After a few moments, I was roughly draped across the arm of the couch nearby, as loose as a rag doll. Hands pulled my hips and pushed my legs open as I leaned over the couch’s arm. My pussy was still flinching as I breathed, an entirely different burning covering my labia, making blood pump through my clitoris so harshly that I could have sworn I felt my heartbeat right there.
“Look at that,” the man who’d come on my face said, “How much do you think that’s worth?”
Fingers traced my sensitive labia, pushing inside of me. I felt completely malleable and soft. “A lot,” the other man uttered. The fingers left and I felt nothing but the cool air mingling with the wetness that coated my labia. “I think we should take her back to the station and see how the rest of the boys like her.”
SEALSKIN
Kirsty Logan
Another sleepless night watching the moon crawl across the sky. I turn in bed, flip the pillow to the cool side, tug some of the covers back from my husband’s sleeping grip. Nothing works. The moon slipping in around the blinds lights the room like an old black-and-white film, everything dark with silvered edges. Rory’s snores sound like a grumbling bear. Every time I start to drift off they change rhythm, snapping me awake again.
There’s a feeling deep in my belly that won’t go away, making the heat between my legs pulse regularly with the beat of my heart. I could slide myself toward Rory, climb on top of his sleeping warmth, slip him inside me and ride myself to the tipping point of pleasure before he’d even properly awoken. I think about his drowsy hands stroking my hips, his sleepy kisses. I turn the pillow over again and sigh.
There’s no use lying here with my eyes wide open.
I slip out of bed and into my dressing gown. Padding downstairs, I’m conscious of just how quiet it is here on the island. After twenty years in the middle of London, the Isle of Skye is so quiet it deafens me. I fill the kettle with water, switch it on, switch it off again. I don’t want anything. No; I do want something, I just don’t know what it is.
From upstairs, Rory’s snores are muted but still audible. I tap my bare feet on the kitchen floor and look at all the things I do not want. If I hold my breath, I can hear the shush of the sea. I slip my feet into the Wellington boots by the back door, pull on Rory’s waterproof jacket and slip down the garden path. The sea is spread out before me, heavy as black velvet under the darkened sky. The summer air is cool enough to make me pull the jacket tight around me, and it brings up goose bumps on my legs where the breeze slips between the coat and boots. It makes my heart beat harder, as if the wind is the fingers of a dozen strangers against my skin.
I step carefully down the path to the beach. Our cottage is perched neatly on the edge of a cliff, not close enough to be at risk of high waves but close enough for walking on the beach whenever we please. I stumble on loose pebbles strewn across the path and have to jump the last few steps onto the shore. The sky, the sea, the sand under my feet: everything out here is dark and soft and quiet. I plant my boots wide apart and stare out to sea. I feel like I am the only person on the entire island. I hear the steady hush of the waves and smell the salt in the air. The moon winks at me from behind a cloud. Breathing deep, I finally feel calm.
I turn to climb back up to the cottage, back to bed and Rory’s warm body, when I see movement farther down the beach. Immediately my heart starts thumping against my lungs and my tongue feels too big for my mouth. I’m standing on a deserted beach wearing only a too-big waterproof jacket and a pair of Wellies to preserve my modesty. I turn to run back up the path, then I realize what I’m seeing and stop.
Two women with skin as gray as a raincloud are entwined in the sand. They are aware of nothing except one another; certainly not my staring eyes and pounding heart. I take a step closer. Their bodies are as slim and rounded as seals. I can hear the gentle moans from their throats, and I can feel the way their skin feels, sleek and soft against the sand. I can taste the salty heat of their bodies. I can feel every sensation that they can feel, every caress and kiss, every flicker of pleasure. The heat between my legs intensifies, sending warm shivers from my clitoris to my throat, and I close my eyes and let orgasm overtake me.
The next thing I know, I’m in my bed with the late-morning sun burning hot in my face and Rory stumbling into his trousers. I lie back against the pillows, unsure whether I got up last night, unsure how time stretched and contracted in those predawn hours. Everything feels too bright and too loud, and I long for the soft gray sand of last night, the curves and moans of the women on the beach, the throb of my orgasm…. No, I think; that was just a dream. It must have been.