Anything But

“I don’t like kissing,” she told me—just, ironically, as I was studying the coral-colored print of lip gloss on her tea cup.

She faced me straight on, mahogany eyes narrow, arms folded on the table. Her shoulders tightened, then relaxed, the gesture too tense to be a shrug. My own neck had taken on an awkward angle, and I shook my head slightly to unkink it. Then nodded. “Okay.”

“I mention this because I feel it might come up.” Her lips curved. 

I gave her one of my dumb smiles in return, an overexcited flash of teeth. “Yeah?”

My head started to tilt again. As if she looked better sideways—as if she looked anything but good from any approach. And maybe she felt the same about me. A second date was a good sign. A second date that started as lunch, then became a movie, then a museum visit, then dinner—that was a very good sign.

Kissing had come up. That was an excellent sign. 

Except for the part where from her perspective, maybe it wasn’t. 

“You don’t like kissing.” I folded my hands across from her tea. 

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Is it…” I thought of the roll of mints in my messenger bag. 

“You? Fuck, no, it’s anything but.” She shook layers of cinnamon-red-streaked hair back from her face, over her shoulders. Her throat and the tops of her breasts were emphasized by the gesture, outlined by her soft cotton v-neck. 

“I’m glad. Er, let me know what I can do…”

“To fix kissing for me? Probably nothing. Because…explaining my reasons might get heavy for a second date. Or maybe just weird. I’m not even sure what about it bugs me half the time. It’s just, you should know first, because freezing up or cringing would be needlessly insulting.” 

“First?” 

“Before we start doing the things that usually involve kissing.” For a moment she seemed impatient, but her eyes didn’t roll in exasperation. They just wouldn’t meet mine. 

Realization dashed me like a glass of cold water: she was embarrassed. 

“You know what’s really unbelievable?” I asked.

“What?”

“How you like me enough, in all my weirdo glory, that you’re thinking about…not kissing me.”

“Do you realize how bizarre the word weirdo sounds on your tongue?”

“Say whatever you want about my tongue, it doesn’t have to go near yours.” I took her hand, and she turned it so our fingers slid together. She began to trace what felt like a figure eight on my palm, and the fine hairs on my wrist stood on end. 

“Thank you.” The thickness in her voice became rich honey as she leaned over the table and whispered, “Want to continue this conversation at my place?”

~~~

“What about other things mouths can do?” I sat next to her on the couch, really a loveseat, so tiny our legs brushed together no matter what we did. 

She looked at me from beneath an arched eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Nuzzling. Um…licking.” Swallowing, as I did then. “And teeth. Gently.” 

“Hmm.”

“Has nobody offered before?” I asked after a few seconds of thoughtful silence. 

“I don’t often get that far,” she said. “Kissing is natural to most people. I had one guy wrist-deep in my blouse, and then he just slipped me tongue, I don’t know if he forgot or what. And there was this woman—but never mind, sorry. What, er… What’s essential to you? If not kissing?”

“An orgasm’s good, whenever possible,” I said. “And just about anything that gets us there.”

She nodded, narrowly smiling. “Flexibility is a virtue.”

“There’s nothing virtuous about it.” I took her hand and started to repeat the gesture she had made over dinner, tracing circles. Her fingers uncurled, pushing her palm against my nails. 

“Mmm.” Her head fell back on the couch cushions, and as she sank lower, her thighs spread beneath her skirt. “That feels really good.”

I worked my way up, past her wrist, over her forearm. When she giggled, I made the pressure firmer, less of a tickle. When she sighed as I stroked the inner bend of her elbow, I lingered there before continuing to her shoulder. 

Her sleeveless blouse hung loose. Now that she had taken her jacket off, I saw a corner of bra through the arm hole. Slowly, studying her expression, I moved my fingertips inside, running them over the top and side of her breast, following the ripples of the lace border. 

She seemed ready to giggle again, but then her grin broke wider into a look of open-mouthed satisfaction. She reached up her blouse and unhooked the bra from the front, letting it fall apart without removing it. Her nipples pushed peaks through the silky fabric. I circled one from the inside of her shirt and the other from outside, testing the effects. If asked for recommendations, I’d have to say, “Both, for as long as she wants.” 

I licked my fingertip before returning it to her bare nipple. That caused a shiver, and too late, I worried if the touch of my saliva grossed her out. If that was part of the kissing issue. 

But then she shivered again, the corners of her open mouth curving, and she said, “Yes, genius.” 

As if I had invented it. I wondered again about what experiences she’d had, and channeled my frustration on her behalf into tighter, firmer circles around her breasts. 

Suddenly, she brought two of her fingers to her own mouth and kissed them, then pushed them against my lips. I opened up. They slipped inside. She pumped them, stroking over my tongue. Her brow furrowed, but her mouth kept that satisfied curve. 

So she definitely wasn’t against everything mouths could do. I might have asked her about it, but it didn’t look like she intended me to speak. Instead I raised my lower jaw a little to tease her knuckles with the edges of my teeth. With a growl, she stroked deeper inside me, seeking their scratch like she had enjoyed the trace of my fingernails. 

I continued circling her breasts and we French kissed with her fingers. Her thighs spread wider under her skirt, and she began rocking her pelvis against the cushion. It was a small, slow gesture, one I might not have noticed if we weren’t pushed so close together. I was sorely tempted to start fucking the furniture myself, anything for a touch where I needed it badly. 

She withdrew from my mouth with a slither and ran her wet fingers up her leg, letting them disappear under the strip of hiked-up skirt. Whatever happened there made her lunge, rising and falling, until I could barely stand it. I rested my own hand on her knee, aiming upward suggestively. “Mind if I join in?”

“Please do.”

Her thighs were round and full, with a creamy softness and deep warmth. She trimmed, but didn’t shave, so I moved through a fine fur of hair. Our slick fingers slid past each other as she left the field to me. There was the taut bead of her clit, and past that, I pressed inside her to gather more wetness. I slid partway off the couch to get a better angle.

Usually if I had my hand up someone’s skirt, I’d also be kissing her, our mouths sealed. But now I had enough distance to watch her face. Her expression was clear, open—not blank or foolish, but taken by surprise. Her mouth strained, lower lip jumping as she gasped for breath once, twice, each time like she was relearning how deep her lungs went. Then, as I flicked her clit with my thumb in firm, short strokes, a smile spread, digging dimples I could have kissed at another time but now was content just to see. 

I went all the way to my knees. “Is it mainly your mouth you object to having kissed? Because I would love to—”

“Oh.” Her legs trembled so hard her sandals clattered against the floor. “That’s so hot to think about…” Then her thighs folded together. In the process, they caught my hand up against her lower lips, which she seemed to approve of, rocking with my captured fingers. “Oral’s kind of tricky for me. For one thing, the sound…”

She made a face, and I made one too in understanding. If it’s going well, your ears aren’t the parts of you that get the most bandwidth. But maybe, whatever her reasons, she could never let go enough to ignore the sloppy, moist sounds. 

“It feels weird, too,” she said. 

“Oh.” Of course, it was tempting to say past partners had let her down; of course, I didn’t say it. No debating whether she was right about what felt wrong to her. I was disappointed—the musky smell of her rose as I leaned closer, and my mouth watered. But then she loosened her thighs, made room for me to slide into her once more, and she gripped and rode me out with a tight sweetness. 

“Fingering is fine,” she said, “more than fine.” 

As her legs trembled, she put one hand over her crotch, pushing the backs of my knuckles through her skirt.

“I’ll try to go quietly,” I said. 

It worked, once I was deep in, gliding in her silky smoothness. There was only the rustling of fabric, our panting breaths. She grasped my free hand and brought it to her mouth. Her tongue tip traveled under my nails, laved my knuckles, and pressed the web where my pinkie met my ring finger. 

She put her hand against my mouth, and I returned the favor, filling myself with the salty taste of her sweat, keeping my lips closed around her so as not to make a sound. 

With each thrust of my fingers inside her, she sucked on me and pumped into me, an elaborate equation of welcomed invasion. Until at last I couldn’t help but moan around her muffling touch. My hips had come up against the edge of the couch, pressing almost in desperation.

She took mercy on me, and her hand from my mouth. But partway through undoing my jeans, she fumbled the zipper tab and dropped it. The reason why became clear as she spasmed around my fingers, soaking me to the wrist as she came.

I moaned again, both needy and pleased. As soon as it seemed like she could, she opened my pants and reached inside. Getting her off had aroused me so much that it was over with embarrassing quickness. My hips jerked against her hand. I saw stars.

She pulled out, creamed with my juices. I rested my hand on her knee, slick with hers. She looked down at us and smirked. That was when I realized my other hand, the one she had sucked on, bore rings of her coral lipstick.

“Bathroom’s down that way.” She pointed. Though it was a tiny apartment, there was room at her sink for both of us to wash. We stood hip to hip, our soapy fingers scrubbing each other’s. 

After patting dry with a towel, she kissed one fingertip and pressed it to my lips. “Thank you. I… appreciate that you were so…”

“Please don’t say selfless. I was anything but.”

“I was going to say ‘understanding.’ But yeah. Thanks. Or no thanks, if you don’t want thanks.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. I grinned at her. 

“Maybe,” I said, “thanks can be more of a third date thing.”