The Mountains Trilogy (Boxed Set) Read online

  A few moments later, starting to buzz from the second drink she’d gulped down, Sarah found herself following the foursome down the hallway to the 70’s themed room. She stepped onto the plush lime green shag carpeting and took a seat on the fuchsia pink loveseat covered in furry green, pink, orange and yellow throw pillows. There was a huge orange light fixture dangling from the middle of the room with its amber glass-covered fixtures dimmed. The corner was occupied by an oval shaped bed flanked by two nightstands with lava lamps, one oozing with teal lava, the other purple. The doorway was obscured with a green and orange beaded curtain. A corner cabinet held wipes, tissues, condoms and towels.

  They’d invited Sarah to participate, but she declined, preferring to observe at least to start. Soon she became a fixture in the room, part of the decor; the foursome had nearly forgotten she was there. Rachel eased the redhead onto the oval-shaped bed and unhooked the black leather bustier, exposing her glorious milky white breasts which nearly glowed under the black lights over the bed. She had the most delicate looking rosebud-hued nipples perched on top like cherries on a sundae. The men sat on the bed on either side of her, patiently watching and waiting to see what Rachel would do with this unwrapped gift stretched out before her. First she kissed one nipple and then the other, eliciting a breathy moan from the redhead’s lips. Rachel planted a soft kiss on top of the moan, leaving Sarah to wonder if the redhead’s lips were as sweet as they looked.

  Rachel straddled the half-naked woman, lifting her chin to her mouth to taste her, one hand tangled in her auburn waves. Sarah noticed how their hips locked together as Rachel’s tongue continued to explore the redhead’s mouth and neck. More moans. The redhead stroked Rachel’s bottom, pushing her harder against her pelvis, grinding up against her. The men looked eager, salivating at the scene unfolding between them.

  Finally the redhead’s partner, a man in his mid-40’s with a tall, wiry build and a hint of salt and pepper beginning to emerge in his goatee, stood and slid his partner’s skirt down around her ankles and then over her high-heeled boots, letting it fall onto the floor. Rachel took the hint, slipping her black lace skirt off and pulling the red cami over her head. Both women were now completely nude save for their footwear. Rachel knelt on the shag-carpeted floor, her hands stroking down the redhead’s hips and thighs, parting them gently. Her mouth watering, she was dying to taste the sweet pink flesh now exposed between her legs.

  Sarah noticed that a small crowd had gathered behind the green and orange beads. The curtain being drawn, they were not allowed to enter, but Sarah could sense their anticipation and arousal. It was palpable. The whole scene: the shag carpeting, the amber and black lights, the lava shape shifting in its plastic cylinders, the rustling of the beads at the doorway...Sarah absorbed all of the dizzying sights and sounds as Rachel buried her face in the redhead’s sex, spreading her lips with one hand, the other reaching up to the creamy mounds with their cherry pink nipples.

  Sarah realized Mark had focused his gaze on her and specifically her hand, which had absentmindedly slipped between her legs. Suddenly she became aware of her own arousal, her damp panties, her need to be touched. Mark’s eyes were dark and lustful. He’d taken off his shirt, revealing his sculpted abs and sprawling tattoos. Sarah had never really studied them before but now she recognized a tribal design and something with a skull and flames...and was that a Chinese symbol?

  She had been with Mark before...it would be so easy to offer herself to him, to have her craving satisfied, but she resisted, not even bothering to analyze why. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and turned her attention back to the scene before her, hoping he’d take the rejection politely. He turned away from her and bent down to taste the redhead’s breast.

  The other man had taken off his clothes and stood behind Rachel, stroking his erect cock and watching his partner’s hips writhing under Rachel’s mouth as her moaning intensified. The redhead continuously murmured, “Oh, fuck...ohhhhhh....fuuuuuuck....,” drawing out the vowels as she grew closer and closer to climax. Sarah watched him unwrap a condom and roll it on. He began to rub himself in the cleavage of Rachel’s ass, then teased the head against the opening to her sex, slowing working his way inside her, gripping her hips as he buried his cock to the hilt, making Rachel gasp in delight. Mark had followed suit, removing his pants and kneeling beside the redhead’s mouth, eventually quieting her moans by stuffing his throbbing member down her throat, his hands laced through her hair, guiding her head up and down his shaft.

  Sarah closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply. She realized she had been holding her breath this whole time. She couldn’t help but think again of James and how he would react to this scene. Would he watch? Would he be turned on? Would he want to fuck me while they watched? All of her questions involved him and none of them had answers. She couldn’t turn the James Channel off. It had infiltrated her mind.

  Late that night she crawled into bed, feeling the dull ache the scene in the 70’s room had elicited. She reached between her thighs, sliding a finger up her lips, marveling at how wet she still was. She lightly touched her clit and felt the tingle reverberate throughout her body, her need for release renewed. She took her glass dildo from the drawer beside the bed, plunging its cold hardness into her warm, readily yielding wetness.

  When she came, in her mind it was around him instead of the glass toy.

  ***

  She jolted awake after one of those dreams where it felt like she’d been awake all night instead of asleep. She yawned and stretched, grabbing her phone from the nightstand to check her texts and emails.

  One text from James: How was last night?

  Sarah felt a bit victorious as she swung her legs over the bed and onto the floor. She carried her phone downstairs, glancing at the clock on the mantle from the staircase. 9:04. The kids wouldn’t be back from their friends’ respective houses till late afternoon. She filled the coffee pot with water and considered how to reply to the text. She checked again to see what time he’d sent it. Five in the morning? Holy cow! Why so early? She turned on the coffeemaker and opened the French doors to step out into the cool fall morning.

  She studied two birds flitting back and forth in the maple trees at the edge of the property. The metaphor of their little dance was not lost on her. She stretched again, another yoga pose, filling her lungs with the crisp air. She had a few flashbacks from the club the night before and quickly decided to be purposely vague with James about her evening. She didn’t want to scare him. Would he cut and run if he found out what a freak she was?

  Am I a freak? It was a question she struggled with. She wasn’t a big fan of labeling herself, even though her job was dependent on labeling others. She realized that most didn’t understand the inherent relativism in sexuality. Most people think of labels in black or white. You are or you aren’t. There was a spectrum of bisexuality, of kinkiness, of inhibitions. Compared to Rachel, she was rather inhibited, but compared to the average prude, not so much. Is James the average prude?

  She grabbed her phone and impulsively punched in a reply: I had fun. :)

  Come have coffee with me this morning and tell me all about it, came his reply.

  ***

  Two hours later she was sitting across from James at Java the Hut. He looked relaxed. Sarah wished she could say the same, but she felt a certain amount of tension nagging at her. She remained displeased with the delay in his response to her text after their night together, and she was debating whether or not she should mention it. She decided to better let it go, for now. Choose your battles, she reminded herself. Parenting advice sometimes works for dating too.

  “So where did you go last night?” he questioned, taking a sip of his coffee.

  Sarah considered her options and responded vaguely, as planned, “Out with my best friend Rachel and her boyfriend Mark.”

  “Someplace local?” His blue eyes were picking up the light from a nearby window and nearly glowing.

 
“A club in DC. What did you do?” She was starting to feel as though he was interrogating her and was compelled to redirect.

  “I shot pool with a couple of buddies, then turned in early. It was a busy week,” he explained, as if otherwise he would have been engaged in any number of debaucherous activities.

  Busy week, huh? Is that why you didn’t text me back? she wanted to ask, but refrained. She was not the type of person to beat around the bush. Why is this conversation so strained? Ask for what you want, she heard Rachel’s voice in her head. Cut to the chase. Sarah swallowed the coffee in her mouth and took a deep breath. “Um, what are we doing here?” the words floated out into the still air like bubbles waiting to pop.

  James shot her his all American smile, as if he was relieved she was willing to confront the elephant in the room. “I wanted to ask you the same thing,” he admitted. “I’m not good at this stuff.”

  I am supposed to be good at this stuff, Sarah thought, remembering all the different relationships and understandings she’d nurtured in the past: different levels, different attachments, all along a spectrum from casual sex to committed monogamy. She studied him, his straight nose, his clean-shaven chin, his full, slightly upturned lips, trying to decide how to articulate it in a way that wouldn’t turn him off. “I enjoyed our night together,” she finally said. “Immensely.”

  He nodded and one eyebrow raised as if to beckon her to continue.

  “I would like to explore our dynamic some more,” she revealed, very deliberately adding, “with no expectations for anything else.” She let that sink in and then qualified it: “I mean...for now....”

  He looked perplexed for a moment, but then it dawned on him what her words meant. “You just want to fuck me?” he asked so softly that the F word was barely audible.

  Sarah laughed, “I don’t want to complicate your life, James. I know we’re both busy. I enjoy your company, but I get the feeling you don’t want any...pressures.” She was gauging his reaction to her words before she let the next sentence fly, “I believe it’s called...’friends with benefits?’”

  If he was shocked, he managed to hide it well. “Friends with benefits,” he repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

  ***

  Chapter Five

  Benefits

  Sarah didn’t hear another word from James until Thursday afternoon. What are you doing this weekend? his text inquired. Sarah found herself shaking her head, but she was at least used to his propensity to compartmentalize her by now. Clearly he didn’t fully grasp the “friends” part of the friends with benefits arrangement.

  Checking in from time to time, asking how my day was, finding out if I’m okay. Not making me feel like a human sex doll. Is that asking too much? At the present, however, Sarah was feeling so frisky and wanton that she was willing to sacrifice formalities to be on the receiving end of some “benefits.” She made a mental note to him to remind him how he needed to keep up his end of the arrangement.

  Hmmm, what am I doing this weekend? she pondered the answer to his query. She was feeling bold in her reply: You?

  His reply was immediate: *evil grin*

  Friday was a long day of lectures and committee meetings. Sarah firmly believed that committee chairs who scheduled Friday afternoon meetings should have their toenails violently ripped off and their eyes stabbed with needles, or something equally and gratuitously tortuous. She was having a hard time sitting still when she knew there was a bottle of wine chilling in her refrigerator and a black satin chemise eagerly waiting to slide over her smooth skin. Unfortunately, there was the start of a headache threatening to toy with her, so she downed a cup of coffee hoping the caffeine would quell the rumblings of pain. She just needed to get home, get the kids fed and off to her mom’s and then get ready for him. Come on Auto Pilot, help me get through this. I’m in survival mode.

  As if she needed any more distractions, images of James from their first night together persistently popped into her mind: his smoldering, half-closed eyes; the flickering flame of the candle highlighting the contours of his chest muscles; his hands, thick and tan, grazing her curves. She remembered how he looked the next morning when they awoke, limbs still entangled. When he finally stumbled out of bed, he was bleary-eyed as he pulled his boxers over his bulging calf muscles and up his taut thighs.

  She remembered how they stood pressed against each other at the door, their bodies resistant to the layers of fabric separating their skin. She’d rested her head on his shoulder as he embraced her, kissing her softly as he turned the door handle, whispering goodbye. Last week at this time, she thought that goodbye was final. She’d given up hope of ever seeing him again, but now she was expecting him to arrive at her house in just a few hours. She felt like she was stepping off a roller coaster: disoriented, but thrilled.

  Sarah snapped out of her daydream just in time for a committee vote. She wasn’t sure she even knew what the vote was for, but she decided to diplomatically join the majority. Gotta love academia; can’t even go to the bathroom without putting it to a vote. She glanced at her watch: 3:45. Fifteen minutes till adjournment, also known as freedom; she was unapologetically counting down. When the time arrived, she avoided idle chit chat with her colleagues and hightailed it across campus. She hustled to the parking lot, hopped in her Toyota and braced herself for navigating the always-snarled Friday afternoon traffic in the metro area.

  Finally, three hours later she was showered, freshly shaven and alone in her quiet, candlelit house. In all the times she’d had company of the male variety, she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt this degree of anticipation, evidenced by her thighs quivering and her heart thundering in her ribcage. She looked in the mirror, running a hand through her long dark tresses and adjusting her breasts in her chemise to maximize cleavage. She loved the way her pale skin contrasted with the silky black fabric. She felt both covered and exposed in all the right places. She slid on a pair of three inch peep toe high heels in a sultry red to complete her look. All dressed up and only going to bed, she mused, wondering if men appreciated these sorts of efforts. More specifically: would James appreciate this effort?

  Moments later she saw his silhouette appear against the sheer curtain that obscured the door to the back porch. She calmly walked to the door, unlocked it, turned the knob and was greeted by a flash of his incorrigible boyish grin. But the grin immediately dissolved as soon as he soaked up the image of Sarah in her black satin gown. He looked genuinely surprised; perhaps stunned was a better word. “You look...” he struggled to find the right words, “amazing...” was what he settled on. His voice was barely a whisper as he drew her into his arms.

  She lifted her chin and caught a glimpse of his blue gaze before her eyes closed and her lips brushed against his, gently parting for his tongue to have his first taste of her. She heard him deeply inhale her scent. I think my question of him appreciating my efforts has been answered, she thought victoriously. There were other thoughts trying to bubble up as well but she pushed them down, choosing instead to think about why they were still standing in what was essentially the laundry room.

  She stumbled backwards a bit, forgetting for a moment that she was wearing heels. She burst out laughing at her own clumsiness, which in turn made James laugh, and then they were standing there, mutual laughter ringing through her empty house. Wow, that’s either one hell of a way to diffuse the intensity or it just fucking killed the mood, Sarah observed. She hoped for the former as she led him down the hallway and up the stairs to her bedroom, which had been prepared with just the right amount of candlelight, scent, and soft music.

  James had regained his composure during their trek upstairs. Glancing down at Sarah again, his attention was diverted to the lace on the bodice of her gown, or more specifically to how her nipples jutted out against the edges of the fabric. He could see their dark pink flesh peeking through the space between the black lace flowers. He bent and ran the tip of his tongue lightly over one nipple and then looked up
at her expectantly.

  Sarah had spent quite a bit of time in the past week trying to decide what kind of lover James was. Is he experienced? Is he dominant? Is he skilled? All of those attributes had been concealed, perhaps overridden by the sheer power of the connection she felt with him. It was as if their bodies were learning each other during their first encounter, and now was the time for their minds to follow. During their first night, she felt they had connected on a completely subconscious, visceral level, but now consciousness had seeped in and Sarah wanted to know where his mind could take her.

  He was only twenty-nine. She had no idea of his previous lovers, either quality or quantity. She didn’t even know if he’d been married before or ever had a serious girlfriend. He had asked very little about her experience and not wanting to intimidate him, she’d elected not to volunteer any information about her past or present.

  Now her mind was reeling; she was barely concentrating on his tongue flicking her other nipple. The nipple was responding perfectly, but Sarah was left thinking what if last time was just a fluke? She suddenly felt a twinge of nervousness accompanied by a slight somersault in her stomach.

  There it is again, that expectant look. Is he expecting direction? Sarah taught for a living. She didn’t want to teach in the bedroom. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been into younger men. I want someone who can take control. And, let’s face it, I’m strong-willed; not every man has that capacity. She met his eyes with smoldering intensity and delivered one, simple direction: “I want you to take me.”