Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter (12 page)

He was there, of
course, as she knew he would be, with his back to her as he dried himself. Her
arousal was further fueled by the thrill of knowing that her dreams had led her
to this exact place at this precise time. She could barely make out his
silhouette against the setting sun, yet she felt his heat—his need. It
rivaled her own. As blood orange and pulsing as the orb itself and as
inexorable as the tide, it drew her to him.
Come
.
COME
.

She sat on the
last set of rickety wooden stairs and hastily removed the hiking boots and heavy
cotton socks before stepping onto the sand. As she drew near, he sensed her and
turned. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He undoubtedly recognized her,
and she smiled as she continued her approach. It had never even occurred to her
to question whether or not he was experiencing the same dreams. She took that
as a given from the very beginning. The cosmos would not send such a one-sided
message, after all. Belief in her dreams necessitated belief in their
reciprocity. It was completely logical to her surreal way of thinking.

Apparently, he
believed the dream had something to tell him—otherwise he'd not even be
here—but it was clear that he'd not considered the possibility she would
materialize before his eyes. He stood as still as a statue while it sunk in.
She watched the expression on his face shift from incredulity to delight to
desire as he adjusted to the realization that she was, indeed, a very real
woman.

The moment
played in slow motion, but precious little time actually elapsed before his eyes
narrowed and a feral grin played on his mouth; tongue darting, like a snake
scenting its prey.
Yes, lover
, she thought.
I'm here
. She
unbuttoned, unzipped while walking—almost running—leaving a trail
of garments in her wake. The scent of the sea filled her pores. Cloying. Heady.

 The beach was
deserted—as in the dreams—but she doubted the presence of onlookers
would've changed a thing. They came together on the sand at the base of the
cliff: a wordless union. Hands grasped. Tongues danced. Intoxicated by his
touch, she took his cock in both hands as he growled one word against her neck:
"YES!"

His hands
grabbed her ass, pulling her tightly against him, as she wrapped one leg around
his waist. "Fuck me! Here. NOW!" she urged, guiding him inside. For a
breathless moment, as his cock reached her hot depths, they were still. His
skin was cool from the chill of the sea and its contrast intensified the
sensations. When sun the kissed the horizon, it broke the spell. The magic born
in their dreams electrified the air around them, as if the chemical reaction
could no longer be contained. They moved together in a rhythm born of the
purest passion. His thighs bulged, tensing, as he dipped for each upward
thrust. Her foot left the sand, again and again, as he impaled her.
Lover!

Their momentum
propelled them backward until she felt the coarse sandstone wall of the cliff
against her bare back. It hurt, peripherally, but she was beyond caring about a
few scratches. His knees struck the rocks with each dip, and her nails gouged
half-moons in his back as she answered his violence with her own. He was
stronger than she expected; effortlessly holding her so that she was lifted off
the ground.

They paused in
their mutual assaults only long enough to draw in more air, fueling the pure
lust of the attack. He slowed, briefly, as the last rays of the sun framed him,
and his eyes glowed a vivid blue that matched the sea. Although the two of them
never totally stopped moving, the rest of the world did stop. Nothing mattered
to her beyond what was reflected in his eyes as they devoured her, in his hands
as they claimed her, and in his cock as it filled her.

The evening
shadows blanketed them, and the sky glowed with the memory of the sun, as he
again picked up the pace. "Harder," she begged, and he delivered with
a primal groan. She felt him swell inside, pulsing. Another
thrust—two—three—and she was completely lifted into his arms
as they crested together; their mouths meeting in the ultimate hunger.

He slipped from
her, and she tried to stand on shaky legs. With his strong arms supporting her,
they grinned at one another, kissed again, and finally said, "Hello."

About Alessia
Brio

Alessia Brio
is the sultry, erotica-writing alter ego of an Appalachian soccer mom. She is “sensual,
succulent, and satisfying” even when her creator feels like a hairy warthog.
Her debut book, a single-author anthology of erotica & poetry entitled
fine flickering hungers
, won the 2007 EPPIE
Award for Best Erotica. Ms. Brio is primarily published electronically, and her
work is available on
FictionWise
.
Readers can find her online at
www.alessiabrio.com

About Will
Belegon

Will Belegon
began writing erotica the way many have… he read some and thought, “I can do
that.” Amazingly, instead of being another example of hubris, the feedback
indicated he may have been right. He spent a few years honing his craft by
writing for his friends and peers at Literotica’s Author’s Hangout before his
writing partner “convinced” him to submit a piece to a publisher.

The publisher
not only purchased that piece, Switch went on to be chosen as the Best
Mainstream Short Story by the readers of Preditor’s & Editors in the 2006
Reader’s Poll. Since that first success, Will has written and/or edited for
Venus Press,
Phaze
and
Charles
River Press
. In addition to the P&E prize, Will has won annual
awards at Literotica for Best Erotic Couplings Story and Sexiest Male
Character, seen his first print work (Artifactual: Tales of the Erotique
Mystique) chosen as a Coffee Time Romance Book of the Month and been a finalist
for the 2008 Eppies as one of the contributing poets to Phaze In Verse. In
addition to Literotica, his poetry and fiction have appeared online at
Oysters
& Chocolate
,
Clean Sheets
&
The Erotic
Woman
.

Will has made
personal appearances from San Diego to New York to Milwaukee to Houston. He is
currently continuing his creative and romantic relationship with author Alessia
Brio while exploring the wild notion of making a living as a writer. Outside of
writing, Will spends leisure time with his kids and playing with swords.

TRADITIONAL INUIT THROAT SINGING

By Giselle Renarde

They
went for the soapstone carvings. Rusidan’s parents liked the little blue
Inuksuks and polar bears, so that’s what she and Sarah bought them every
Christmas. Once you find a gift that works, you stick with it. It was a kind of
Trojan Horse, they figured. Each little present ingratiated Sarah more and more
to Rusidan’s parents. If they could fill mom and dad’s home with signifiers of
Inuit culture, maybe they would begin to appreciate the incredible Inuk who’d
been living with their daughter for almost four years. It wasn’t much of a
plan, but it seemed to be working. They were coming around. They might even
like
Sarah by the time she and Rusidan announced their wedding plans.

How fitting the
city’s first ever
Celebration of the Arctic
festival would coincide with
the first major snowfall of the season. It was one of those days you’d normally
only leave the house to do something really important, like give birth—if
you were a city mouse like Rusidan, that is. If you were Sarah, born and raised
in the frigid North, the city’s storm barely qualified as a flurry. There was
relativity, even in weather.

Though she’d
never admit it, Sarah was eager to get to the modest celebration of her
cultural heritage. Rusidan could always tell. Even so, Sarah looked out the window
at the snow-capped pines and said, “It’s okay. We don’t have to go. No big
deal.”

“No way we’re
missing this!” Rusidan sang. “Get your boots on, Lucy! Don’t you know you’re in
the city?”

“What?”

“Never mind,”
she laughed. That’s what she got for spending eight hours a day in an “active
lifestyle” seniors complex. Her outdated references were lost on everyone
outside the workplace. “Just get dressed. We’re not going to let a little
snowfall keep us home.”

Even by gazing
at the back of her head, Rusidan could tell Sarah was smiling. Rusidan watched
her as she rested her forehead rested against the kitchen cupboard and washed
up the two coffee cups and two cereal bowls from breakfast. Sarah’s hair, tied
back in an effortless ponytail, was the exact color of a chestnut.

“You should wear
your special parka,” Rusidan encouraged, opening the closet door to sort
through the lost land of dry cleaning bags. The anorak was pristine white with
black bands stitched to create images of waterfowl across the front. The bands
stretched around the wrists and the hood as well. Sarah wore it so rarely even
the fringe of blue, red and black beads remained intact.

“I don’t know. I
don’t want to get it dirty,” Sarah objected. After draining the sink, she dried
her hands on the premature Christmas dishtowels. “It’s for special occasions.”

“A
Celebration
of the Arctic
is a special occasion,” Rusidan encouraged.

“I want to save
it for a special-er occasion,” Sarah said with an almost imperceptible blush.
Their
wedding
. So she was serious about getting married in the snow…?

“Well, it’s not
a bandage you use once and throw away. If it gets dirty, we’ll have it
cleaned.” When Rusidan held the anorak up against her girl, Sarah ran her
fingers across the beaded fringe like a child plucking tentatively at guitar
strings. “You should wear it.”

Sarah smiled
slightly, as if taken to sea by an unrelated thought. “Yeah, okay.”

That girl never
could betray her inner feelings. It kept her mysterious, sure, but it was
frustrating at times. She couldn’t just say, “Yeah, I’m excited about this.” Of
course, that was the very quality Rusidan fell in love with: the whole
take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Other girls were so needy. Sarah always kept a
cautious distance. Problem was, that eternal vigilance never faded away. Sarah
would always be distant and, if they were going to be married, that was
something Rusidan was just going to have to swallow.

They had to take
the subway almost to the end of the line to get to the festivities, but
anything was better than trying to negotiate roads that wouldn’t be cleared
before noon. The storm subsided, leaving the city with falling snow, fluffy
like cotton balls—Sarah’s favorite kind of weather. Rusidan liked it too,
because Sarah did. The showing of city dwellers at the outdoor festival was
disappointing, but at least the exhibitors could take some consolation in
knowing it was because of the storm. Or maybe the visitors from up North didn’t
realize the modest snowfall they’d experienced was considered a storm nearer to
the 49
^th
parallel. Maybe they figured Southern Canada just wasn’t
interested in their lives. Worse yet, maybe they were right.

“What should we
do first?” Rusidan asked, overcompensating with enthusiasm. “It’s your day!”

Sarah cracked a
smile. “Let’s see if they’re selling
muktut
!”

“I
don’t know what that is.”

Shaking her
head, Sarah explained, “Muktut was my favorite treat as a kid. It’s whale
blubber.”

Scrunching her
nose, Rusidan replied, “Yummy…”

“Oh, like deep
fried chicken skin is so much better,” she laughed.

Rusidan hadn’t
seen her so giddy in ages. She had no idea how much Sarah missed her culture,
living so far away from her family. Thank God they’d battled the snow to get
there. It was definitely worth the journey. While Rusidan wandered toward the
vendors, Sarah ran off to find the kind of food she remembered from her youth.

“They didn’t
have muktut, so I got caribou jerky. Try some,” Sarah beamed. It wasn’t
terrible, Rusidan had to admit. “Before we shop for your mom and dad’s gift, we
should visit the indoor pavilion. Some of the athletes getting ready for the
Arctic Winter Games are in there showing off.”

Who outside the
Arctic had ever heard of Arctic Winter Games? Not Rusidan, that was certain.

“After that, we
can watch the throat-singing,” Sarah suggested.  

If ever
you have the opportunity to witness first-hand the magnificent spectacle that
is Inuit throat-singing, don’t pass it by. There is nothing on this planet so
cosmically beautiful.

On an outdoor
stage stood two young women, nothing but a microphone between them. Gripping
one another, hands on forearms, they cuddled so close together their faces
nearly touched. They sang
a capella
and needed no accompaniment. One
began before the other, producing a breathy sound. Lower than low, like a
sub-sonic pant, the beat of her chant pushed forward like a freight train. How
could a female voice produce tones so deeply resonant?

Her partner
joined in, filling the gaps. The second starter vocalized at a higher pitch,
singing in fleeting, orgasmic sounds. It was like nothing ever heard in popular
music. The effect was intriguing, transfixing, visceral, resonating in the core
of Rusidan’s being. Rhythmic vibrations rumbled her body like the bass line at
a rock concert.
Who’d have thought throat-singing could be such a turn-on?
Sexual and spiritual, it was the sound of divine union. Those women must have
been romantic partners, Rusidan thought. The way they focused on one another,
with their faces so close they could kiss, gave them away. They rocked one
another’s bodies, pushing and pulling outstretched arms along with the music. They
danced to the very song they created. It was stunning.
Beyond stunning.
It
was spellbinding.

With a burst of
laughter, they broke away from each other. The second partner giggled, giving
the first a playful push as if to deny their beautiful act had ever taken
place. Throat-singing represented pure female sensuality, to Rusidan. It seemed
almost tawdry that she should witness their show of intimacy. As the women came
down from the stage to circulate, she asked Sarah if was customary for women to
perform this ritual act in front of other people.

“It’s just a
game,” Sarah replied, rolling her eyes.

Rusidan was
taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“Throat-singing
is a competition to see who can keep going the longest,” Sarah explained. “We
used to play at recess, like have a bit of a tournament. Two girls started out,
and the first one to laugh was the loser. The winner played the next girl, and
it kept going until the best one beat everyone else.”

Unable to
conceal her disappointment, Rusidan said, “It’s just a game? But what about…”

An unfamiliar
voice interrupted their conversation. “Sarah!
Aksunai
, Sarah! Over
here.”

The ebullient
greeting came from behind her, and Sarah’s gaze followed it over Rusidan’s
shoulder. She turned to see one of the throat-singers waving in their
direction. It was the “loser,” the one who’d laughed first. She was a beautiful
moon-faced girl with short stylish hair, molasses-colored with golden
highlights.

“You know her?”
Rusidan exclaimed.

“I know them
both. We grew up together.”

“Why didn’t you
say so? Tell me, are they…” She couldn’t get the question out before the
throat-singing pair huddled in beside them.

“
Aksutik
,”
Sarah greeted the pair. She didn’t appear overjoyed to see them. Her face was
dark and still like a Halloween mask.

The winning
singer, a tallish woman with hair in a long ponytail, stared down at her shoes.
Sarah did the same.
What was that all about?

Somebody had to
compensate for her juvenile pouting. Disturbed by the tension, Rusidan gushed,
“That was incredible, what you two did on stage. I was moved, truly. You have
no idea.”

“Thanks,”
bubbled the girl with the warm green eyes. “It’s so great that we’re getting
the chance to do this. I’ve never been to the big city before.”

Shoving her
mittened hands in the pockets of her parka, Sarah lowered her head in a full-on
glower. Rusidan struggled not to grit her teeth—
bad for the enamel
.
Turning back to the moon-faced Inuk, she asked, “How are you liking the trip?”

“People get all
worked up about a little bit of snow,” the taller woman snapped.

The hush was
deadly until the smaller girl compensated, “I like it here. There are so many
people living their lives in all kinds of ways. Even though there’s not much
space to move around here in the city, there’s mental space. There’s
open-mindedness. It’s different where we’re from, right Sarah?”

Sarah exhaled
loudly through flared nostrils. Just when Rusidan was convinced her partner wasn’t
going to respond, she answered with a reluctant, “Yeah.”

When nobody said
anything, Rusidan started to ask how long the women had been performing
together just as the moon-faced girl began her introductions. “This is Palluq
and I’m Laura. If Sarah didn’t mention it, Palluq is…”

“…a fucking
cunt, is what Palluq is!” Sarah erupted, turning on her heels to stomp away
through snow up to her knees. Of course, Rusidan’s impulse was to follow, to
console, but she knew from experience what that would look like. She would run
after Sarah, pawing at her arm, asking what was wrong. Sarah would shift her
hands away, claiming it was nothing.
Just leave me alone
. What was the
point in going after her? If Sarah needed space, let Sarah have her space. Plus,
sadly, Rusidan was more likely to get the inside scoop from this Laura girl
than her own partner.

“What was that
all about?” Rusidan asked, trying to keep her tone casual.

Even Laura said
nothing.

“So…” Rusidan
began, searching for an inane question to ask the performers. “Do you do this
for a living, throat-singing? Or is it just a hobby?”

The taller
woman, Palluq, threw her head back and cackled.

“We’re
semi-professional, I guess you’d say,” Laura clarified.

“There isn’t a
hell of a lot of money in the throat-singing industry,” Palluq carried on, her
tone a little on the demeaning side. “It was almost a lost art, you know. We
Inuk forgot the good it did us. Now it’s coming back into its own, after all
that self-righteous Christian malice.”

Without
thinking, Rusidan covered the cross around her neck. Like they could even see
it, buried under thermal underwear, a sweater and a winter coat.

“She probably
doesn’t know about the ban,” Laura said to Palluq.

“What ban?”
Rusidan asked.

Flicking the
cotton ball snowflakes from her hair, Laura replied, “Throat-singing was banned
for, like, a hundred years.”

“The Christian
priests murdered our culture, slaughtered everything about us that was unique. Tried
to, at least,” Palluq accused. Rusidan covered over her cross with both hands.

“That’s a little
harsh, don’t you think?” Laura tempered.

“Don’t be such a
wimp,” Palluq replied, a little too loudly. Other people turned to look. Meeting
Rusidan’s gaze for the first time—and nearly bowling her over with the
most intense eyes she’d ever seen—Palluq continued, “Our people didn’t
have written histories. Throat-singing is a part of us, a part of our history,
and we were robbed of it for more than a hundred years by men who had no right.
Any attempt to destroy our oral history is an attempt to obliterate us as a
people. And see how well that worked? People like me and Laura are rebuilding,
yeah, but it takes effort. If we weren’t willing to try, fifty years from now
it would be like we never existed.”

Laura latched
her hand around the arm of Rusidan’s jacket. Beaming, the moon-faced girl
rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t listen to Palluq; she’s an extremist. We do
this because we love it.” This Laura girl obviously played the softener, always
trying to make her partner more palatable.

A hint of a
smile broke across Palluq’s lips, so that Rusidan didn’t quite believe her when
she said, “Not me. I’m just in it for the politics.”

The tension
broke like a dandelion blossom and Rusidan’s lungs started taking in air again.
“So, do you really hate our city so much?” she asked.