Sex Still Spoken Here Part 2

"Um!" she calls after me. I look back. "Thank you?"

I give her a long glance from her ankles up to her legs to her hips and belly and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the disheveled red dress, hair tumbling from its neat design on her head. She's stunning, really. Delicious.

"Don't mention it," I say, and step off the train.

"The call to write is a call that's received in the body first. For hundreds of years poets and writers have described the creative process as a physical urgency, a sense that things will fly apart if they don't get the pencil to the page in time. Creativity is not tidy or polite-it's insistent. It calls us to feel, not dimly, not safely, but wildly, pa.s.sionately, in every cell and fiber. If we are to answer that call, we have to be able to feel every part of our lives."

- John Lee

from Writing From the Body

Charles Lyons Bio Charles Lyons is a filmmaker and writer who lives in San Francisco. This was the first story he wrote for the Erotic Reading Circle.

Mini-Interview How did you start writing about s.e.x? I've been interested in stories relating to s.e.x for about as long as I've been interested in s.e.x, but I started writing erotica in an attempt to short- circuit the perfectionist part of my brain. I guess I was thinking I might be less attached to the outcome, but I'm not sure it worked. Good stories about s.e.x are just as hard to write as good stories about anything else, maybe harder in some cases.

How is the Erotic Reading Circle part of your writing process? I find it helpful to have a group to read for, to push myself to get things done on a regular basis. And even when I have nothing ready to read I almost always leave more inspired than when I arrived-I'm consistently impressed not only by the quality of the writing there but the variety of subjects, styles, and approaches. A safe, receptive environment is important with any new writing, and that's never more true than when s.e.xuality is involved. Some of the most inspiring stories I've heard have been the most raw, naked, and personal.

What's the inside scoop on your story? I was careful not to explicitly name the location of my story, but astute readers can probably guess it pretty easily. It wasn't based on an actual experience, just a.s.sembled from a "what-if" and lots of small fragments, like a lot of stories probably are.

Heart-Shaped Box Charles Lyons It was the first thing he noticed after climbing out of the car. Before the dust or the heat or the Flintstone mobile trundling by had even registered, he saw her come around the back of the cargo truck, arms full of camping gear.

She wasn't wearing pants.

Not just a bathing suit or panties or even a thong, nothing. Her a.s.s beneath her t-shirt as bare as the day she was born, legs dusted with a pale sheen of talc, fluffy tuft of pink-yes, pink!-in the front.

He forced himself not to stare as she dumped her armload on the lift gate of the truck, clapped her hands a couple times, and came over to him, one hand extended in greeting.

"You must be Nate," she said. "Sarah's little brother. Sorry, not little. Younger."

"Yeah, that's right."

"So you're a virgin, huh?"

His sister had been referring to him this way for weeks, so he knew she just meant this was his first time here. But he was sure that he blushed.

She had almond eyes and a dark bob with magenta streaks in her bangs. As he fumbled through a reply, he managed to avoid checking to see if the carpet matched the accents in the drapes. But he was sure it did. She introduced herself as Treasure and he spent several minutes trying to guess which Eastern European country she was from before he realized it was an English word.

His sister and her s.h.a.ggy boyfriend came around the car to hug Treasure and started discussing the camp layout, pointing to the little red boundary flags that dotted the edge of the street, the pile of tarps marking the far corner of their territory, the distant, barren mountains beyond which the sun would rise and set.

It was only then that he noticed the pirate flag over the neighboring camp, the immaculate blue sky, the couplet of cupcakes cruising past camp in the clear afternoon light, folds of frosting hiding the heads of their drivers.

He had arrived. He would have stories to tell back in Ohio, oh yes. They thought he was a weirdo for coming out here, but they had no idea.

Nate followed Treasure around all afternoon, helping to unload the truck, offering to lift heavy things whenever possible, stealing glances when he was sure no one was looking. When she pulled off some work gloves he managed to get a good look at her left hand, which was ringless-but maybe she'd taken it off for safekeeping. She had Mediterranean skin, a mild tan everywhere he could see, no bikini lines except for a pale stripe on her neck, and her round, firm a.s.s cheeks taunted him all day long.

He unloaded and set up his tent, then repositioned it when she suggested a better location. He put his cooler in one corner and his duffel bag in the other, then pumped up his air mattress only to realize he should have put it inside the tent first.

G.o.dzilla walked past and waved h.e.l.lo before moving on down the street.

He and Sarah's boyfriend Justin unloaded a couch from the truck, then Nate helped raise the shade structure, tighten the ratchets, and string blacklights, meeting his other campmates-to-be along the way.

There was Wild Bill Yonder, a tall man in a cowboy hat who showed him how to tie a trucker's. .h.i.tch. DJ Trainwreck, who had brought a surprisingly large pile of expensive-looking audio equipment to a very dirty place. Everest, a bra.s.sy girl in a tutu who flirted with everyone and called him Sparky. Doctor Awesome, who came striding up out of the dust in a waistcoat and a pith helmet, crooked grin on his face, and knew where everything went and in what order. Princess Tumbleweed and Mayday and Dirty Vargas and Captain Trips and Lulu and Steve, and all of them very friendly and most of them somewhat odd and he had a hard time imagining them in normal clothes sitting behind a desk or talking on the phone or watching television.

Around them their neighbors' camps sprang up: a field of crucified Barbies, a jungle gym that became a big silver dome, a giant ketchup bottle at the intersection. At one point a topless woman with magnificent anti-gravity b.r.e.a.s.t.s walked by and smiled at him and he remembered to wave just in time.

And everywhere always the distinctive dry powdery smell of alkali flats.

Late in the afternoon he went back to his tent to get some more sunscreen and came around the corner of the truck to see Treasure standing close to Doctor Awesome, one leg rising to entwine with his as she curled up into him to kiss him, his hand on the back of her neck, and Nate felt a sick twist of envy shoot through his gut.

The air was hard and hot, his mouth was dry, and even the steamboat churning up the 4:30 spoke no longer felt magical.

"I was shirt-c.u.n.ting today," she said.

Doctor Awesome hung a headlamp on a hook by the side door of their van. "I noticed. What was that about?"

"I don't know, I guess I wanted to be naked but I didn't want to burn my shoulders."

"Or put sunscreen on."

"Ahhh, that takes too long." Treasure walked on her knees across the bed that filled the back of the van. "Did you see Nate? Sarah's little brother? His eyes were like saucers when he saw me. I thought they were going to fall out of his head."

Doc chuckled. "I bet he doesn't see much shirt-c.u.n.ting in Ohio." "I don't know if he's ever seen p.u.s.s.y before. He's such a sweet innocent kid." She sighed, then tugged to adjust one of the wine-colored curtains that surrounded the bed on three sides.

The Doctor glanced over from where he was organizing the contents of his utility belt. "You seem nervous. Is something on your mind?"

"No. Maybe ..." she added in a guilty little-girl voice, eyes averted. He watched her, recognizing the beginning of the Game.

"Are you being a naughty girl again?"

"No," she said, this time playing her part to the hilt.

He gripped her by the back of the neck and stretched her length along the bed, face down. She was wearing fur-trimmed shorts now, but he yanked them down, revealing the smooth globes of her a.s.s. She gasped and he gave one cheek a firm smack with his hand.

"Now I know you are, you little tramp. What are you thinking about?" he asked as he squeezed and stroked the injured cheek.

"I was just thinking ... about him being here for his first time, and ..."

"Yes?"

"Out exploring the playa, all innocent and inexperienced, and what it would be like if some woman ..."

His hand stopped circling, hovered. "What woman?"

"Some woman who was not so innocent or inexperienced were to seduce him, and take him back to her tent and have her way with him, and give him something to really remember ..."

He smiled, though she couldn't see his face. "Would you like to be that woman?"

She was quiet for a moment. She could feel his c.o.c.k pressing against her upper thigh.

"Maybe," she said in a very small voice.

He slapped her a.s.s hard and she jumped under him. "Yes, sir," she said with a gasp.

"Yes, sir, what?" Stroking again.

"Yes, sir, I'd like to be that woman," she admitted, and turned to look up him through her lashes.

"And do what?"

His tone was steady, probing. She watched his face as she went on. "If I ran into him on an art car, or out dancing, I'd come up to him and start flirting with him, maybe stroke his arm or his shoulder, tease him a little, dance really close to him ..."

"He'd be embarra.s.sed and wouldn't know how to react."

She smirked. "I'd whisper in his ear and ask him if he wanted me to leave him alone."

"And if he said no?"

"Then I'd sit on his lap, or back into him while we were dancing, rub my a.s.s against him, feel him getting hard ..."

"You'd torture that poor kid until he exploded," Doc said, his fingers fluttering on the insides of her thighs.

"Oh, you know I would," she grinned, squirming under him, demonstrating how she would grind her a.s.s into her quarry.

He held her gaze for a moment, then reached between her legs, found her c.u.n.t slick and wet, dipped his fingers in and then brought them up and pushed them into her open mouth. She sucked on them, still watching his face.

"Seems like you want it pretty bad," he said.

She nodded. This was the point in the Game at which he began to describe the things she would like to do, and she would agree to each interrogatory and add her own embellishments. But tonight the Game took a different course, a new course.

"I think you should do it."

She inhaled sharply and her stomach quivered. They had done things with others before, had talked about different possibilities, but always together. This time she would be flying solo.

"I don't know, now I'm nervous." "Nervous or scared?"

"Nervous."

"That's good, it means you're expanding your comfort zone. Do you remember when I said I was going to take you to a party blindfolded and make you do things? You were really nervous then, too, but you enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"Yes. You were very naughty and you still won't tell me who anyone was."

He laughed. "I want you to be brave again." His hand kneaded her back from her hip to just below the shoulder blade. "But you know if I let the tiger out of the cage, there will be a price." She nodded again.

He pushed her face down into the bed and bent close to her ear. "You have three days to do it. But you pay the price either way."

Nate's brain was scattered in small, irregular pieces over an area at least two miles in diameter.

Each morning the sun drove him from his tent, and he rode his bike out into a lunar landscape filled with fragments of dreams he'd never had. He ate pancakes while listening to cla.s.sic rock anthems, bounced on trampolines, dodged dust devils, danced like John Travolta. Once someone came out from their camp to feed him a grilled cheese sandwich; another time he was asked to joust against a man-sized inflated monkey. All day he wandered aimlessly, like a tuft of marabou some thoughtless raver had set loose on the wind. Each evening he would return under a dusky pastel sky, having left more of himself behind.

After sunset he was back out on the playa, now an astronomical fairyland, swimming through a vast darkness coronated with lights and flames and mysteries. Each night he stayed out until the fire faded from his blood and the horizon was just an endless line of unreachable glowing beads in the dark, unknown pleasures taunting him, and then crawled home, exhausted, to the cold, dusty refuge of his tent.

There were other women. Women with larger b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Tiny pixie girls with smudged faces and b.u.t.terfly wings. Six-foot G.o.ddesses who wore their s.e.xuality like a strap-on battering ram. Filthy hippie girls with bright smiles behind their matted hair. Fresh scrubbed virgin girls in khaki shorts, eyes like hungry pools.

But he realized that what attracted him to each of these women, endlessly different as they were, was the same thing: each of them reminded him of Treasure in some way. They had her haircut, her feistiness, her bold s.e.xuality, her freely-displayed figure, her inventive costume sense. They were unstoppable-they could do anything they wanted, the playa wasn't dry to them, it was the world's wettest oyster and it was all theirs.

He wanted to talk to these dazzling, exotic creatures, but he felt as inadequate as he was giftless. His sporadic conversations were friendly but stilted and abrupt. What could he say to them that could possibly be of interest? His stories were all about f.u.c.king off in Ohio, killing time between cla.s.ses, dreading the day he had to look for a job. He had no conception of a world that could contain wonders like this.

But it did.

He didn't see Treasure again until the evening of the third day. She waited for him by his tent, in a fishnet bodystocking that somehow accentuated every curve of her body into hyper-real relief, as if she were the only truly three-dimensional thing in sight.

"Is your tent comfortable?" "Yeah."

"Show me."

Inside, she zipped the flap and put one palm on his rapidly- beating heart. He was afraid to ask, but he had to know.

"What about ... isn't Doctor Awesome your boyfriend, or something?"

"Yes, and thanks for asking. We have an ... open-minded relationship. He knows about this, and he's okay with it."

This was not the answer Nate was expecting, but she seemed perfectly calm as she made eye contact.

"This is a one-time thing. You can't turn into a puppy dog and follow me around the rest of the week, because I'm not going to come home with you, no matter what. Understand?"

He nodded. This stung, but he knew what was being offered was already way beyond what he'd allowed himself to hope for.

"You mean ... what happens on the playa stays on the playa?" "Not exactly. I tell him everything, remember." She repeated the word "everything" and he tried not to imagine how detailed she got. "He doesn't mind? He doesn't get jealous?" This did not compute. "He knows he's the most important person in my life, just like I know he feels the same way about me. If you really love and trust someone, wouldn't you want them to enjoy all the possibilities life has to offer? Why would you want to deprive them of an adventure, or something that feels good?"

Put this way it sounded eminently reasonable, but his brain still objected. He felt like he was talking to one of his professors back at school. One of the good ones.

"You don't mind if he ... if he's with other girls?" Even though he wasn't talking about himself, he felt a surge of anxiety-and under it, something like excitement.

She grinned. "I like watching him f.u.c.k other women. I like helping him. I like f.u.c.king women, too, you know."