“It was Nidal’s idea. She’s a DJ at Divinity.”
“Divinity?”
“You haven’t heard of it?” She puts down her glass and raises her arms into the air, stretching her back as she reaches for the sky. “It’s a little club on Melrose. Divinity. A funny name, isn’t it? It’s sort of a reminder of why people go to clubs. To dance, drink, and flirt until reality and all sense of mortality just sort of melt away and we all feel a bit like divine beings. Deities of the night.”
I look at my own glass. I’m not drinking because I hunger for a taste of the divine. I get that every time I lay my lips against Robert’s. I feel it when I lay beneath him, when he enters me and throbs inside of me, and I hear it every time he whispers my name.
On the contrary, I’m drinking because I want to touch the part of myself that is endearingly clumsy and human.
“It scared me at first,” she admits. “Nidal always flirts with me but I never thought anything would come of it. I told her I didn’t swing that way.” She pauses before adding, “Then she started asking me questions I didn’t have answers to.”
“Like what?”
“She asked if I was afraid I’d lose myself. She wanted to know if I thought I’d be changed if I let another woman touch me, if I liked it. She wanted to know if I thought it would muddle my sense of identity, my definition of femininity and sexuality. It was all very philosophical and I began to wonder . . . what am I afraid of?”
“But you’ve never mentioned being interested in women before,” I note. The thick, creamy concoction coats my throat and stomach, making me happy. Happy for this mild intoxication and happy to be distracted from my life by one of Simone’s titillating but innocuous adventures. “Perhaps it wasn’t fear that held you back, just lack of desire.”
Simone laughs. “But I’m always desirous of adventure. And I wanted to know . . . how strong is my sense of self? If it’s strong enough, no adventure should be able to shake it.” She meets my eyes, sips her drink again. “It was interesting . . . a woman knows a woman’s body. She knew where her touch should be light and where to apply just a bit of pressure. She instructed our partner, too, Jason—”
“Joseph.”
“Joseph . . . yes, Joseph. We started with me going down on him. I was on my back, my head hanging off the bed and I took him in my mouth while he stood up. I was totally focused on what I was doing, sliding my hand up and down the base of his erection while my mouth worked on the tip and ridges. . . . I didn’t even notice what she was doing until I felt her tongue against my pussy.”
I jump slightly, squeeze my legs together a little tighter as if Nidal’s here, right now, trying to smooth away my lines in the sand.
“It was a perfect way to begin,” Simone says, her voice hushed with memory. “My focus was on him, I didn’t even see her, and a woman’s tongue feels just like a man’s . . . except perhaps more skilled. I started to moan even as my mouth was wrapped around Joseph, I tried to keep my hips still, but couldn’t. That’s when Joseph asked if he could have a taste, too.”
“Simone!” I whisper her name with an urgency that surprises me. I hadn’t expected this tale, or its allure.
“Nidal told him how to pleasure me,” she continues with a smile. “She stood over him and told him to move his face down to my pussy, she told him to slide his tongue gently around my clit and then back and forth. It started slow but then it was almost too much and I was writhing around on the bed while she watched me and he touched me. She was the teacher and I was the lesson. She told him how to add his fingers to the experience. And in between sentences she would lean down and nibble on my ear, find the sensitive spot there with her tongue; her fingers traced the area around my nipples, making them hard without her ever touching them directly.”
I look away as if the scene were right before me rather than in Simone’s head. As if I was seeing me on that bed. I could never do that, could I? I could never relinquish so much control, could never challenge so many conventions. I’m not even attracted to women. But this story caresses me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I cross my arms over my chest so Simone can’t see that Nidal has worked her magic on me as well.
“She told me where to touch her. . . . I’ve never touched another woman’s breast before. But I liked the way it felt, firm but so soft. I liked the way Nidal responded to me. Joseph liked it, too.”
“Did you actually have sex with them?” I ask. My cheeks are bright red and my question comes out in a whisper.