Sex and Death in the American Novel (34 page)

“Take a breath,” he said low in my ear. “I won't let you go, okay?” I nodded and he continued, I could feel his hands on me again.

Jasper's hands rested on my thighs and he was still.

I reached back for Alejandro, and felt his lips against the back of my fingers; his breath was so close, planting me in his reality. I feared the absence of his voice, because that would mean my own uncertainty and fears could take over, but he never let me go, just like he said.

“I want you to nod when I ask you questions okay?”

I forced my head up and down. I felt the tiny hairs on the tops of his thighs; I felt the firm muscle against my buttocks.

“There,” he said. “Can you feel that?”

I nodded vigorously. He slid two fingers into my mouth. I squeezed Jasper to remind him I was aware of him and he tightened his grip on my thighs, digging in, and he gave a strong upward thrust.

Alejandro's mouth was on the spot between my shoulder blades, smoothing my hair over my back, slipping it over my shoulder so that it hung to the floor like a curtain beside Jasper's intent face.

“Let your mind go free, breathe…there, that's it.” I focused on the sweet baritone of his voice. It shifted, became more laid back, and a happy lightness came into it. “Aquí estamos…bien. Asi te gusta, a si eso es que pensaba.”

The rhythm was a great distraction, and I relaxed, tipping my head back, to feel the words as much as to hear them. It didn't matter what he did, I only wanted more, and then I felt the tip of him finally pushing inside.

“Es como algo…tanto.” His voice changed and he was back to the Alejandro I was used to. “You're so tight.” His voice moved back and forth. It seemed that I was a different person when he was speaking words I didn't understand, but then his voice was thick with need and it became gruff. The effect gave me chills and I needed to please him, knowing I would be happy if I could be all that he wanted and everything he needed.

The pain was like it had been with Eric. This time, however, far from stopping in my throat, it took over everything, making me wonder if I wouldn't actually split open, then he was out, and blessed relief. Panic followed. Only a second passed then the pushing was back along with the words.

“Breathe,” he said with one hand around my throat, trailing to my left breast, where he pinched one nipple and moved his hands to my backside. Once again I was open, I bit down on Jasper's fingers in anticipation of what was to come.

“Eres hermosa…sabes,” he said and I smelled tangy sweat that reminded me of cloved oranges left out too long after Christmas.

“Yes, like that. You're perfect, you know that don't you?”

I reached one hand behind me, searching for a part of him, and as I did this, I leaned back more and he filled me completely. I got still, adjusting to this new state of being.

Jasper gasped, “I can feel it,” and a grand look of awe crossed his face.

My insides couldn't hold this much pain and pleasure at once. My skin was alive, and every time one of them moved inside, I ached for more and for relief. After the initial moment, I allowed both of them to work into me; I relaxed enough to arch my back, moving Alejandro in deeper, loving the way he was reduced to monosyllables, his control at last slipping now that I didn't need his assurances.

Even when we weren't moving at all, my entire being blazed with the power of their mingling energies. I rested my brow on Jasper's cheek, his face now wet and strained.

“Wait. Wait…not yet. I want this to last forever,” I said in his ear. Jasper nodded and grew still. He raised his hand to my face, wiping the hair away, and laughed. He let his hand rest on my head.

I became aware of my surroundings and the music on the radio. My knees itched from rubbing against the comforter. The room was lit with two small lamps at either side of the sofa. Empty crystal tumblers reflected the light like prisms, one on each of the tables. Soft jazz music filled the room like pink champagne bubbles. Jasper's trusting emerald eyes gazed up at me. I saw that day we listened to the world beneath the bridge and laid together under the violet sky at dusk, watching it turn pink at the horizon. He held his arms out, spun around like a boy who just learned how to fly. He could have gone out over the ridge, died happy; instead he came back to me. A song I adored played on the radio. It was the one about diamonds and art and it added to the sense of ease and hope.

He took my head in both hands. “I was afraid…” He kissed me. Behind me Alejandro moved, Jasper flexed and it felt like something twisted inside. Images of a safe room colored with rich gold drapery and burgundy furnishings gave way to visions of gritty Londoners playing poker in a dirty back alley.

Everything tilted, and instead of focusing on their soft groans and sighs, all I could feel was a tearing pain and a new fear: that I had reached too high, miscalculated my place in the scheme of things. Flashing back to the
club, the beat of the music, thumping through my core. Hands on me, fingers and lips in places my mother wouldn't approve of. What must I have looked like to someone watching me?

As if I were scrambling up a cliff that crumbled beneath my bloody fingers, I couldn't get back to the good place. I tried to hold the image in my mind of the woman in the movie, the lust in her eyes, the patience of the men on either side of her, but what invaded was an image of a whore laid across a saloon table. One man at her face, stroking himself, turning her head with a rough hand, pushing himself between her closed lips, the other man working between her legs, his lips twisted into a grimace.

All at once the only thing I could hear was Courtney Love screaming from the dark place in my mind where the ugly truths went to hide. Violet. Violence.

Jasper froze when he felt me change. My senses were alive and my body was rigid and my skin was vibrating and my eyes saw everything.

“Vivianna? What?” The alarm in Alejandro's voice stood in contrast to the rich confidence minutes before.

I took a breath and tried to recall the way he had sounded before. What was thrilling was knowing that they were doing this for me. Agreement. Nothing changed, except what went on between my ears. I felt a flash of anger that this was happening; I thought that with Jasper I would be able to stay focused. As always, when my thoughts went haywire, I thought of lonely mountains and saw the shiny wooden handle of the shotgun. Tristan's face in front of me shaking his head, saying it over and over, ‘Used, used, used.’ My head whirled, agony, ripping me in half, I thought I might be sick.

I shook my head. “I've got this shit in my head…”

Alejandro put his lips to my ear so I could feel his breath before I heard his voice. “Don't think. Listen.” Cloves and licorice. He leaned close, his breath hot on my neck. “You want this.” That confident tone again, only this time he held his head close to mine, as if he could absorb all the ugliness and suck it out of me, his heart beating against my back, the rhythm of his words pulled me to him. “It's okay. Come back.” His teeth grazed the spot near my ear, and the sensation went right through me.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, Jasper lowered his eyes and I knew he was ashamed. He was ashamed that he had failed; he was ashamed of his weakness. I wanted to tell him we were okay. It was not his job to save me from myself, but I couldn't pull away from the connection with Alejandro, the connection that was both spiritual and physical and mental and wonderful and peaceful and exciting. Jasper's eyes moved from my face to Alejandro's and I felt him soften inside.

Alejandro spoke to Jasper in a more commanding voice than he had been using on me, “Wait. Watch…” He cupped his hand over my mound and stroked me with the lightest touch, as if he were coaxing a kitten from a hiding spot, as if my clit were a puff of whipped cream on the pad of his finger. Time slowed and I melted into him. Alejandro took Jasper's hand and brought it to the silky button. “Feel, this.”

Jasper closed his eyes and in a husky voice said, “It's huge…”

Alejandro whispered in my ear, “Don't do anything, he is still here, no te muevas.” He pressed his lips to my throat and after a moment began moving by centimeters again.

They both touched the swollen folds. I was about to go numb from the pleasure, though under that was a sense of building momentum, from that tiny point to my entire body. I nodded and let out what sounded like a whine, scooting back, and getting a rush of excitement when they both gasped.

Jasper hardened, firmly encased once more. His hand moved to stroke Alejandro's forearm and grip his wrist.

I allowed them to work their magic—Jasper with long upward motions, Alejandro with slow pulling and pushing with his hands and cock. Rocking between them was the best part. It was a meditation, and then I hit it…bliss. A small part of me, the one afraid to speak only moments before, knew life could be like this if I was just brave enough to make it happen.

Alejandro leaned in, and though I couldn't see what he did, Jasper's eyes got big, his lips tightened inward, and he closed his eyes. Their most intimate parts were all but touching inside me, making us all different. Alejandro and me, Jasper and me, creating the wonderful truth that was the three of us.

With his eyes still closed, Jasper reached up and pulled my face to his. “Your face is so beautiful…your eyes…you're really here…” He pulled me to kiss him, then began moving his thumb again and the sensation grew to an intensity I had never thought possible. I let my head fall back and lost myself in the rise to oblivion and let out a burst of laughter when I felt the strong muscular walls that held him so tight, spasm in response.

Jasper held my hips and I ground down to make the surges stronger. He thrust only once to allow me to follow the storm to the end. He raised his head, his stomach muscles flexed and he blew out a burst of air and tried to stifle a moan. I stole more pleasure from each pulse and held on through every wave until he lay back and ran his hand over his face, laughing between smiles.

We were still laughing when Alejandro steadied himself with one hand on my shoulder with the other on my hip, went deep and pulled out and slipped back inside. The sounds he made were intoxicating. As the last of
the heavenly feelings tingled through me, I longed to see his face. Instead I watched Jasper, whose eyes had moved from mine to watch Alejandro. As he watched him push toward his own goal, his nostrils opened, a curve came to his lips. I was the only person in the world who would ever get to see this expression on Jasper's face; he'd let a wall down in this moment, with me, with us, and I was so grateful to see the change.

After no more than four strokes that left me feeling like I'd never be able to take another, Alejandro rested his head on my back with his lips pressed to my skin before he became still. Though my knees began to burn and my thighs to ache, I had to hold us together for as long as possible.

Jasper slipped first, and Alejandro came to rest beside him. I lay between them, and Alejandro threw the comforter on his side over us, and Jasper pulled his side in so that it almost completely covered us but for a sliver where the ends didn't quite meet. I snuggled in closer to them, those two beautiful, sweaty piles of flesh—spent, satisfied—and reveled in the deepest feeling of contentment I'd ever known. My head rested on Jasper's chest, like it were just us again, but I worked my legs in with Alejandro's and he moved closer, pressing his face close to the back of my neck. He passed his fingers through my hair to make a place for his mouth and nose, and then I felt the light presence of his breath on my skin. With my free hand I reached back and took one of his.

Jasper fell asleep first; Alejandro reached up every so often to smooth a strand of my hair away from his face. He whispered into my ear, “Can you tell me what happened?”

I held his hand close to my chest. “Memories. Voices…”

“Tell me.”

“I should be able to right? I am a smut writer—”

He interrupted with a hard edge to his voice, “You have moved beyond that. You push boundaries, challenge people.”

My face burned at the sincerity in his voice, and I had no response. After a moment I began where I left off. “I was afraid it was too much to expect this to work. An awful voice kept on telling me that I was greedy, stupid, that the two of you wanted to use me to get together on your own.”

A soft laugh from him and he brushed the top of my arm with his lips. “Dirty little freak.”

“My view of what I was doing changed. I wasn't in a free body, but taken advantage of. I was afraid that I was wrong about the two of you, about my whole life. Everything looked hopeless. I remembered the end of
The Stoned Apocalypse
. He said, ‘I am now a pornographer.’ He knew people would never understand him either.”

“A pornographer is not what I see. When I look at you, I see a place I could live forever. It's real, it's honest. I am happy there. I never thought I
would meet a girl who was like me. I've known guys who did it with both women and men, but they didn't advertise that to either sex.”

“What about the girls you date? A few of them must be open-minded.”

“No, nobody who would understand something like this. Nobody who really gets it, who wants it. I don't want to be with someone who just does something to make me happy. Something like this, I need to know they really get it.”

I squeezed his hand. “Until I heard your voice…I was ashamed and I was afraid and I was lost.”

Chapter 14

When I woke up, Jasper was already awake. He was watching me and I couldn't read his expression. I moved my hand back and felt only empty space.

“Just left.”

“How is he getting home?”

“Cab.”

I nodded, then we lay back down. He was looking at me, and I was trying to figure out if I should go back to sleep or if he wanted to talk. My backside felt different, a pleasant ache that betrayed what we'd done, and I watched Jasper for signs of regret.

“Thank you,” I finally said.

He met my eyes, and his lips twitched.

“You said I looked beautiful.”

“You did. Different. You were glowing, like you must have looked like as a child, it was all so…”