YULUNGA (SPIRIT DANCE)

My room hadn't changed. I had.

An inescapable conclusion and yet it didn't have the ring of truth. I didn't feel any different. I was still the same person. But every individual is actually a ship of Theseus. Little things change, one by one, and suddenly, you turn around and you are entirely different. You end up standing in a room you lived in for your entire childhood, and it's the room of someone you no longer know.

It was early June of 2002 and I was home for the first time after graduating college. Drove all the way from Santa Cruz in my old Nissan. I had a degree now. I was supposed to be ready to start my adult life. And the scary part was, I had no fucking idea of what I was supposed to be doing.

I went to my window, which looked down onto a grungy alleyway and the rooftop patio of Rosarito's Mexican Kitchen on the other side. The iron fire escape gave me a tiny balcony barely big enough for two if they didn't mind getting friendly. In high school, I'd spent more than one night brooding while the cool ocean air and the sounds of Rosarito's washed over me. That place had been the soundtrack of my childhood, the steady thump of banda music, the accordion over top, and below, the susurrus of conversation and the clink of margarita glass.

"Hey, kid. Good to have you back."

My dad leaned on my doorframe. I'd never seen him look so old. His sunbleached hair was thinner than I'd remembered, and the wind-burned wrinkles of his dace had never been deeper. He looked like what he was, a man who had surfed since he was little, the sun finally catching up to him. I'd probably look the same, no matter how much sunscreen I slathered on before going out. It was that or give up surfing, and I'd never do that.

"Good to be back," I lied. I didn't want to be here, but then, I didn't know of anywhere else I wanted to be either. Nowhere else I could be.

"Can I count on you in the shop this summer?"

"I hadn't thought about it." I hesitated. I wanted to do anything else other than sell cheap plastic shit to tourists, but it was a job. And I couldn't let my dad down. "Sure, yeah."

"Great. I know you probably want to do anything else. When things slow down at the end of August, maybe that's when you start looking?"

"And next summer?"

"I'll figure something out."

He left me, leaving me in this space I no longer recognized.

Every spare inch of wall in the room was bookcase, filled with stacks of old sci-fi and fantasy. The classics. Asimov, Niven, Anderson, Tiptree, Campbell, Tolkien, LeGuin. Go into those shelves and trace my evolution as a fan, as a writer myself. The way those spellweavers had shaped my dreams and the way those dreams shaped me. Now, staring at those creased spines, I had the realization that the dream was over.

I was awake.

I woke up before dawn and was in the water by the time the sun peeked over town. I spent a couple hours on the waves before making my way to shore. I rinsed off the frigid Pacific under a beach shower, stripping out of my wetsuit in a parking lot filled only with other surfers and seagulls scavenging for dropped food from the previous day. I was behind the register at my family's shop by nine.

We'd had the store since I was born. My sisters had worked there before they grew up and moved away. That was the thing about Aragon Beach. When you got old enough, you left, or you'd become one of the sunsoaked townies. We were a community of burnouts. Hippies from one generation, slackers from another, united by not fitting in anywhere. Back in college I thought about making it out, but now, I had no idea how that would look.

The store didn't even really have a name. ARAGON BEACH SOUVENIRS said the sign outside, but we were the kind of place that didn't need a name. It was somewhere tourists wandered into to look at overstuffed shelves. Racks of Aragon Beach t-shirts and hoodies, animals made out of seashells, funky magnets. If you wanted something weird to remind you that you once visited a small California beach town, we had it. It was one of nearly a dozen functionally identical shops in town.

I was starting to think about lunch, wondering if I'd hit the taco truck that always parked at the corner of Vista and Pacific, or if I'd take the walk down to Gremmie's for a burger. I was weighing the pros and cons of each option when a familiar face came through the front door.

Tessa van den Berghe was my best friend through two years of high school. That might not sound like much, but it was. Two years of high school is like ten years anywhere else. It's when you built memories you'd never love and couldn't quite hate. The last time it felt like anything was possible, but knowing that was a lie. It was the last time you could try a new identity on just to see how it fit.

Tessa and I were best friends for only two years because she was a year older than I was. My senior year, when she was gone, was the longest of my life. We saw each other on breaks, and it was always like we were right back to where we were. Best friends.

Tessa pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head and her eyes hit mine, her face lighting up. She had lovely eyes, blue like an iceberg. Her hair, cut in a long bob with flat bangs, was dyed a matching color. She'd been dyeing it so long I only knew her natural ash blonde color from the pictures of her as a kid on the wall of her house. Tessa, as she liked to point out, was the palest person in Aragon Beach, the only person whose skin wouldn't hold even the slightest hint of a tan. Her complexion was so pale it held a touch of blue, and at night it could look silver.

It might sound like I had a crush on her, but I didn't. I had one when we first started hanging out, when I was a nerdy 10th grader and she a worldly 11th grader, but it faded quickly. I could recognize her as beautiful without dwelling.

She was a few inches under six feet with a willowy figure, long legs with small breasts and hips. She was dressed in summer Tessa wear, which meant a black Depeche Mode t-shirt, black cut-offs, and scuffed black Converse All-stars.

"Theo Bright," she said, like she was seeing me for the first time. "As I live and breathe."

"Tessa van den Berghe," I drawled back at her. "Ah, fuck it." I came around the counter and hugged her. She smelled of citrus sunscreen.

"You hungry?"

"Yeah, I was thinking of hitting Gremmie's."

"Of course you were. Adam around?" Adam, my dad.

"Yeah, he's in the back." I raised my voice. "Hey Dad, I'm taking lunch!"

My dad came out of the back, framed by the doorway and our collection of novelty shirts, and broke into a smile when he saw Tessa. "Take your time, Theo. Hey, Tess. Good to see you."

"It's always good to see me," she said. "I'll return your son in approximately the same condition."

"You break him you bought him."

The boardwalk was just out the door and to the right, past Rosarito's. I looked up at my fire escape. Our place was the second floor over the shop. Not quite a house, not quite an apartment. Tessa followed my look.

"We spent way too much time out on that rickety thing," she said. "I think I still have the imprints on my ass."

"I could check later."

"You wish."

Gremmie's was at the very northern tip of the boardwalk, where it gave up and turned into sand. Behind it, the cliffs rose up, sprouting iceplant and yarrow. The restaurant was a rundown shack with a wooden patio, plastic tables and chairs under sun-faded umbrellas. Built in the '60s, it originally catered to surfers, but it had become a local institution and now everybody went there. A radio blasted old school Madonna over the sand, the wind making the Material Girl sound tinny.

A portly guy with a bit of black hair still clinging to his skull worked the flat top grill. That was Tony MacLaren. His daughters rung up the orders and brought the red plastic baskets full of burgers and fries to tables. The savory aroma of the grill mixed with the salt air and brought me back to high school, when I had wasted more time here than anybody.

Another bolt of nostalgia hit me when I recognized the daughter working the register that day. She was cute as ever, her face and shoulders a mass of freckles and her hair as fiery as I remembered. She'd put on a few pounds, but it sat well on her. I found myself following the pillowy contours of her, from her tank top down to the blue jeans that fit like a second skin. She and I had been in school together since kindergarten, always friendly and sometimes friends.

"Theo?" she said as I approached, breaking into an unsure smile.

"Hey, Beth."

"You're back! For how long?" The smile widened, recognition blooming in her soft brown eyes.

"Search me. Summer at least."

"We should hang out! Catch up."

"That sounds awesome. I'm at the shop most days."

"Yeah, cool. Let me see if I remember...cheeseburger, grilled onions, no sauce, extra crispy on the fries."

"And a Cherry Coke, yeah. That's amazing. How'd you do that?"

"It's this stupid brain," she said.

"I too am here," Tessa said.

"Right, sorry. What can I get you?"

"My usual."

"Which is..."

"Turkey burger, extra spread, onion rings, and a pink lemonade."

"Right, yeah. Tip of my tongue." She wrote up the ticket, we paid, and after she got our drinks, we found a table.

"Oh god, she was all over you," Tessa muttered.

"What are you talking about?"

Tessa's voice went up an octave as she put the ditziest face on she could manage. "Uh let me see if I can remember?"

"She memorizes orders."

"She memorized your order." Tessa sipped her lemonade. "You could do better than Beth MacLaren."

"Like Grace Soto?"

"Please tell me you're not still hung up on her."

I shrugged. I thought I was over her, as much as one could be over someone that important, but the last twenty-four hours had my old life crashing over me. Now I was pining for my senior year girlfriend. "I don't know."

"Didn't you get any in college?"

"I had girlfriends."

"How many?"

"I take refuge in the vagueness of the plural."

"Okay so you had two girlfriends."

"Three."

She snorted. "And that's a miracle if you can't tell when she's flirting with you. She couldn't have been more direct if she smeared a snail trail over you."

"Jesus Christ, Tessa."

"I'm just saying."

"What about you?"

"I'm single," she said. "I was seeing this couple, but the guy got weird on me."

Tessa coming out as bi in high school had been a minor scandal. It was the '90s and though not unheard of, it was unusual. She was always free about it too, dating men, women, and couples as the whim struck her. It was funny for me, as while I did fine, I tended to need a clue hammer to understand when someone was into me. Another way Tessa was worldly while I was stuck in my own head.

I looked over at Beth. She caught my eye and smiled back. I felt my cheeks get hot as I'd been caught, but she didn't mind. Maybe I should try something with her. She was always fun and she was definitely cute.

"Got weird?" I said suddenly, when I realized Tessa was watching me watch Beth.

"Yeah, he was calling me when she clearly didn't know about it. And no. I'm fine fucking them one at a time or both at once, but it's gotta be aboveboard, you know?"

"Makes sense to me."

"Anyway, I'm free as a bird. You're working in the store all summer?"

"Looks that way. What about you?"

"Bartending over at the Darkhouse."

"Is that good money?"

"If you're a hot girl who flirts with everybody, it is."

I laughed. "Yeah, fair enough."

"You should get a job there too! We can hang out all night!"

"I'm not a hot girl and I'm terrible at flirting."

"True, but you are hot."

"I'm hot?"

"Oh, knock off the false humility. You've got the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing going." Maybe she was right. Surfing kept me in shape, I knew that much. "Hey, why don't you come down on Friday night? I'll sneak you drinks and you can soak in the ambience."

"Sure, why not."

"Your food," Beth said, putting the baskets in front of us. She brushed me with her hip as she moved off. My attention went to her heart-shaped ass, moving back and forth encased in jeans that hugged her like a second skin.

"Ugh, just fuck her already," Tessa said with an eyeroll.

"You don't have to sound so mad."

"Beth MacLaren is just so...basic."

"Aw, she's nice," I said.

"Exactly," Tessa said, jabbing the air with a shred of onion ring.

The Darkhouse was a club located on the edge of the couple square blocks where Aragon Beach kept our bars. Pushed to the edge, it was like the other places, all spring break vibes, didn't want the weird goth kid. The Darkhouse was the one and only place where Aragon Beach acknowledged a counter culture that wasn't beach-related.

Because it had to be a bit of a catch-all, the Darkhouse had a minor identity crisis. It was mostly a goth club, but they had industrial and metal nights, and there was always bleed over. Goths, metalheads, ravers, and so on needed somewhere to get drunk that'd play music they tolerated. I'd only started going in the summers after my sophomore year, when I'd gotten my fake ID. Theo Bright of Aragon Beach, California might have been underaged, but Elijah Bailey of Corpus Christi, Texas was in his early twenties.

After we I closed the shop on Friday I got changed. Thanks to Tessa and my music taste, I was always goth-adjacent. I had more black clothing than most people in town, but I never went in for the heavier stuff, like makeup or lace or chains. Tessa had tried on all three counts, but I was always too self-conscious for that. I put on my best Cure t-shirt, a black coat, black jeans, and my boots. This year, as with my one visit last summer, I could use my legit ID.

The entrance to the Darkhouse was on the corner of Fairview and Balboa. A short, two-story tower, painted black, was the entry. A bouncer on a stool outside checked IDs, waving me inside after a cursory glance.

The walls inside were black, punctuated by the occasional half-scraped away band sticker. A dance floor took up the middle, along with a stage that usually held a DJ but occasionally hosted a D-list band. The bar ran along the right side, and I caught sight of Tessa, her blue hair a beacon.

She wore a black tank top, showing the tattoo on her shoulder she'd gotten the previous year, a stylized eye with symbols above and below. She was made up too, with heavy black eyeshadow and black lipstick. With her already ghostly complexion, it was impossibly dark. She looked like a different person, or at least different enough that I saw her as a woman rather than my friend. She was gorgeous.

I was hard up. If I was ogling Tessa, there was no other conclusion. I thought of Beth MacLaren. Maybe that was the way to go. Get back on the proverbial horse with a sure thing. In the meantime, I was going to have some free booze.

I sidled up to the bar. It was still early, so the real night owls hadn't come out yet. I got a seat and Tessa found me. "What are you drinking?"

"Surprise me."

"Okay, let's run through some basics. We'll start with a sazerac."

She built me the drink and set it in front of me. She flirted with everyone who bodied up to the bar, and it was funny to watch. Whenever one of her marks dropped a big tip, she'd flash the money at me and wiggle her heavily drawn-on eyebrows. Look what I got, said the look. Every free moment, she was hanging with me, getting me a new drink whenever I drained the last one.

The club slowly filled up, and I was enjoying myself. Drinking for free, listening to good music, hanging out with my best friend. Tessa only paid attention to customers she was actively serving, and when she was, they were her whole world. She was good at that. She never gave new arrivals so much as a glance until they got within serving range.

Except one.

That one swept through the door a few minutes before midnight. She was tall for a woman, though not especially so. The thing was, you noticed she was only 5'8" or 5'9" when you actually thought about it. The way she moved and the way everyone reacted to her, it was like she was the tallest person in the place.

She was beautiful, but it was a strange, quirky beauty that was hard to quantify. She was around forty, and that too was clear if you looked closely enough, but she was in incredible shape and well-preserved. Her skin, a brownish goldish color I'd never seen before, carried the years well, making her look almost like a statue. I had no idea what her ethnicity was. She might have been Black, Middle Eastern, even Asian. I'd find out later that was a common reaction, and everyone eventually settled on "Egyptian," which was at least partially thanks to her style. Or maybe it was all the ankhs she insisted on wearing,

She kept her black hair short and slicked to her skull in an old style like Josephine Baker. Her eyes were so dark that the pupils looked lighter than the irises, producing a distinctive alluring sight. Her nose was long, narrow, and sharp. Her lips were full, over a dimpled chin. She wore a black gown that shined under the lights and clung to gym-sculpted curves. She was the kind of woman who was beautiful at a glance, but the more you thought of her, the more attractive she got. She was sexy in a way that spoke directly to the animal nature of everyone in the room. Everyone looked, whether it was stolen glances or open stares.

She arrived with an entourage. Men and women, an eclectic mix ranging in age from just out of high school to early middle age. Their style fit into the general feel of the Darkhouse, and that was all they had in common. That, and orbiting the strangely beautiful woman in the middle.

I turned to ask Tessa who that woman was and caught her looking. With the dark makeup around Tessa's eyes, the icy blue appeared white. A visible shiver ran down her spine. Then she noticed me looking, and shot me a broken grin.

"Who's she?"

Tessa looked down, a blush rising in her ivory cheeks. She didn't bother to play dumb. "You know the Raven's Roost?"

"Sure, yeah." The Raven's Roost was a store that sold everything from soap and lotions to books that pretended they had spells in them. I'd been in there once or twice in high school and had even bought a crow skull that still sat on my bookcase. I didn't remember seeing that woman.

"She owns it."

"You know her?"

Tessa nodded, looking down and then turning away from me. I wished I could read her face. "Her name's Blaise. Blaise Black."

I looked over. Blaise had found a table, and I didn't remember a free one. Her group sat down and one of the guys shambled over to the bar. Blaise looked over the bar. As her gaze fluttered over the assembled people, it landed on mine. For a moment, our eyes met. A shiver went through me, going right through my belly and down into my cock. I was stirring, somehow, like she was using witchcraft to get me hard. She gave me a small smile, and her gaze moved along.

"Hey, Tessa." One of the guys from the group had come over. He looked to be hovering around forty. His bottle black hair was buzzed and he wore a short goatee. I realized then that he and I were dressed almost identically. That didn't feel great. "How are you doin'?"

"Not bad," she said, and her smile was as far from flirty as I'd ever seen her get. "Usual?"

"Yeah. Listen, I was wondering if you were free tomorrow night."

"Blaise tell you to ask me?"

"No," he said, but the tone implied that Blaise might have suggested it. "I just wanted to see you again."

"Sorry, Terr. Went out and got myself a boyfriend." She gestured at me.

"Wait, what?" I managed.

The guy looked at me with big eyes. "Oh, shit. Sorry." He stuck out his hand. "Terry Mendez."

I took the hand, and before I could talk, Tessa said, "This is Theo. He's a big game hunter."

Terry laughed. "Yeah, okay. Just the drinks then."

"Sorry to disappoint Blaise," Tessa said, and she started the order.

"Big game hunter, huh?" Terry said to me.

"She's fucking with you," I said.

"I know. I know Tessa. Pretty. Fucking. Well."

"Yeah, okay."

"How come I've never seen you here before?"

"I don't come here very much."

"I met him when he was picking up his dick reduction medicine," Tessa said.

"Dick reduction?" Terry asked, breaking into a smile.

"Oh yeah," I said, rolling with it. "It's a problem. Every time I got a boner I passed out. Hit my head a bunch of times. Forgot how to do math."

"That's a bummer, man." He was chuckling, but the slight worry in his eyes hinted that he wasn't a hundred percent sure we were kidding.

"Tell me about it."

"Order up," Tessa said, sliding over a tray covered in an array of drinks.

"Put it on the tab," Terry said, and picked up the tray with surprising grace and went back to the table.

"Dick reduction medicine?" I asked.

"You think he bought it?"

"I don't know. How dumb is he? Wait, was Terry half of the couple you were seeing? Was the Queen of the Damned over there the other half?"

"No, nothing like that. I was never really with Terry."

"You tell him that?"

"Many, many times."

"So I'm your boyfriend now? Wasn't part of this whole thing to get me out, maybe meet some women?"

"You can still meet women. If you see somebody you like, just let me know. I probably know them and we can try that dick reduction thing."

"Please don't."

"Just...not that group, Theo. Trust me."

I glanced over at them, and Terry was whispering in Blaise's ear. Her depthless eyes were on me, and I shivered again. Tessa said not her. Easier said than done.

I stayed until closing. Blaise Black's group danced, drank. Some of them made out. They left around one thirty, and the Darkhouse closed at two. I was swaying pretty badly by then. Fortunately, home was walking distance.

"Hey, I'm too keyed up to sleep," Tessa said. "Want to come over?"

"Yeah, sure." I was already thinking about climbing the outside stairs to get to my family's second floor home, and vertigo set in. Probably not the best sign, but I'd had six cocktails and wasn't made of iron. "I could eat," I said.

"You should eat."

We got takeout from the all-night Chinese place a few doors down and went to her apartment. She lived in a complex that had been shacks for fisherman a hundred years ago and was now a bungalow court on the south end of town.

Tessa and I sat on her sofa, eating greasy noodles and fried rice, while we watched Adult Swim into the deep hours. As soon as the last forkful of food had been eaten, she packed a pipe and the two of us were smoking, so I got to stack a good pot high on top of my waning drunk. I pretty much accepted that I wasn't making it home that night. Somewhere around sunrise I passed out on her couch.

For the next month, I hung out with Tessa during her shifts. Mostly Fridays, but I threw the occasional Saturday or weeknight. Working the shop with a hangover wasn't impossible, just unpleasant. That never seemed to matter when the end of the night rolled around and cheap Chinese food, decent pot, and the Aqua Teens called.

I met a couple women through Tessa. She introduced me to a friend of hers that I was already interested in. Espy Rangel was a hot, semi-gothy young woman from one town inland. She and Tessa met each other back when they were going to the same concerts, carpooling down to L.A. or Santa Barbara or up to Santa Cruz.

Blaise Black came in frequently. The makeup of her entourage changed by one or two members each time, and I started to recognize everyone in it. There were about a dozen of them total, about evenly split between men and women. A couple of the ladies had caught my eye, but I remembered what Tessa had said, and stayed away. Besides, I could think about Beth, and now Espy.

I'd catch Blaise looking at me at least once per visit, or maybe she was catching me. Either way, our eyes would meet and I felt the very real shiver she put into my spine and iron in my pants.

One night I was coming back from the bathroom, and I spotted Tessa over at Blaise's table. They were talking, and Blaise was looking in my direction. Tessa kept her attention riveted on the older woman, with a stiff posture implying she was fighting the urge to look anywhere else. I returned to my seat, pulling the same trick, trying to watch without watching.

Tessa made her way back over and gave me the fakest smile I'd ever seen. Blaise's group left shortly afterwards. It was near the end of the night so I didn't put much on significance on that. I was more sober than usual, so I actually managed to pick up on Tessa's weird energy.

It wasn't until we were walking back from the Chinese place, clutching the Styrofoam container with my late night meal that I said something. "What was going on with Blaise and them?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You and she were talking."

"Nothing, it's stupid."

"Is she an ex or something?"

"'Or something' sums it up pretty well."

"Got it."

She fixed me with her icy blue eyes. "You need to hear this, but you do not, under any circumstances, got it."

"This is weird, Tess. I feel like I'm in a David Lynch movie and I'm gonna find out you've got Dennis Hopper in a closet or something."

Tessa sighed. "No. Okay, this is gonna sound strange. You promise you'll be cool with this?"

"I can't imagine something that you would have done that would make me not cool with you."

Tessa took a deep breath. "I get back from college, right? I've got this useless degree that I paid too much for."

"Tell me about it. Nobody's keen to hire English majors."

"Right. I get a job at the Darkhouse. I can't really tend bar, but Taylor, that's the owner, figures you can learn to tend bar, but you can't learn to be hot. Her words, by the way. Blaise comes in like she does, and I mean, you've seen her. You think she's a little ridiculous, definitely pretentious, but you go home and it turns out she's the one you're picturing when it's time to rub one out."

I snorted. "I have an inkling of what you're talking about."

"I bet you do. Anyway, she approaches me. She has this way of talking, kind of old fashioned, or what an Anne Rice fan thinks is old fashioned? It makes you feel smart, like you're in on something. And when Blaise is paying attention to you, it's like you're the only person in the world. She picked me up, took me home, fucked me six ways from Sunday."

"Why would that make me not cool with you?"

"Because it gets a little weirder than that. Blaise like...she teaches you how to fuck. And...and she assigns someone to be your partner. That was Terry. I spent most of last summer fucking Terry while Blaise watched, telling him what to do with me and what I should do with him."

I swallowed. It was weird all right. The thought of her with Terry filled me with inexplicable jealousy, but the thought of her and Blaise tightened my pants. "Yeah, that's something."

"Wasn't just Terry. She had me practice on Susan, who...you might have noticed her. The chick with the nose ring and the spider tattoo?"

"Yeah, I saw her." I had ogled her at least once, but I wasn't going to volunteer that.

"You hang with Blaise and she's your whole world. It feels so natural too. So easy to miss that this is strange. I never fell in all the way like the others. It's like a cult. I kind of disengaged. And you saw it, Terry misses me. Starting to think Blaise misses me, or maybe she's just upset that someone left."

"Terry's like forty and he was fucking a hot twenty two-year-old bartender. No wonder he misses you."

"Yeah. I mean, the guy can fuck, but the head games are not worth it."

"And they're not the couple?"

"No, that's a whole other can of worms." She broke into a smile. "Aren't you glad you know me?"

"If you can get Espy to go out with me, yes. Very much."

"You're gonna have to up your game if you want to pull that, my friend."

"Maybe I should call Blaise."

"Don't joke about that, Theo."

"Sorry." The thing was, I wasn't totally joking.

The nights of that summer blended into each other in a haze of goth industrial music, greasy food, liquor, and sweet pot smoke. Sometime in late July, we were at Tessa's place deep into the night, laughing as the Aqua Teen credits rolled. I was slouched on Tessa's sofa, she on the other side, her long legs gathered up under her.

"Can I ask you something?" A question had been rattling around in my head in the week since Tessa had told me about Blaise. "Why does she teach people to fuck? Is there like...a gang of bullies and she's training you for some kind of All-Valley Fuck Tournament?"

"I think she just gets off on it. The power, I mean. She likes being this sort of magical, ethereal being. Like a fairy godmother who gives mind-blowing head."

"Mind-blowing, huh?" Tessa was silent. I turned to see if she planned to say anything and she was giving me this speculative look. "What?"

"You want to see?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want a blowjob?"

"What?"

"Seems pretty self-explanatory."

"From you?"

"No, from the dwarf I keep in my trunk. Yes from me."

"You want to suck my dick."

She shrugged. "I want to suck your dick more than I want to suck Terry's. I don't know, I thought it would be fun. You're my best friend, I'm bored and I'm horny. Seems like a good enough reason, doesn't it?"

"It does?"

She sighed. "Theo. You have two choices here. Either you get a blowjob or you don't. Call me crazy, but I feel like this one is a no brainer."

I swallowed. The air in the room was close. I was suddenly aware of how beautiful Tessa was. How much I wanted to feel her mouth on my cock. "Yeah, okay."

"Good. Let's see what I'm getting." Her blue eyes were bright as they fell to my crotch.

With nerveless fingers I undid my pants and opened them up. My cock was more eager than I was, springing to life, the tip glistening with a drop of precum. The warm air of the room washed over my nudity.

"Hello, what have we here?" Tessa said, dropping to her knees in front of me.

"What, that's good?"

She inspected it, never quite touching, but I felt her breath brushing over my sensitive flesh. "Good size, nice and fat, why?"

"I never thought I was big."

"You watch too much porn."

"That's probably true."

She licked her lips. "Get ready to have your world rocked, Bright."

Her icy blue eyes fixed on mine as she ran her tongue from the root to the head, swirling lightly about. When she was done, I was glistening and the precum was gone. She repeated this twice more, up each side. There was something wonderfully alluring about the businesslike way she did it, like she was just a pal showing me a Stupid Human Trick.

"Normally," she said, "I'd be moaning, saying 'mmm,' and telling you how good your cock tastes."

"What do you mean normally?"

"If you were a boyfriend or a hookup."

"Aren't we literally in the process of hooking up right now?"

"Yeah, but not like...oh, shut the fuck up. She gave me a gentle, spiraling stroke up my shaft and whatever protests I might have had were gone in the spark of sensation that followed her path. She had such graceful hands. I always thought she should have been a violinist, but I knew that if I started that, she would stop what she was doing. This wasn't romantic. This was two friends hanging out.

Or so she was going to pretend. I'd pretend anything if it kept her doing the wonderful things she was doing.

She kept her attentions, licking, swirling, teasing, always keeping her right hand lightly wrapped around me. Occasionally, a stroke up over my head, then down. She looked down only rarely, keeping her pale blue eyes locked on mine. That was what caught me more than anything she was doing, was the power, the intimacy of the eye contact. These were the eyes of my best friend, the ones I saw at the other side of countless inside jokes. Now the context had changed. They were the eyes of the woman whose lips were wrapped around my cock, giving me the best blowjob of my life.

As though to prove that, she sucked my head into her mouth, her tongue running back and forth in maddening circles. The suction pulled at the pleasure massing in my belly and balls. I ran my fingers over her hollowed out cheek, to the border where her lips ended and my slick shaft began. She caught my hand and firmly put it on her head.

With a pop she released me. "No sweet shit," she said. "If you want, pull my hair a little. Don't push though. I'll take you, but we work up to it."

"Right, yeah. Just keep going."

She smiled a sweet, winsome grin, putting her head on my thigh, stroking me. "Having fun?"

"Oh yeah."

"Me too."

She took me in her mouth again. This time, I felt more spit. She sloshed it about in her mouth, the wad of saliva a counterpoint to her tongue. She began to bob her head. Slowly at first, taking more of me in. Whenever she swallowed more, the drool fell from her lips to drip down my glistening cock. Then she would move, taking the tails of each stream.

I was now pushing at the back of her tongue, and she showed no signs of stopping. I'd gotten a few blowjobs in my time, though not many. Every woman I'd been with always stopped here, right as the head of me neared the back of her throat. I'd see the beginning of tears at the corner of her eyes and she would let me go, sucking me shallowly. That was always enough to get me to finish, but the back of the mouth had become the promised land. Mysterious and sexy, I wanted nothing more than to know what it felt like.

She wasn't doing the groans. Instead, the sounds were slurps. Dirty and sexy, like she didn't care how she sounded, how she looked. She needed the taste of my cock on her tongue. Needed to cover me in her spit. Needed to suck everything down I gave her.

She swallowed more of me, and I got my wish. I felt my cock at the gateway to her throat. She blinked only once, before her eyes returned to mine, a challenge in their icy depths. She was showing me what she learned, just like she promised.

More saliva dripped from her hungry mouth. I couldn't even imagine what she was doing to me behind those lips. It felt like nothing I had ever experienced. She was using her spit, her tongue, suction, and motion in harmony. My cock was in the midst of a maelstrom, the orgasm she brewed in me felt like an atomic explosion perpetually on the verge.

The closest thing to the emotion I felt was panic. My hips came off the couch, and she only went harder. I heard myself, distantly, "Oh fuck, oh fuck" again and again. And then, when I thought she could do no more, she forced her head forward. Tears wobbled in her blue eyes, and I was in her throat. She began to hum.

The vibrations hit my cockhead as the liquid swirled all around me. My world went the too-blue color of her eyes. She was all around me, my entire universe was her. I felt myself emptying into her, spurt after hot spurt. Her throat squeezed me, and then released, and I was in her mouth. Her hand stroked my shaft while she nursed, milking the pearly ropes from my cock to be swallowed. She brought me down gradually, her strokes slowing as her tongue picked up the last few bits of my cum.

Her pupils were tiny and she was shivery as she smiled. Her mouth came off my glistening cock and she gave the helmet an affectionate peck. "What did you think?"

"Fuck, Tessa."

"I eat pussy just as well, but that doesn't really help you."

"That was amazing."

"I know," she said.

I looked down at her, then hooked my hands under her armpits. She yelped, the fell into a giggle as I got her on the couch. I undid her skirt, and hooked my fingers over the lacy strings of her panties.

"What are you doing?" she laughed.

"Returning the favor."

"You don't have to."

"I want to."

"Fucking fine," she sighed, then let out a shivery breath as she lifted her ass to help me peel off her panties. She wanted this as much as I did, but Tessa had to pretend. Had to make believe that we weren't crossing a wonderful line and loving every second. "Like what you see?" she asked. I must have made some kind of face.

Not a single hair grew from her pussy. Lacy innerfolds peaked from the smooth slit, already shiny with her juices. Her scent was strong, the sweat of her night of work marinating her sex, mingling with the sultry pot smoke hanging in the air.

"Yeah, a lot. I've never seen, you know, a shaved pussy up close."

"Waxed, actually." She wiggled her skinny hips. "Get to work. I'm about ready to pop."

I went right for the center of her. I'd never do that now, but I was still relatively inexperienced. I'd eaten out my college girlfriends of course, but I was out of practice, and this was unfamiliar territory. And the weirdness that this wasn't any pussy invading my senses, but that of my best friend. Her lips splayed open, calling me in for a kiss. I entered her, running my tongue up her slit, the pungent juice collecting on my tongue. I kissed her as I would a mouth, exploring the folds and crevices of her. I felt her fingers in my hair, the odd squeal and sigh. She gyrated her hips into me, chasing my tongue at times. I worked until my tongue was sore, but she never broke.

Finally, she pulled me up, "Stop, stop."

"You're not done," I protested.

"Yeah, it's not gonna work. Do you have any condoms?"

"I didn't bring one."

"Hold on." She got up, scampering into the other room. Wearing only her shirt made her look almost innocent. I quickly stripped off the rest of my clothes and was naked when she returned clutching a square wrapper. "Lay down," she said.

I lay back on the couch. She straddled my thighs, my erect cock up between us, and the feel of her pussy, wet with juice and my saliva, made me momentarily swoon. She opened the wrapper and unrolled it over my length with a grin.

"You ready, cowboy?"

"Ready as I'll ever be, cowgirl."

She moved up, taking my cock in hand, and angling it to her sex. Slowly, she eased herself down. The words kept repeating in my head: I was inside Tessa. I was inside Tessa. I was inside Tessa. She gripped me tightly, her sex sliding over my shaft. I moved my hands up, under her shirt, caressing her flat belly, her muscles taut beneath her soft skin.

"Oh right. We don't need this," she said, her breath quick and shallow. She pulled her shirt over her head and threw it aside. We were nude now together. For some reason, this was the true intimacy. Not even the sex, but this, seeing each other without any shred of clothes.

Tessa's breasts were small, her nipples as pale as the rest of her. I ran my palms lightly over her, and she shuddered, letting out an adorable sigh. She took me in to the root, her sex holding mine in a velvet embrace. She looked down at me with a smile that was more relieved than anything else.

She leaned over, and I felt the hard nubbin of her clit pressed against me. Then she began a slow, powerful swirl of her hips. Where the caress of her hand and mouth had been gentle, this was brutal. I watched her eyes go cloudy as she sucked in shivery breaths. Her pussy gripped and released in counterpoint of her movements, always milking, always pulling me in deeper. She pushed against me, coaxing me further.

She balanced herself on my chest, her long fingers steepling. She bent forward, driving herself back now, her sighs becoming animalistic grunts. For the first time, she shut her eyes. Her brow furrowed, and she concentrated, wringing the orgasm from our fucking.

As for me, it was the second of the night, but I was ready. Eating her out had primed me, and her pussy had skill I didn't know was possible. I'd never been with anyone nearly as experienced as she. I remembered what she'd said about Blaise. Tessa had learned to fuck, and this had to be the fruits of those lessons. I was awed and humbled at what my friend could do.

More importantly in the moment, I was full. The pleasure covered my insides, reaching out to all corners of me, building something impossibly powerful. She sat down hard on me and uttered a single broken cry, her body shuddering. The explosion broke out of me in a wave, and I could do nothing but grip her slender hips, driving what I could into her.

She went limp, breathing heavily, her face against the side of my neck. We lay there for a few moments, and she got up. I stripped the condom off, tied the end, and she took it from me into the bathroom.

I lay back on the couch, trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd just had the best sex of my life with my best friend. What were we? That was the question looming over me, bigger than the world.

Tessa came back into the room. Her nudity was casual. "Hey, are you spending the night?"

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah, come on."

I followed her into the bedroom and we climbed into her bed. She was warm. I cuddled up behind her, and she pulled my arms around her. I brushed the hair from her neck, kissing her pulse.

"Theo?" Her voice was small but forceful in the dark.

"Yeah?"

"We're not together, okay?"

"Okay."

"We'll fuck, you can sleep over, and you can cuddle and kiss and whatever, but only when we're in private, okay? Soon as we go through that door, we're just Theo and Tessa. Like before."

"I understand."

"You're not gonna be a girl about this are you?"

"That's pretty sexist."

She smacked me. "Don't start."

We were quiet for a little longer. "Hey, Tessa? When I ate you out..."

"I didn't cum. Yeah, don't worry. You're gonna get a ton of practice. I'll turn you into a clamdigger par excellence."

I snorted. "Looking forward to it."

"I bet you are." She rolled over. Her eyes were luminous in the dark. She kissed my cheek softly. "Now get some sleep."