I know, I know - you never thought this day would come! But it’s true, here it is: the LAST Sugarbutch Star Contest story, from the lovely talented writer Shannon.

I’m still kicking myself for having it take so long, but I ultimately loved this contest, and I’ll be doing another one when this one is completely over (there’s still the voting, the prizes, the announcement of the winner, and, hopefully, a public reading of the winning story!). I learned a lot about the contest, mostly that I bit off much more than I could chew and I need to keep it simpler than I did. I made a lot of extra work for myself taking on the “honorable mention” category (in which you’ll also be able to vote, don’t worry).

Your mission, readers, now, should you choose to accept it, is to review the Sugarbutch Star Contest entries, for tomorrow - Friday, April 11, 2008, a full six+ months after the contest started, and to decide which stories are your very favorites - for you will be the ones who determine the winner.

One more thing: I’m still blogging for RAINN  in April - if you like this work, consider a donation to RAINN & let ‘em know I sent you - add  “GBBMC2008: Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith” in the information box.

And now, without further introduction:

She wants me.

Or, more accurately, I want her, and she’s just starting to notice and respond. To begin to play in her mind with the idea of kissing me. She licks her lips without noticing, watching mine. Tucks her hair behind her ear. Gently blows her bangs out of her eyes.

I’m pinned behind the lens of her camera, which both magnifies me and puts a barrier between us.

But now she keeps letting the camera fall, looking at me bare.

“Shannon,” I whisper. She’s painting the lines of my masculinity with her photographer’s eye. She has her elbow on her hip, camera cocked to the side. She snaps a few at this odd angle as her eye wanders.

The romantic love poem I was reciting by heart – to impress her, and to capture on film – is over. “Shannon.” I say again, moving a step closer to her, out from the grey backdrop, the hooded lights. “Put the camera down.”

Her eyes snap to attention, locked on my face. She moves slow and sets the camera on the nearby chair.

I curl her into my arms in one fluid motion, pull her to me, her back perfectly nestled into my elbow. She breathes in sharply, the weight of her body leaning into me. She brings her hand to my chest, my collarbone, and lowers her eyes, looking at my mouth, my jaw, the stubble on my chin.

She’s waiting. I trail my hand up her back, under her hair, and rest it on her neck. I place my other hand on her hip and push her away from me, bring her to me with the other, hovering her lips next to mine. She breathes in, her lips part, eyes close. I can smell her skin, her hair, her mouth, and I want to taste her.

I watch her struggle to release and resist the urge to lunge, press herself against me. She’s moving toward me with tiny non-movements - her wrist, her thigh - and each time I am amused, aroused.

I am waiting for something.

Shannon doesn’t sense that, and then she does, and her eyes open. She sees me watching her and I grin a little wider. I feel my cheeks pulled and those dimples appear. She makes that little gasp noise in her throat and lets her body go, her head drops, hips press into my hand and she lets me take the weight of her, and that’s it, that’s what it was, so I catch her as she gives in and I lunge.

We kiss. I don’t start slow, but rather cover the full circle of her mouth with mine and pull her to me. She gives in, again. And oh, it is so beautiful.

Our kisses build and become longer, more insistent, more full of gasps. I have the pulse of her throat between my teeth, she pushes my suit coat from my shoulders, whispering, “god oh god oh god,” in this low prayer-like murmur.

“Ohh you’re going to fuck me aren’t you?” she says, one leg slung up around my hip, skirt riding up. “Please tell me you’re going to, please …”

“Yeah.” I say and take her lips back into my mouth. “I’m going to fuck you.”

I pull her other leg around my hip, lifting her off the ground and walking to the wall of windows, then place her into the window well, a convenient height from the floor. She catches my eye, looks momentarily shy, and lays back, spreading her legs.

Thigh high stockings, soft skirt to her knees now pushed up to her hips. Her ankles and calves are delicately curved by her low heeled sandals. I pull her cream-colored, thin panties past her ankles and take her thighs in my hands, the soft soft skin of her, fingertips to her body teasingly slow, pressed against her, mouth to her nipples through her thin white blouse and bra, leaving a damp spot when I moved to her throat.

“God, oh god,” she whispers on the exhale, slow and steady. She feels everything, every move of my teeth and lips, fingertips and hips, she responds so subtly and our bodies are dancing together like a waltz, like a tango, back and forth in the rhythm of our blood pressure pumping, our breath synched.

Her thighs are pressed back and she’s pulling me in with magnetism, a force like gravity and my fingers are on her, swollen and sweet and slick, guiding me with subtle circles of her hips and I follow, I hear what she’s asking through her body and I respond: Touch here, no here. Deeper. Harder against my outer lips. Run your fingers up and down. Skate around my clit, dip your fingers in just a bit, just a little bit so I can feel stretched, two then three, then back to my clit and oh yes, right there, right there …

She tells me everything. I watch her mouth, her eyes, her skin flushed with heat.

“Oh yeah oh yeah, oh god yeah.”

She’s so gorgeous like this, all splayed open, head and neck pressed against the glass pane and knees to the deep walls of the window well. Hands pulling on my wrist, pushing on my chest, looped around my neck - yes, there, oh right there - and I feel her tightening and releasing from somewhere deep and I ache to be inside while she shudders, while she squeezes hard and ripples, beginning at the floor core of her, radiating up and out.

She looks at me when her body has calmed. Stares into me in a new way, eyes clear and shining. She swallows something that has dislodged and made its way to her tongue - a raw spark of energy and self and desire.

We slide to the floor; I shake out my forearm.

She’s quiet, feeling exposed, and pulls her skirt back down. We curl around each other, holding, touching softly, my fingers on her shoulder, in her hair, now a mess of dirty blonde around her head. We lay breathing for a bit, then I start asking about her photography.

“Did you get the shot you wanted?” I ask. She rises to her elbows and looks at me again, as if remembering I am her subject.

“Mmm,” she barely answers, tucking her hair behind her ear and then finding the top button of my Oxford with her slender fingers and pushing it through it’s hole.

I watch. Oh, really. Raise my eyebrows. She says, “Well, I would like to see you in a few more … positions.” She giggles, I laugh. I lay back and let her pull my suspenders, peel my button-down, from my shoulders. She tosses it behind her and rises to her knees, taking off her buttoned blouse, knees apart, skirt loose, in her bra. She regards me with her photographer’s eye again, puts her hands up in L shapes to frame the shot.

I grin, sheepish. Shannon reaches for my slacks; I knock her hand away. “Hey!” I feign protest. “What am I, a piece of meat?” She laughs, grabs at me again, unbuckles my belt, unzips my fly. I swat her hand again and she gives me a look, that look, that femme no-nonsense don’t-fuck-with-me look that makes my cock throb.

I like power. I like that she has some. I can begin to taste what it’ll be like to take it away.

I let her pull out my cock. I twist to reach my jacket, a crumpled heap on the floor, and pull a condom from the inner pocket. She watches me and her lips part, mouth waters - I can see it.

She laughs, tossing her hair, eyes alight. “Is that what you think?” she says, playful, but it’s a sensitive enough old wound that I freeze for a second. Wait, what? Isn’t that - didn’t she want - weren’t we going to -

She laughs again at my flustered face, then crawls toward me, straddling my legs as I sit on the floor, leaning back on my hands. She pushes against my chest until I’m lying all the way against the floor.

“You’re going to have to try a little harder than that,” she teases, laying her body on top of mine, our mouths close. I grin, shift my shoulders, wrap my arms around her naked waist as she keeps her hands by my ears, holding herself up. With a swift sudden motion I flip her onto her back and roll on top of her, carefully switching my hips so my exposed cock is between her legs. I leave my hands on the curve of her hips and begin to feel hungry for her again, palmfulls of skin, stomach exposed, breasts moving gently with her inhales and exhales which are increasing as she lifts her hips up into me, which gets me hard.

I groan a little into her neck, teeth to her collarbone, her shoulders. She begins struggling, pushes against me with her arms, attempts to flip me with her legs. I almost let her think she can as she moves the weight of me around; I’m testing her strength. I swiftly stop her by taking both of her wrists in my hands, pressing them into the floor, grinding my hips against hers.

She stops struggling. I feel the grin on my mouth again. I like how she brings the cockiness out of me.

She smirks at my victory smile. “Well, you are at a distinct advantage, being on top.”

“You were on top a minute ago.”

“Yeah, but … uh …”

“Mmm hmmm.” I shift above her head and hold both of hers with one of mine, bite her chest, the tops of her exposed breasts where my mouth can reach under her bra. She inhales, arching her back and attempting to free her wrists from my grip.

“What am I going to do with you …” I mutter into her skin, my mouth on that spot between her breasts, on her smooth stomach, as far down as I can go without losing the grip on her hands. I press harder against her subtle struggling.

“Oh, oh god,” she starts again as I manage to take one of her nipples into my mouth. I let my other hand travel the length of her body, between her legs, and find that she eagerly opens, and she’s wet.

I get distracted, a growl of want lodged in my throat, and she suddenly manages to slip out of my grip and scurries out from under me. I grab for her leg, then ankle, as I see her nearly escape my reach, and she attempts to shake me off, laughing. I scramble after her, grabbing at whatever I can, her knee, her shoes, and get hold of the fabric of her skirt which, she wriggles out of and off. I catch her thigh with my fingers and squeeze, hard.

She gasps – “Dammit, that’s gonna bruise!” – and steals a playful glance back at me. I grab for her hips, nearly wishing I had nails so she would feel me dig into her, my grip as a barb she was clearly rubbing the wrong way.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going,” I grumble, low and strong, which stops her. My grip on her body pulls both me to her and her to me and we match suddenly, my slacks between her legs, stockings felled below her knees, thighs bare and exposed. I lower my face to hers and take one more fist of hair, pressing her shoulder into the wood floor, pressing my knees up under her thighs which forces hers apart. I watch her face for just a moment as she’s pinned under me, and let her feel it.

I lift myself to my knees and rescue the condom from the floor nearby, tearing it open with my teeth. The plastic gives way easily, and I roll it over my cock, holding it in my hand for a moment, enjoying the feel of the girth, the weight of it in my palm.

She’s only breathing, watching me. My mouth waters and I spit into my palm, rub the length of the shaft. Inadequate lube, but it’s something. She’s bending her knees together and looking bashful, feeling exposed again, but her face is full of lust. Her body writhes a little and she tries to keep still.

I stay kneeling and pull her to me, her thighs over mine so I’m under her hips and her ass is just a little off the floor. I tease her cunt with my fingers, lightly, soft, and watch her face. I’ve already done this once, I have a better idea of how she likes it. Slow, with pressure. Harder here when she presses into my hand. Skating around her lips soft and supple. I slide two fingers inside easily, then three, watching her face as she gasps and smiles, working my fingers in her harder, a little quicker. Her cunt thickens, sweet, and she lets me in.

I slide her swiftly onto my cock, switch my hands to her hips, pulling her against me, thrusting.

“Fuck, oh fuck …”

So beautiful, split open by my cock. Stretching her legs wide to take me deeper. She’s so good.

She brings her palms to the floor above her head to keep from sliding and presses into me deeper, mouth open, hair wild and in her eyes. I increase my pace and she follows me, lets me lead her, and we both build until we’re groaning, yelling out, muscles straining in rhythm, my head bent back, back arched.

“Oh god oh god, oh fuck,” she gasps. “Fuck, fuck!” I’m nearly shouting out too, right along with her, grunts of working my body, hands slipping on her hips from sweat.

I collapse suddenly, pushed to a small peak of a limit, over her, and she pushes me and rolls me onto my back, straddling and sitting on top of me, knees by my thighs. I keep my legs close together and she rocks her hips back and forth, writhing, as I take hold of her shoes, get a grip on the heels and pull her to me. She slides two fingers into her mouth and wets her fingertips, then reaches her hand to her clit and starts moving in small circles, closing her eyes and bending her head back. She brings her other hand to her head and pushes her hair out of her eyes, attempts to tuck it behind her ear but it falls right away, rocking harder, squeezing my cock harder, circling harder, and my hips are bucking fast, meeting hers.

“Oh god oh god, god oh god,” she mutters, a long, soft string of words, hips strong and hard against mine. I let go of her heels and move my hands to her hips again which gives me a better grip on our rhythm, and I take control of the pace, fuck her hard from underneath her, fucking up into her deep and she starts screaming, I feel her entire body contract around me and her back arches, mouth opens, head falls back until her body shudders, stomach contracts hard and she shakes, shoulders bowing, falling forward onto my chest as shockwaves roll through her.

I run my fingers through her hair, down her back, over the contours of her hips for a minute. “Fuck,” I whisper into her hair, “that was so damn hot.”

Her breathing has slowed and she lifts her head to look at me, bashful, aware of herself again. She smiles and kisses me, full of tongue and desire and release, skin flushed and beautiful, just beautiful.

“Where’s your camera?” I say. “I want some shots of you now.”

butch/femme couple, photo by Heather Corinna
Shannon says it’s her “favorite photo of butch & femme”

I’ve been following Heather Corinna online for quite a few years now - she’s practically infamous for her self-portraits, her personal online journal, her sex-positive educational resources. I still haven’t ever met her - she moved to Seattle just after I moved from Seattle to New York City, and while she knows some of the same folks that I do, our paths have just never quite crossed. Needless to say, though, after following her work for all these years, she still gives me that butterflies-in-my-stomach celebrity feeling - I’d probably be too shy to ever actually have a conversation with her, I’d get all tongue-tied and flustered. Ah, femmes.

I stood at the foot of the bed. Standing up made me realize that my jeans were still unzipped, belt unbuckled, falling around my hipbones. I hedged my bets: would my cock get sucked tonight? Is it presumptuous of me to keep my fly down? I decided: yes. I began to button the jeans.”What are you doing?” she clearly didn’t agree with my decision. We started laughing.

We weren’t going to fuck, I knew it already. That was okay - I went to see her, to meet her, to hang out, with only the expectation of the company of a smart, pretty girl, and hopefully some flirting.

And oh I got that.

She was stunning. I particularly liked her in jeans and a white a-shirt, hair tussled and no makeup, bare feet, when she answered the door, though as soon as I saw her lips slightly pinked and luscious I knew I wanted to kiss her, hoped we’d kiss, before the end of the short few hours we had.

We settled into a borrowed bedroom and she lit candles, turned out the lights, after she brought the three gerbera daisies and bottle of prosecco into the room with us.

We weren’t going to fuck - and this is the second time that this has happened with us, of the two times we’ve met - but fuck if she didn’t make me want. Kisses and her eyes and curly hair and the way her neck bent back when I pulled it and that little southern twang in her voice and her tongue and oh the sounds from her throat.

“I want to learn how to throw you around,” I said.

She laughed. “You have already learned that. Graduated from that school, walked across that stage, picked up the diploma, switched your tassel to the other side.”

I laughed too. “Maybe. Then I want to practice.”

There was a moment when some feeling grew from my cock up through my chest to radiate out through my shoulders into my fingertips and my timing was perfect, fist on wrist with a precise leg twist so she went exactly where I placed her.

And I could’ve devoured her, then.

I wanted to. I felt her hesitation and didn’t push it. Maybe she’d say the same of me, but I was eager, willing. I imagine that was clear.

I brought my cock. I’d showed it off at the tea party beforehand, and was hesitant to keep it on, but wanted to be prepared.

“I certainly didn’t want to seem … presumptuous.” I said. There’s that word again.

“I would’ve been mad if you hadn’t brought it,” she answered.

And, later, she said: “I want to suck your cock.”

I wanted to growl fucken do it then and push her head down, but it wasn’t quite that kind of night. That, though, was what she brought out in me.

“I would like that …” I said weakly, trying not to writhe and moan on the bed.

She has incredibly sensitive lips. Earlier, after she’d admired my various bits of (ahem, carefully groomed) body hair, she’d asked me if I shaved - it puzzled for a second, before I realized she meant my face. “Yeah,” I admitted. “Can’t really feel it now … ” I brought my fingers to my five o’clock shadow, still mostly smooth. She could feel it though. Her mouth is just that sensitive.

(Small sidenote: That’s new for me, really, that my lack of shaving or non-feminine placed body would be a turn-on for a lover. I guess it has to do with the ways I am masculine, which makes sense, if what someone is attracted to in me is (at least in part) my butchness. It’s taken me a while to not feel weird about it though - I was socialized female, shaved for many years, despite my hippie parents objections. Also, having more hair tends to be a sign of testosterone in the body, doesn’t it? I wonder if that’s related to my butch identity, some sort of biological connection? Or maybe I’m just reaching for ways that this butchness came from “inside” and not only adopted as a performative gender-bending practice.)

I don’t know when, or if, I’ll see her again, but I hope our paths will cross sooner than the last time I saw her. She lives in the south, and did tell me that if I am ever in her city and want to get sweaty, I should call her. Likewise, I made sure she knew she always has a booty call in New York.

I had a date last night, which went quite well really; we had fabulous conversation over dinner, then made our way over to the Brooklyn promenade that overlooks the shimmering buildings in downtown Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano bridge, and the Manhattan bridge.It was quite a view. I hadn’t been over there before. She wore these really cute shoes with straps that tied.

I was going on about topping, and the ways that feminism - and a general respect for other people - makes me hesitant to get involved in some particular sex play, like humiliation and name calling, and that I would actually like to push myself as a top and play with those things, but that it’d have to be with the right person, someone who wanted to specifically explore those things, not just as passing take-it-or-leave-it but really want it. I’d like to push myself as a top, I think was my point.

And that was when she gave me those eyes. You know the ones.

We had a fantastic first kiss, full of restraint and passion and air and deliberate hesitation, a slow building, perfect timing for going deeper, a little more crushing tender against teeth.

So, yeah, the date went well. Trouble is, I’m not particularly interested in purusing more with her - partly because she’s not what I’m looking for (I could go into detail here, but it’s not terribly relevant), and partly this is because I suspect that she likes me already, and is interested in pursuing things, maybe even in a relationship.

And I just can’t do that.

That sounds so predictable, so playboy, so “aspiring stud” of me, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t expect any less of this persona of mine, this Sinclair characature of myself, she should be the player, the heartbreaker, the one who takes girls home on the first date and has sex all night only to cut things off the morning after, right?

But that’s not me, that’s never been me. I’m not even sure how I got to this place sometimes, and I don’t want to continue to do this. What do we really get out of it, either of us? Sex, I suppose, which hey, that can be very important. But this day-after agony is not worth it. I’m too overly conscienscious of hurting her feelings.

And this is why I really shouldn’t be dating right now, at all.

I’m still just barely to the place where I’m pursuing dating. There have been some opportunities, and I haven’t turned those down … but it’s just starting to occur to me that I probably should be.

I said recently to Bee, my sister and roommate, that if I came across somebody that I really felt connected to, who I could potentially have a relationship with, I’m not even sure what I would do - I’d sabotage it, maybe, or I’d run the other way, or I just wouldn’t even recognize that that was possible with her right now, because I don’t want it. Everything in me says you’re not ready.

Do I wish I was ready? Yes. Am I working on becoming ready? Yes. Am I ready now? No.

And this, coupled with the difficulties I’ve had lately communicating with even my closest friends, let alone a random date, has made it clear to me that I’m in no place to even date. Hell, I am barely in a place where I can interact successfully with anyone else, it feels. Forget the extra added complication of emotion.

She didn’t stay over last night, though it was a struggle for me to ask her to go. How do you do that and not sound like an asshole? Eventually, I guess I had to not care that I sounded like an asshole. And I’m going to have to not care about that again today when I contact her to say that I had fun, but that we won’t be doing that again.

Lord. There is just no easy way to say it. There is no easy way to reject someone. Okay, so it’s not easy, fine: what is the kind way? What is the ‘right’ way?

I have one more date on Tuesday, and I have a sex date (much less complicated) with Belle today. I am tempted to cancel Tuesday’s date because really, why am I going? What do I hope to get out of it? I don’t want a relationship, not dates or sex or another person in my life.

This girl on the date last night, she is a lovely woman. Gorgeous and fun and smart, good in bed, and she has perhaps the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, a green-gold shade that with her dark hair is just stunning. I had fun.

Why don’t I just stop doing this altogether, before somebody really gets hurt, instead.

Part two of three

It’s a challenge for me to be explicit about the sex I receive, for two reasons: there are a select few friends of mine, who I know offline, who read this, and while I am very happy to talk about my sex life, I usually don’t offer up the same level of detail as I do in my writing; and two, I feel a lot more embarassed & vulnerable talking about my own body, my own feelings and sensations, than I do about giving pleasure to someone else. This is, I suppose, part of why I am a top.

The reason I mention that is because I’m going to attempt to be explicit here about my own experience. (That is your fair warning, childhood friends.) You may remember from the last time I tried to write about being topped that I skirted around the juicy parts. So, in the interest of being a better writer, and in the interest of wanting to turn this girl on as much as possible before I see her again (Saturday), I’ll do my best.

(And those paragraphs above, those are called foreplay. And procrastination. Ahem.)

She - this stunningly hot fuckable gorgeous femme top - goes down on me, fingers teasing the opening of my cunt, her lips and tongue pushing back my labia before sucking my clit. She keeps me distracted finding the most sensitive underside places and working her mouth slick along the folds and edges.

I felt like a turtle on my back. Acutely aware of how funny (I feel) I look when being fucked this way, knees bent feet on the bed, hips pressed forward, stomach tight, often one hand behind my head, holding onto the bars of my headboard or the back of my neck, holding my head up, contracting at my stomach so it occasionally seems like I am doing situps. Mouth open and gasping, quiet, be quiet. Pressing against my muscles and bones, pressing deeper onto her fingers, into her mouth, muscles hard and contracted.

But her mouth keeps me from thinking of this for longer than just a flash. Her fingers inside me, two, three - more? - I can feel the resistance of my cunt at the opening, though I want to feel more inside. Want to feel full of her. Her mouth still warm and moving hard on me, the bones of my pelvis pressed against her jaw I can feel the electricity of the space where our bodies are connecting.

With her tongue she fucked me. Hard and thick. Made my eyes roll back, head roll back, back arch, toes curl.

She doesn’t wait long, but rips the condom open, snaps it onto my cock, which she has in easy reach between my legs. Something tightens momentarily in my stomach and chest: I haven’t been fucked with a cock in years, literally years, but I remind myself to relax, I love what she’s doing with her gentle long fingers, want to feel more, love the way my cunt muscles contracting leads me to deeper vibrancy in my clit and, consequently, orgasm. I don’t think about my knees bent in the air, instead only concentrate on the soft head of my cock nudging its way inside.

Fuck I remember this. This pulsing in & out, this thrust inside, this fullness, this pinpoint of pleasure concentrated on my clit and swollen cunt. She pressed that cock inside me hard. I felt every inch of it sliding in. It’s not particularly large, but I felt out of practice, it was shockingly blissful, an impailing, an opening, something thick for me to press against.

She worked it in & out of me with a new speed & pressure, less exploration than her fingers, more force. Left her mouth on my soft spots, sucking, at times hard, sometimes tender, the muscles of my pelvis pulling. I arched my back to get deeper into her mouth.

After moments or minutes or hours (I, my body in a blissfully state resembling pulled taffy, can’t tell), she pulled out and said she was switching to her hand again. Her hot breath on my lips. Still sucking and she knew what to do. Her fingers expertly twisting, thrusting. I noticed myself in that sit-up position again, curling my body into a C shape and pressing my cunt into her mouth deeper. My right hand still behind me, behind my head or sometimes pulling on the headboard, left hand on the back of her head, tangled in the longish hair that fell in her face, touching the back of her head where her dark hair was recently cut short.

I let my hips thrust, fucking her mouth. The detail of her tongue so precise.

I was wrecked, buzzing, wrapped around her if only energetically and not physically, wound tight like a top. (Or, should I say, like a bottom - though not really, more like a top being fucked.) I wanted to scream, wanted to let my whole body release & rip.

I have to be quiet. It’s two am, roommate is asleep, assuming we have not already kept her up. Instead I bottle my noise and feel my body strung tight and then plucked, soaring for a moment before releasing, shuddering against her before grabbing her hair, hard, my fist pulling her up to me by the back of her head and she slid up my body, lays herself over me, curls around me.

Oh lord and this was perhaps my favorite part. The small of her back in my hands, her soft skin, the curves of her hips and ribcage, back of her neck, the feel of her weight on my chest and pelvis, such comfort, such comfort, so I just shudder and release, it takes me embarassingly long to stop breathing heavily and shaking with bodily afterquakes so I just feel her weight on me, the comfort of skin, the tender way she kissed my neck and face, and I grinned and laughed and giggled between whispers of oh god and fuck and ohh, and held her tight.

Part one of threeI’d never been with a girl who identified as a top. All the girls I’ve slept with, while some of them were more toppy than others, have absolutely been on the submissive side - and that tends to be one of the things that draws me to them. I know how to read those signals. I know what the lowering of the eyes, looking up at me under her eyelashes, means.

I’ve been topped, don’t get me wrong. And generally, I like getting off, I like giving my body over to let someone else touch me, to guide them to what feels good, to let myself get to that moment of fully physically letting go.

I hear this is actually fairly rare, for a butch top. I don’t know what to tell ya about that. We’re all different, I suppose.

Point is, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with submission - but, at the same time, it is not my ‘default’ mode. It is not where I am most comfortable, these days, and it is not my impulse most times. But, as you probably remember from the few times I intentionally bottomed in my last relationship, it’s hard for me to do and, even, harder for me to write about.

So what was I going to do with this stunningly fucking hot femme top once we got to my bed?

This is what kept rattling around in my head as we took (sexy) public transportation back to my (ghetto) apartment.

I thought, it won’t make that much difference that I’m a top and she’s a top. It won’t change much between us. We probably won’t have a heavy SM scene, and that is what I tend to associate primarily with topping and bottoming - dominance, and submission.

But already, the making out at the bar was a little different. I wasn’t calling the shots. She was responding to me, yes, her lips changing mouth opening tongue teasing in accordance to mine, but there was something else underneath it. A force coming from her. The way she kept control of it all.

“Open your mouth,” she ordered, only barely pulled away from my lips, I could feel her breath moving against my mouth as she said the words. She kept her hands on my hips, my ribcage, positioning me where she wanted me. She sucked my tongue, hard. “Like your tiny cock,” she whispered into my ear, grinning. She bit my bottom lip, drew blood, leaving teeth marks inside that I continued touching with my tongue all night.

Most of the time, it made me want to take her all the more. Fight her for control, push her down and restrain her arms so she couldn’t restrain mine.

Sometimes, though, I sunk into the refuge of submission, the giving-over of my body and mouth and, later, cunt. I not only let her guide me through the kisses, I tried to ask her to. Tried to ask her with my body and gestures and movement and open mouth.

I spent the evening fighting my impulses, the ones to take control. Push her down on the bed and tilt her pelvis back to slide my hand inside. Instead, she flipped me onto my back (I stopped struggling), and said, “Do you have something you want me to fuck you with?”

I inhaled. Sharply. Caught off guard, not the first time that night. “Yes, I think … I do.” Damn. Submission stirred somewhere deep in me, my stomach, between my legs, and I wanted her to take me like that, wanted to feel full, feel splayed open, feel cradled. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable, but I trusted her with my body in a way that felt new, considering I barely knew her. Maybe that’s why it was safe. Maybe it was because of the way she knew how to touch me, knew how to unwrap my breasts, finger the back of my neck, press against my thigh, just how I like it.

And I was suddenly grateful she knew how to take control, I was feeling fuzzy-headed and uncertain around her. Was that the submission? Could be. I certainly don’t usually feel that way when I’m in charge. I got my pink cock out, wrestled in the toybox to find an unlubed condom. I’d never been fucked with it.

She eased back on top of me, hips against mine, legs scissored together. Hands on my hips, my inner thigh, my breasts. Squeezing hard, sometimes painfully. I loved it. Brought me to the edge of my body and made me cry out, made everything sensitive, made everything feel. I attempted to keep quiet.

Her kisses made my vision and the palms of my hands blurry and taut. It was hard not to press her shoulders to the bed and ease my thighs between hers, press her knees apart. Tear at her hair. But there was also such sweetness, such precision, such tenderness between us - I wanted that, too, but I wanted more, I wanted to feel her pressing me open from inside, I wanted my cock in her mouth, I wanted, wanted, wanted.

Desire rose and fell on an isotope slope, gripping me fiercely. She knew just how to pull want from this body of mine. After a particularly efficacious kiss, I spiraled, eyes rolling, hips bucking. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it would feel to be opened by her.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, as she held herself above me, inches away, “please.”

Her eyes flashed and she grinned. Held my gaze, my open face, steady for a moment. “Can I go down on you?”

“Oh, god yes,” I breathed out. Please do, yes, god yes, echoed in my head, and though she may have liked it I’d (further) begged, I was glad I didn’t say it. It was hard enough for me to ask for it once.

How did she know so well what I like? … It occurs to me now that she’s read, among other things, the extensive sex survey/interview of myself, and there is a lot - quite a lot - of personal preferences listed there. I should send that to all my lovers before we fuck. (Just kidding.)

The music thumped, colors from the lights fluttered. I’d been watching her for half an hour, since I got here, and had danced next to her for the last two songs. I couldn’t hear my own words but trusted she could.

She could. She flushed, bowing her head a little, looking up at me through her lashes. Tossed her thin, long blonde hair.

“Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.

She nodded, still shy, eyes flashing. Interested. “Vodka cranberry?”

I smiled - that half-smile-smirk with the soft eyes, perhaps my most handsome look - and returned to her with her drink, red, in one hand, my drink, Jameson on the rocks, in the other.

She sipped hers slow through a straw. Lips carefully placed. We drank. We danced more. Hands on her hips, watching the way her body spun and quaked. Such elegance in the slow curves. I spun her around the dancefloor and she followed. Brilliantly. Blue eyes on my face all night.

Wrists in my hands and her back up against the wall, mouth open. Open. Anything could happen here. The wall is sticky, the floor acts like it hasn’t been swept in years. Crushed under the bottoms of too many feet. Push her legs apart before she realizes I’ve cornered her. Take her by the hand and lead her outside the bar.

She follows, wordless. I light a cigarette.

“So,” I say.

“So,” she says, kicking at the brick building with the toe of her flat silver ballet shoe. Dark capri jeans folded nearly to her knee. A loose blouse, soft yellow, thin, revealing everything.

I smoke. Breathe. I’m not particularly interested in the cigarette. It’s just something to do with my mouth, instead of …

She leans against the brick wall and shifts her hips. Shifts her weight from one leg to the other. She doesn’t look at me. She waits.

Oh, god, I’m terrible at this part. Just stay calm. No expectations. Just me, and the prettiest girl here.

I say something (anything) witty. She laughs, a delightful sound. A reward for my efforts and I try again, which becomes again, which becomes dominoes and her eyes shine as she gazes smiling at me. She bites her lip, parts her mouth. Breaths in.

I flick my cigarette with my thumb and forefinger, sparks against the sidewalk. I take a step closer to her and gently let my hand touch her hip. She breathes into the touch, deep and sharp, breathes into the place where my fingers are touching skin. I circle her waist with one arm, she’s tiny, shorter than me, delicate. Her arms fall back from her shoulders like her hair, gravity pulling them down and against me who is pulling her another way, against me, to me, and her back arcs and I lean over her as she tilts her head.

I hesitate. Feel the space between us electric and alive. Then kiss her, light, a whisper of a kiss, air and spun sugar and she tastes like gardenia.

The thick blossoms of summer.

And it hits me: I’m single. One. Only me. There is only my own desire, my own life path, my own choices. There is only my needs, my intentions.

This is not to say I do not want someone, I do. But I am picky now. I know what I don’t want.

This girl, this lovely girl, the most beautiful girl in the whole bar, looks back at me and says, “Ready to dance?”

Oh, am I ever.

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After minute after exquisite minute of my lips crushed against hers, sometimes desperately crawling into each other’s mouths, bones and muscles meeting, sometimes the gentlest paintbrush touch of only the top most layer of skin, we detangled. I let my arms rise from her body as if they were steam. Felt the echo of her touches. Her fingertips everywhere. Body against mine pressing at every angle. Her leg stretched out, knee over my lap.My desire embarasses me sometimes. [This is because my ex made it feel shameful, I know. Working on it.] “I’m sorry,” I start to apologize. Impulsive. Fearful that I have given too much away too soon. “I … I can be articulate, I will try to be conversational …”

She gave me that look. You know, That look, those soft eyes, that infinite understanding, that silly girl, you’re so lovely I could sip you from a silver spoon, and says, “I think we’re being quite articulate.”

‘Cause that’s the thing about Ms. Callie. She believes in all of the possible levels and layers of multiple intelligences.

It has been years … no, I will rephrase: I have never communicated on so many levels all at once with someone. And it was instantaneous - even via email, before we’d met. Such a connection.

On the phone this week, we spoke of work. Joked that I should be her personal assistant for a while, considering she’s overworked and I’m underworked.

“Alright,” I conceded, “but I’m not sure you can afford me. I’m pretty expensive.”

“Oh you are, are you? Well, I’m sure we can work out a trade,” Callie retorts. “I’m sure I have something to offer that you … want.”

Oh good god damn.

(Can you believe she says those things? Girl is going to give me a heart attack, I swear.)

I can’t figure out exactly what I said, but it was something stammering and awkward and mumbling about how I could probably learn how to be her assistant, or that we could figure it out some arrangement …

“Oh, I think you’re doing quite well on your own,” she said, voice soft and laughing. “You don’t need to learn anything. You seem to know exactly what to do. It’s as though … ”

“I know what you mean. We just …” I didn’t want to say anything too heavy. We fit, we belong together, we were made for each other. I settle on “match.”

“We certainly do fit together quite well.”

And you know what else? Though I am nervous before I see her, nervous thinking about seeing her, stomach and heart fluttering like wings inside my chest, once we get together it’s as though we have known each other for years. So comfortable, and lovely.

At some point in the evening she had her fingers in my hair. At many points, I should say. And I said, god, it feels like you have been doing that for years. So familiar, so comforting.

That’s how kissing her feels. As though I’ve done it hundreds of times, when really it is measurable in minutes. Moments.

I think I have decided to make a sort of eggplant parmesan dish, which is more like baked eggplant with (fake) chicken and a cumin-tomato sauce. It’s not as heavy as the usual eggplant parm, and I’m good at that dish, and it’s impressive. With a side salad of some sort, and wine. Maybe some cheese & bread to begin.

And lemon bars, with french vanilla ice cream, for dessert. If we crave something sweet.