For years, it was enough. But now, she is the lamb lost in the desert, wandering without hope. She wants more. Not cuddling or breakfast, but the release she sees in her partners. The sense of ease that lulls them to sleep, or makes them kiss up her neck in groggy pleasure.

  Her best friend, Yara, the one who found her orgasm at eighteen, has tried to help. For almost ten years, she’s been Claire’s orgasm priest: put your hands here, say these words, take the body into your mouth. Claire goes to Yara’s house every year for her birthday, her penance and confession. Forgive me mother, for I have not had an orgasm. Every year, Yara gives Claire another vibrator, a new how-to book. Last year, for twenty-nine, Yara gave them both gift certificates for a local have-an-orgasm seminar.

  Claire had stared at the tickets in disbelief. “An orgasm class?” she’d said. “What are you going to do, teach?” But she and Yara had gone, and then she’d had to find her labia in the mirror, even though directions weren’t her issue. And she’d had to rub her fingers frantically along her drying clit while Yara and the other women earned A-pluses for their Os. It didn’t help that the teacher prodded her along with cheerleader yelps that made Claire want to hide under the sex furniture.

  This year, on her birthday, Claire doesn’t want to talk about sex. She wants to move on to something that doesn’t sound like the repetition of dead Latin on her tongue. Her “To-Do Before Thirty” list is unfinished, the word orgasm staring at her in her own youthful purple penmanship. She’s done her Hail Marys on the gift of anal beads, flogged herself with the hand-carved paddle Yara had mail ordered, impaled herself with the devil-headed vibrator. All for nothing.

  Still, when Yara invites her for her birthday, she goes, and now they are lying sprawled on Yara’s red comforter, their feet hanging off the end of the bed. Claire’s comfortable here, she knows the oak dresser from Yara’s mom, the shag rug, the louvered closet that even now, she knows, harbors some of her own clothes—the jeans that she left here after Yara’s twenty-seventh birthday, her blue I’M ONLY A BITCH TO YOU T-shirt that Yara confiscated.

  Out in the living room, Yara’s current lover, an Icelandic man whose twenty-day visa is expiring, packs his suitcase. Claire is between lovers, or perhaps done with lovers. She can no longer delight in those final, satisfied sighs of others. Or in the way they try, after, with fingers and tongues until she takes their hand or head, and says, “It’s okay.” It makes her insides feel dry as dirt.

  When Yara wiggles closer, her dark curly hair scratches against Claire’s cheek, but Claire doesn’t move away. Everything is cactus and clay, why not her best friend’s hair?

  Yara touches Claire’s leg with her purple-painted toes. From beneath Yara’s pant leg, the bottom half of her tattoo is visible: a swirl of blues and reds. Once Claire thought she might get a tattoo, something with rain and flowers, but now she knows she already has one: her own scarlet O sewn to her chest.

  “What do you think?” Yara asks.

  Claire knows she means the Icelandic man in the living room, with his chiseled pale skin, like he’s been carved from salt and stone. “He seems nice,” she says.

  “Nice?” Yara asks.

  The sides of Claire’s nose prickle, like when she used to be able to cry. She rubs her hand across the smooth comforter. There are puckers where the fabric caught on something—who knows what with Yara—and pulled.

  Yara’s purple-painted toes push hard against Claire’s calf. “C’mon, just last week, you would have been oohing and ahhing over him,” she says. “He’s just your type.”

  Yara knows Claire so well—her Icelandic is built the way Claire likes, tall and thinly muscled, and that chiseled pale skin. She imagines him above her. She has no qualms about this—she and Yara have shared men before, guys who Yara thinks might help Claire. And, yet, even imagining him beneath her while she kneels over him—her favorite way—she feels nothing. Dry dust settles down her stomach, into the space between her legs.

  Yara sits up, turns Claire’s face toward her so that Claire can see her eyes, the color of stained wood.

  “Oh my,” Yara says. “You need an intervention.”

  Claire’s ring catches on the snag in the comforter. She lets it stay there, afraid to pull, unable to find the energy to turn and loosen it. She doesn’t want an intervention. She wants to go back in time to that moment before she stopped believing. She wants someone to bring her, not water or wine, but whatever she needs to quench the dull dry air inside her mouth, inside her everywhere. If she had words on her tongue instead of this heavy nothing, she would say how grateful she is for all Yara has done, and then she would crawl under Yara’s comforter and sleep until she crumbled into nothing.

  “Well, I’d offer you my guy,” Yara says. “But I don’t think it will help.”

  Yara drops her hand and face from Claire’s. “And here’s the truth,” she says. “It’s his last night here. He leaves for the airport in”—Yara glances at the bedside clock—“an hour. So how’s this for a plan? I’m going to fuck him and send him on his way, and then we’ll work on you until the wee hours of the morning.”

  When Yara looks at her, Claire sees that Yara feels guilty for this, like a priest who’s abandoned his lost lamb at Christmas mass. Claire isn’t sure she understands, but there is so much she doesn’t understand that she is able to nod at her friend. Yes, okay. If Yara wants to have an orgasm on her, Claire’s, birthday, then so be it. Yara’s done as much as anybody, she’s done as much as she could. And, really, isn’t this what Claire asked for this year? To be left alone in her own dry desert?

  “Thank you for this,” Yara says, and Claire sees something there in Yara’s bottom lip, a small quiver, and that’s when she knows—this is the real thing for Yara. The big L, the love thing, that other elusive holy grail.

  Yara gets off the bed and puts her hands around her mouth, an exaggerated call to arms. “Oh Iceman,” she calls. She gives Claire a wink that says, Remember the days when we were in love with Val Kilmer and Goose and Tom Cruise on his motorcycle? Claire remembers—she remembers thinking someday she’d have a man like that to make her come.

  “Ten minutes,” Yara whispers. “Okay, maybe fifteen,” and then she leaves Claire in the bedroom with the dresser and the comforter and the closet. Claire listens to Yara’s swish-swish sound, the way she walks with her pant legs rubbing together, to the Icelander’s footsteps across the living room.

  “My Yara,” he says in his accented voice that matches his chiseled face perfectly.

  Claire pulls the corner of the comforter over her head, but it is not enough to block out the sounds of kissing. She would hate Yara if she could, for making her listen to this, for making her wait through it. Through the comforter, still she hears the sounds, even over the crack of her own insides breaking into dust.

  Claire realizes the sounds are coming closer. She hears Yara’s voice saying, “We can’t, Claire’s in there,” and then her soft laugh, the one she does right before she’s about to give in to something.

  Claire pulls the comforter off her head in a moment of panic. She’s done threesomes before, but never with Yara. Not with Yara. She couldn’t bear it if she did it and it didn’t work. It would be like seeing the face of God on a piece of toast just before someone covered it in butter.

  She’ll leave, that’s what she’ll do. Screw her birthday, and the girl-talk crap. She should have just gone home anyway. But as soon as she’s off the bed, they are in the hallway. They aren’t in the room yet, but she will never get past without them noticing, without a hassle.

  Claire moves toward the far end of the room. The closet doors beckon in their slatted openness. It is pew and confessional both in there, dark and safe. When Claire sees Yara’s hand moving in the hallway, she knows now is the time. There will be no other chance to escape.

  Claire steps in among the hanging shirts and skirts. When the louvered doors fold closed without a sound, she is grateful for oiled hinges. The closet floor is covered with clothes, but they smell clean at least, like fabric softener and the basil hand cream that Yara wears. Claire kneels on the soft pile, prepared to wait it out. Hanging fabric brushes her shoulders.

  Yara and Iceman come into the room, mouths locked. Already, Yara’s shirt is unbuttoned and half-slid down her shoulders.

  Yara pops the button on Iceman’s jeans, even while he leans in and nips at her shoulder, down the side of her arm.

  “Where is your friend?” Iceman asks.

  Yara breaks the kiss, looks around her room. “I don’t know,” she says. “She’ll be back.”

  It is not a snide remark. Just Yara’s truth. Claire always comes back. Inside the closet, Claire shifts on the clothes, putting her knees on the deepest, softest part of the pile. She feels safe in here, watching from the dark space. No one sees her, no one is waiting to see if she’ll finally come.

  Yara slides the jeans down over his thin, muscled hips. The fabric falls to his ankles. It is only when he lifts one leg to step out of them that Claire realizes he wasn’t wearing underwear. His cock, as thin and long as the rest of him, is already hard, curling up like a smile.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving,” Yara says, even as she hooks her thumbs inside her jeans and her baby blue thong, pulls them down in one easy motion. Her thigh sports a new tattoo, a gold-yellow sunshine as big as Claire’s fist. “You’re going to have to fuck me”—Yara pantomimes with her hands—“the way we did last night.”

  Iceman smiles. His smile is the same shape as his cock. It makes Claire want to laugh, but she drops her head down, looks at the pile of shoes in the corner until she doesn’t want to laugh anymore.

  When she looks up, Iceman has his hands on Yara’s face. His thumb runs across the mole on her jawline.

  “Yara,” he says, and his voice sounds like prayer.

  The thing that comes over Claire is as sudden and hot as the tears. She reaches out, wipes the wet on something hanging in front of her. The fabric is soft and smells like fresh-cut grass. She is stupid, stupid for letting Yara lead her by the hand, stupid for being here. When she leaves the closet, she will find new friends, she will get herself a boyfriend and be happy for his orgasms. Or she will meditate and do Upside-Down Dog until her head spins and her clit dries up and falls off.

  When Claire looks back up, Yara is naked. Claire sees she’s shaved since last year’s orgasm class, a small thin strip of hair the only thing guiding the way. Claire’s own bush is ridiculous, she knows, outgrown and untended. How can something grow in such dryness? She puts her hand down the front of her jeans, pulls the long, kinky hairs. No one sees it anyway.

  Iceman pulls his shirt over his head. His chest muscles are biteable, hard but not too hard. Claire shuts her eyes against the ache that trickles down her belly. But she can’t resist watching, to see how they fucked last night, to see what this man will do with his thin cock and his long fingers.

  When Yara crouches down, hands and knees on the carpet, she faces Claire. If she looked up, she would see Claire through the slats in the closet, Claire is sure of it, but Yara doesn’t look up, she looks down at the carpet. Yara goes down on her elbows, so that her ass is in the air. She is curvy in the way that looks right in this position, like someone should paint her here. Orgasming Girl on Carpet.

  From behind, Iceman goes down on his knees. He runs his hands over the fleshy curves of Yara’s ass. Then he leans down further, gives the side of her leg a nip. Yara squeals, and then her voice settles down into a low grunt as he moves further and further toward her center. Claire can only see the top of his head over Yara’s ass, but she knows, she knows by the way Yara sounds, when he hits the spot.

  Claire’s face is mashed up as close as it will get to the closet doors without touching the wood. Her hand still pulls at her curls, and when she reaches down, she’s surprised to find that in her own deep center, she is wet. Dripping even. She can’t remember the last time she didn’t need lube to run her fingers across her clit like this, slow and quiet, so quiet they won’t hear her, so quiet she can pretend she’s not even doing it. She wants to unbutton her jeans, but she is afraid to break this moment, so she just spreads her legs a little wider on the pile of clothes.

  Outside the closet, Iceman’s head rises and falls behind Yara’s ass. Yara pants a little, rocks back and forth on her elbows and knees. Her nipples rub on the carpet, tight and pink. Claire reaches up with her other hand, inside her shirt and bra, and pinches her own nipple until it hardens beneath her fingers. Pain and pleasure light her up from nipple to clit. A new wetness floods her fingers.

  “Wait,” Yara says, and she moves away from Iceman, up on her knees. “I want to be on top,” she says.

  They switch, until Iceman is beneath her, his head so close to Claire’s closet that she can see a few dark strands in his pale hair. Lying down, he is long and lean, only his cock rising up like a slanting steeple from his hips. Yara kneels above him and puts her hand on his cock. When she makes a fist around him and pumps, he raises his hips off the floor, moves toward her. Yara lowers herself onto him, slow, slow. Claire watches his cock slide inside her, a half inch at a time, disappearing until there is only hip and hip, moving in unison. Yara pinches her nipples into long pink points. She leans back a little, gives Iceman space to fit his fingers to her clit.

  Claire’s clit aches, and one hand is not enough anymore. She unbuttons her pants, slides both hands inside her wet curls. Claire’s fingers are frantic across her own slippery clit, matching Iceman’s strokes. She’s so caught up in the watching that she forgets her fingers are moving, until she feels the familiar ache in her wrist. Even then, she doesn’t stop, just changes angles without looking away. Watching is good, she realizes, but it is the not being watched that is better. This is what she is meant to do, to offer up her silent, fingering prayer in the dark confessional of spaces.

  Through the slats in the closet, Claire watches as Yara leans back further, grabs her heels with her hands. Beneath her, Iceman pumps into her and rubs his hand across her clit. Yara’s eyes are on the closet doors now, but they don’t see Claire, they’ve gone somewhere else, they’re seeing the thing that Claire wants to see.

  In the small, dark space, some strange thing possesses Claire, rushing out from her clit in waves of heat and light. She feels like a star must feel before it explodes. Claire’s body is no longer her own. She gives it up willingly to whatever higher being there is. When Iceman flicks his fingers against Yara’s clit, Claire’s clit throbs. When Yara moans, Claire’s mouth opens. When Yara clenches around Iceman’s cock, Claire sticks two fingers inside herself, rocks back and forth. And when Yara comes, grunting on top of Iceman, her head thrown back, legs shaking, Claire comes too, her fingers flames against the water of her clit, burning and quenching. Finally, Claire knows possession, salvation, light. Claire believes.

  LATE BLOOMER

  Alison Tyler

  I can actually see things from Nina’s point of view. It’s taken me a solid ten years, but I finally understand. Nina thought I was too tightly wound. She wanted to shake me to my core, and she did a damn fine job. Now, a decade after the fact, I have come to appreciate her style, her dead-on sense of timing. As well as her unbelievable ass.

  There she stood, in the center of my sunken living room, stark naked and unabashedly gorgeous, her tanned skin gleaming, blonde hair like liquid amber spilling out down her back. She arched her hips ever so subtly, so that her rear end looked enticingly biteable. I could imagine taking a few short steps forward, going on my knees, sinking my teeth into those delicately rounded cheeks. Then she spun around slowly, watching herself the entire time in the mirror that hung over the fireplace mantel, looking over her shoulder to catch herself from every luscious angle. A former cheerleader, Nina had a way of moving as if she always knew that eyes were on her—and generally, they were.

  But they weren’t on me.

  I was the quintessential wallflower, the late bloomer—one who hadn’t yet bloomed at all. Supremely self-conscious in my womanly body, I worked in pathetic desperation to hide every evidence of my feminine curves. My uniform was simple: well-worn jeans and baggy sweaters, sleeves dangling down past my wrists. I used my fingers to occasionally push my thick dark hair out of my eyes, but generally I hid behind my long bangs, safe in my mantra that nobody cares what writers look like.

  While Nina preened, I leaned against the doorjamb between the living room and the dining room, clad in my beloved ancient navy blue sweats and an oversized man’s T-shirt. My brown hair was tangled, twisted into snakelike coiled curls, and my eyes were tired from hours spent staring at the computer screen. I cradled a cup of coffee tightly between both hands, as if it was my security blanket, but I knew that I wouldn’t feel truly awake until the third cup had kicked in. My best work happens late into the night. Still I stared, unable to tear myself away. Nina’s radiance captivated me. There was no way I would be able to go about my daily routine knowing that she was prancing around the apartment in her birthday suit. How could I possibly concentrate?

  “I’m the only one who can do this,” she crowed at me, still admiring her own breathtaking reflection.

  “Naked yoga?” I asked, nonplused as she began her standard Sun Salutation, slender arms lifted high to the ceiling. I started to drink the coffee quickly even though it was too hot. My burned tongue woke me up a little bit faster.

  “No, Melanie,” she said with a sly smile, “walk around the house in my altogether.” Now she grinned, her palms pressed flat together, and assumed a pose of total serenity. I stared at the delicate lines of muscles in her back, the tattoo of a violet rose blossoming at the base of her spine. “You wouldn’t want Joe to see you undressed, and he has no desire for you to catch him in the buff. But I’m free to do as I please.”