch my solo. Without turning around I straddle and hover
over his lap, and as my ass moves against him, I can feel him getting harder. The man continues to watch from outside, and
even when Tyler pulls up my skirt, I resist turning away from the window to face my partner. While one of Tyler’s hands cups
my breast again, the other slides between my legs. One finger begins to burrow, as if seeking a hole in my panty hose like
the one in my dress. Since it isn’t there, he makes one, breaking through the mesh to dip into the silky moisture inside.

The music has changed completely, but we are creating our own rhythm now. My backside is still moving against him as his one
hand continues to explore my chest and the other widens the tear he’s made in my panty hose. Soon one of his fingers is all
the way into me and pushing to see if deeper is possible. The rest of his fingers are also busy, thoroughly exploring each
nerve ending and fold. I begin to wonder how many fingers he has and if they ever get tired. At the same time, I don’t care.

I’m on the brink of coming, but want to remain there for as long as possible, so I shift my attention back to the man outside.
Maybe I’ll feel self-conscious and distracted by this watchful silhouette; maybe I’ll feel sorry for him. Instead I recognize
how he has joined us, in a way, and this only pushes my body further into its free-fall. I grasp Tyler’s hands and the rest
of his solid, attentive presence with my whole body and reach a long, heart-battering climax… wave after wave after wave…
until there is no strength or pull left anywhere in me and I crumble to the floor.

From there, between Tyler’s knees, my fingers begin their urgent search for him. He’s hugely erect and seems to be having
trouble breathing, but he abruptly pushes my hands away and stands up.

“What—?”

He gestures toward the street. Our friend is still there, still darkly motionless. And I realize that Tyler has managed, in
spite of his arousal, to remember where we are. And who he is—a professional dance instructor. And I am supposed to be his
student, but that’s over now.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” I get up off the floor, straighten out my dress, and turn to leave. Thank goodness it’s dark, because
I don’t want him to see my flushed face and tears.

Tyler clears his throat a few times, and I can sense how hard he is trying to regain his composure.

“Good-bye,” I say. “Thank you.”

“But you aren’t going home now,” my instructor informs me. “Not when your dancing has progressed this far. I believe you’re
ready to move on to the next level.”

“But—”

“I have a small studio in my house where I’ve been hoping to give free, very private lessons to someone…in exchange, of course,
for learning some things myself. I think I’ve found the perfect teacher.”

The music is over. The air in the studio is cooling. But every molecule in my body is dancing now. Before we leave he takes
a moment to remove what’s left of my black stockings. When we get out to the parking lot, we notice our audience of one has
vanished. After hesitating only a moment, Tyler walks over to the window to leave the soft wet panty hose like a puddle on
the sidewalk where the man had stood… just in case he returns.

BY
J
OLIE
G
RAHAM

I
was looking at what passed for personal ads in Minor Midwest City, U.S.A. They all sounded depressingly alike, as usual.
Whether this cookie-cutter phenomenon in the personals was because all the single men in town really were pretty much alike,
or whether it was thanks to cribbing one another’s ads, I wasn’t sure. I had moved here only three months earlier and was
still assessing the dating scene.

My new job was good, the pay and benefits were great, the cost of living was heavenly. But none of that was anything I could
literally get off on. And things I could get off on were nonexistent here. With the exception of the Calvin Klein billboard
on the interstate, no naked or even half-naked people of either sex were to be seen. Fortunately I had not thrown out my stash
of dirty mags when I moved. Even more fortunately, I had Linden’s number memorized.

“Hello, you’ve reached Hot, Handsome, Horny Hunks, a Woman’s Hot Line. Phone charges at a rate of three dollars
per minute will be billed to you,” the pleasant male voice began. “If you wish to leave voice mail for one of our hot, handsome
hunks and you already know his code, please press the code now. Our schedule this week—” I had Linden’s number—boy, did I
have his number—but I wanted to know what time he was working tonight. “Sean, 2 to 5
P
.
M
.; Chad, 5 to 8
P
.
M
.; John, 8 to 11
P
.
M
.; Eric, 11
P
.
M
. to 2
A
.
M
.; Linden, 2 to 5
A
.
M
. Our weekend schedule—” Beep, beep, beep, beep.

“Linden, this is Suzanna. Tonight, 2:45. Hot and hungry—‘The Poet.’ ”

The advantage of the advance call is that I can advise him of the mood I’m in and he can prepare accordingly. He knows my
fantasies so well that we’ve got it down to a few key words. “Beach house” involves a lot of fucking in the sand and surf.
“Downtown” is a dance-club pickup scenario that he creatively expanded from dance-floor groping preliminaries and dark-corner
sex to screwing in bathrooms, alleys, and once—when he got carried away— eating me out while I was perched on the club’s bar.
“Candlelight and oil” features a bath or hot tub and a massage, including, of course, fantastic fantasy sex. Sometimes I just
give him a mood. He knows what I like.

Once when I said “sensuous” he described things to me in such a way that I came in less than a minute. Of course I was already
a bit worked up when I called. It saves on the phone bill, but even if it didn’t, how could I not be just dripping wet knowing
that in the middle of the night this total stranger would be whispering all kinds of sexy, obscene things in my ear. Not like
an obscene phone caller—these are things I want to hear. He knows the fantasies I will never voice to a lover. They’re private,
they are mine: secret pleasures I have no desire to share with anyone.
But I can tell Linden and still maintain a sense of privacy as well as intimacy. He’s the man of my daydreams. I can have
the most dangerous, dirty sex imaginable with a stranger who can be, as the scene requires, kind or cold— and very often surprising.

“The Poet,” as I call it, is one of his surprises. I had said “hot, lyrical sex” that first particular night. What I got,
like tonight, was… “Hello, Linden.”

“Suzanna, I’ve missed you so much. It’s been months since I’ve licked you, months since I’ve sunk my fingers into your snatch.
I’ve got the fire in the fireplace lit. It’ll burn all night if you want it to.”

“I love you, Linden.”

“I love you too, Suzanna,” he said softly. “You look so beautiful lying there on your stomach on that soft plush sheepskin,
firelight licking your black panties. You are a portrait of desire. But not a still life, oh no,” he breathed.