On the table, our fingers twined. A slow, warm glow started in my belly, spreading lower as if I were bathed in sunlight from the inside. My nipples tightened and my groin followed suit, pressure building.

  Just from that kiss.

  Finally, reluctantly, she pulled away. “Wow,” she said. “I hope that was as amazing for you as it was for me.”

  All I could do was nod.

  “I wish I could sit here and kiss you for hours,” she went on, “but I’m afraid I’ve got to get back….” Her hand squeezed mine. “Can I see you tonight?”

  Again, nodding was my only available option. She’d left me speechless with delight.

  I realized, as I tried to focus on work and failed miserably, that I was nervous. Why, I wasn’t entirely sure. She was cute, she was interested in me; what was the problem?

  The problem was that I really liked her. I’d never been into flings per se, but there had been times when the planets aligned and I’d had a juicy time with a like-minded girl, no strings attached.

  Evie lived in Hawaii (on Oahu, granted) and I was from Chicago. What kind of future could we have?

  And why was I thinking about the future anyway? After the dry air-conditioning in the hotel, the sultry night air was a relief, soft and sweet smelling against my skin. I was to meet Evie in one of the cabanas, far down the beach. The closer cabanas were filled with women who’d spilled out after the conference activities officially ended at ten; I found Evie in a more secluded one, with its own little cove.

  She’d laid out leftover hors d’oeuvres from the conference, along with a bottle of wine and a multitude of candles.

  I was hungry—to keep the cost down I’d been getting most of my meals out of the vending machines—but at the same time, I didn’t want to eat too much. I nibbled juicy chunks of pineapple and mango, tasted spicy shrimp skewers and let sweet wine and conversation flow.

  Finally, though, before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned in and kissed her again.

  Her skin was salty and sun warmed even now, this late, and I was shaking right down to my dollar-store panties, a heady combination of nerves and lust.

  The nerves mostly faded as the kiss progressed, thanks to her enthusiasm. It’s hard to have self-doubts when someone’s kissing you with so much fervor that you nearly fall off your chair.

  When we broke apart, we were both breathless.

  “I have something for you,” she said.

  “I bet you do,” I murmured.

  She laughed. “That’s not what I mean—not right now, anyway. Here.”

  She held up a resort-logoed bag. Inside, I found the shimmery copper bathing suit from the hotel gift shop.

  “Some of the women heard about your luggage and had already started pooling their money,” she said before I could protest. “Anyway, it’s for tomorrow. For when I give you your surfing lesson.” In the candlelight, I saw the wicked glint in her eye. “Tonight, though, you won’t be needing it. Up for a swim?”

  If I’d been thinking more clearly, I would’ve understood that she was suggesting skinny-dipping—which I had no problem with any time—but when she pulled her top over her head, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  Her tanned skin gleamed in the candle flames, and from the lack of lines, I knew she didn’t wear a suit very often even in the daylight.

  Stop staring and strip. Stop ogling her teardrop breasts and thinking about how you want to take those fat nipples into your mouth.

  I compromised and multitasked: I stripped while fantasizing and catching glances as often as I could.

  The water was so calm, so utterly smooth and pristine that I felt a pang of reluctance at disturbing it. But Evie grabbed my hand and urged, “Come on,” and then we were running out together, laughing as the sand shifted beneath our feet and the drag of the water slowed us down.

  We dove and swam and bobbed in the amazingly warm, buoyant water, and when we paused to catch our breaths, I licked her dimple and kissed her again.

  She was saltier and wetter, but her tongue was warm as we got more serious. I was through playing, done with questioning myself—now I wanted her, and I wanted her now.

  I pressed against her. She was taller than me, but the ocean’s effect on my breasts meant they were pretty much in line with hers. I moaned into her mouth when I felt my nipples press against her and hers against me.

  Bliss.

  Beneath the soft water, she slid her hands over my hips, into my waist and up between us, gently urging me back so she could cup my breasts. She rolled my nipples between her fingers, gently at first and then harder as I hissed “Yes. Yes,” and the sweet electric shocks of pleasure rippled through me.

  I sank my teeth into her lower lip, not hard, just tugging and sucking. It wasn’t enough, so I backed toward shallower waters, just enough so her torso was exposed and I could feast on her the way she had touched me. Her mews of delight made my head swim. I could’ve nipped and licked forever, just to hear her gasp and beg for more.

  More was what we both wanted, almost to the point of frenzy. I molded my hands to her pert ass, slid lower. The water was warm, but her core was molten like the volcanoes that had formed this island. I wanted her to explode like those volcanoes.

  One, two, three fingers inside her sleek, tight wetness, while my thumb ground against her hard clit. With another woman, in another place, I would have wanted to lay her out, lick and tease and explore, but with Evie, right here and right now, I wanted to feel her come.

  I wanted to make her come.

  When she did, pulsing and undulating around my fingers, I swallowed her screams in a kiss. My own clit shivered in empathy, not quite an orgasm but with the same rhythmic throbbing as Evie’s climax.

  She fumbled down and stroked me, and I shuddered and rocked against her fingers, pressing my face against her collarbone and begging for mercy.

  She gasped about not having a roommate, which was all I really needed to hear. (Jeanne was a dear friend, but I wanted time alone with Evie: wanted, desired, needed, required, would murder for.)

  Tomorrow we’d surf. Tomorrow, maybe we’d talk about the future, if there was any sort of future to talk about.

  Tonight, though, was about being lost in the tropics with Evie.

  CANVAS

  Kenzie Mayer

  I’m in the bathroom, my wrists going numb from the handcuffs. Every few minutes, I stand on my tiptoes. It relieves the strain some, and then the pins and needles come. Numb’s better. They’re in the living room laughing and talking, watching videos. Her friends have been here for hours. I don’t know if they know I’m in here.

  I know it’s pretty bad and I’d laugh if it weren’t happening to me…but I can’t remember her name. Honestly, she’s a complete stranger. I don’t even remember picking her up…or being picked up, and that’s usually my favorite part. I love the game of predator and prey. I like being wanted. I like the pain of wanting. I love seduction. I love the act of devouring, surrendering.

  I woke up here in the bathroom, and I’ve been waiting ever since. I could probably shove the gag out with my tongue, work it down my chin and scream. The gag’s loose and wet from my saliva and tears, but my mouth is dry and I’m afraid to move my tongue. There’s blood on the floor, and I don’t think all of it came from her piercing my nipples. My back throbs and when I move, things tear back there, and I bleed some more.

  Most of all, I don’t know if her friends will help me or hurt me more.

  I can’t remember how I got here. I can’t remember what I was doing before waking up here in the bathroom, handcuffed to the link in the ceiling.

  The footsteps tell me that she’s not the only one coming back into the bathroom. I sob, muffled in the limp gag. The doorknob turns. My eyes close. I’m terrified. I don’t know if I’m going to live through this. They could do whatever they wanted with me.

  I’m dripping wet. I honestly can’t wait.

  My hands are covered in paint. I love the feel of paint. Thick fat silk, cold at first, warmed quickly. I always want to shove my hands in my mouth and drink it down. I always want to roll in it, drown in it. When I go see other artist’s shows, I worship their brushstrokes, their thick layers of color, the shape of light, the forms of shadow.

  I once got kicked out of the Metropolitan Museum for licking the glass that protected one of Goya’s black book paintings. When Ralph Fiennes ate the William Blake painting in Red Dragon, I laughed and laughed. I understood completely.

  It’s not enough to touch paint, to caress it. I want it on the inside moving within me like a living creature. I want it on my tongue, thick as chocolate, smelling like musk and incense. I want it in my blood, burning pathways in my veins.

  I love having sex in paint. Amy says I’m making love to the paint, though, not her. She asks if I even need her to be there, ’cause it doesn’t seem like it. She teases and asks if I even remember her name, says it isn’t cerulean blue. It’s not alizarian crimson either or azo yellow.

  I look up. The canvas stretches across the entire wall. I don’t remember stretching this. I’d have to, ’cos canvas this big costs a bloody fortune. It’s my painting, too. I’ve already started on it. My signature style: thick paint plastered on with my fingers, arbitrary color straight from the tube, curvy sensuous lines implying movement and breath. I want my paintings to live. Death terrifies me: stillness without end. I’m afraid if I stop moving, I won’t be able to breathe. Sharks never stop moving. They swim and hunt in their sleep.

  I walk around and pull the canvas edge forward. I didn’t stretch this. This canvas was professionally done. I can’t afford this. How the hell did I get it?

  “Amy.” Louder. “Amy.”

  I come back around the side of the canvas, nearly stepping on tubes of paint. I stop and stare. Panic rises. There’s a lot of paint on the floor. Most of the tubes are still in boxes. There’re cans of paint, too. Did I go crazy and buy out the store? Amy’s going to kill me. I probably used her credit cards. Okay, I know I must have used her credit cards. I don’t have any money. Hell, I barely can keep a real job…selling paintings is all I’ve got going. I can’t even afford this house alone. Without Amy I don’t have a damned thing….

  “AMY!”

  “Yeah?” She leans against the door, soup bowl of coffee cradled in her hands. She watches me, dark hair framing her foxlike face, her smile mysterious: Japanese Fox Princess. I can’t remember what it means for the heroes in the folktales when a Japanese Fox Princess falls in love with them. I remember though, strangely enough, that in the Irish/Scottish tales, the Selkie Wife leaves the Husband Hero who hurts her. Or is that when he returns her skin?

  “Amy.” I spread my paint-smeared hands, indicating the canvas, the paint. Caught red-handed! “I think I screwed up.”

  She nods and the smile never leaves her mouth. Something’s off though. I smile back, trying to win her. Do Japanese Fox Wives go samurai kamikaze on their lovers? Do Selkie Wives eat their wayward husbands?

  “Yes,” Amy says, turning away, “you did.”

  I know what’s off. Amy’s smile never reaches her dark almond eyes.

  I’m naked, and except for the candles on the floor lighting the way, it’s dark. My instructions are to crawl to them, even though the double-headed dildo is brushing the floor with every step and shoving deep inside me, even though the tickler part strokes my clitoris and I want to press down harder. I must crawl slowly on my hands and knees and not give in before I get to the bed. If I come to them too quickly, they will make me start all over again.

  I know this for a fact ’cause I woke up here an hour ago…and I’ve been crawling ever since.

  The last time I got to them, to the side of the bed, the blonde reached down and felt me. I knelt before her, sitting back on my heels, my thighs spread. The other end of the dildo was on the floor. It took all of my strength not to push into it. Inside, I was greedy, hungry, pulling at the dildo. But I sat my cunt at the edge of it, the edge of the cliff. I will not jump.

  The wetness on my thighs was warm, and I was purring. The blonde adjusted the strap on the double head. The rocking of it inside me made me moan. She put her fingers in my mouth. I tasted me, some of her. She’d gotten wet watching me crawl down the candlelit hall. The slight taste of both of us rocked my hips. Her girlfriend, a petite redhead, moved to rest her head on the blonde’s hip. She licked her lips like a cat observing a bird with a broken wing.

  “Stop,” the blonde whispered. “If you come before us, there will be punishment.”

  “What kind of punishment?”

  My voice came out husky, hoarse. Was the punishment going to be that I lick them clean? Was the punishment being used over and over again like a tool, a machine, my tongue and lips working endlessly as I sang into their nether lips, my fingers warm as bees in their honey? The dildo moved slick and fast between us, the sound of it slapping against flesh. There was hunger, hunger in our breath, in our hands. Was the punishment going to be another hour of crawling on my hands and knees before them, so wet I was actually swooning?

  Or was the punishment being tossed out…throbbing like this, nearly mad with need?

  The petite redhead murmured into her girlfriend’s belly, “She said we could do anything we want.”

  Had I said that? When? I couldn’t remember anything past an hour ago. I couldn’t even remember coming here.

  “Yes,” I agree now, my voice a ghost, pale in the dark, disappearing. “Whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  The redhead reaches over and gently tugs at my nipple. She twists it and I cry out, thrusting into the dildo. I stop myself from going too much farther, shaking. The redhead laughs. She crawls up closer to my face, her pale soft breasts now sitting in the blonde’s lap. Her tongue flicks out, snakelike, catching the tip of my nose, the side of my cheek. I lean into her, eyes closing. I lick my lips, starving.

  She whispers, her breath stirring against my face, “You don’t even know our names, do you?”

  I really don’t. But, to be fair…I can barely remember my own name right now. I shake my head no. I can’t stop trembling.

  “She’s bad. We should make her earn our forgiveness.” The redhead pulls back and sits up. “And you’ll do anything to make us forgive you, won’t you?”

  Yes. I really will.

  “No matter how humiliating. How degrading.”

  I stare at her. I don’t mean to, but I start crying. I could be somewhere nice right now with my girlfriend. I could be making slow love to her, showing her everything I can never say. I could be telling her things about me, about my past, asking for acceptance and then…taking that acceptance, appreciating the fact that someone knew things about me and still liked me. It would be easy. But, instead, it was so damned hard.

  I wipe my face with the back of my hand. I whisper, “Yeah, no matter what. I can take whatever you got.” I win this. This is what I do. I’m good at this. And you can’t beat me ’cause no matter how awful it is, I will always survive. I will always burn clean.

  The redhead laughs again. She pushes herself to the edge of the bed, shoving her cunt into my face. She spreads her wet lips with her fingers. Even in the dim light of the candles, she shines like a string of pearls, like dew before a storm. The musk of her reaches me. It’s a heady scent. I can nearly taste her, based on that smell alone. I moan.

  “I have to pee a little. Beg to drink me. Then, beg again to eat me.”

  I beg.

  This painting is…it’s brought me to my knees. When the hell did I do that? How did it come out of me? Ripping, tearing…did my soul scream out when it broke away from me? I step back. I don’t know if I can ever do anything like this again. I’m suddenly terrified. What if I can’t? Now that I’ve tasted it…it’s all I want. I want to paint like this…live in this always. Everything else tastes like ashes in my mouth.

  Amy comes up behind me, wrapping her arms around me. I feel suffocated. I wriggle anxiously. Amy lets me go, steps back. Quietly, she says, “I brought you something to drink. It will… help you work.”

  Amy puts the mug in my hand. I can’t take my eyes off the painting. I drink blindly, barely tasting it.

  “Do you see?” I whisper.

  “Yes,” Amy says, “I do see.”

  I think it’s a blindfold…no, it’s heavier than that…a mask? I’m nude and bound. The hands spin me, touch my breasts, my belly; stroke my thighs; glance off my shoulders. Dizzy, I feel like giggling but there’s a rubber ball in my mouth. Vertigo. Vortex. Suddenly I stop. A hand steadies me, pulling on the ball gag in my mouth. I rock in space. My arms and legs are tied up behind me. Only the ropes, the ties that connect me to the ceiling, hold me in place. I’m cold where the binding ties don’t cover me. My nipples stand erect, the chain tinkling lightly as I sway in the ropes.

  Fingers pull at my nipples, jerk at the chain that connects them. They tickle my breasts, my belly. I moan. Fingers probe my cunt, slipping in wetly, pulling out smoothly. The sound of it is like a mouth suckling…I jerk into their hands, hips thrusting against air. I hear laughter. There are a few women here, their laughter like bells, like song.

  The hands move, slide into the crevice of my ass, twist easily into the hole, my juice a lubricant. Then there’s a mouth at my nether lips, a tongue stroking my inner walls, teeth nibbling at the outer lips. I come undone, nearly tearing myself free of the bindings like a bird caught in a spiderweb. There’s more laughter and then coldness as the hands withdraw. I sob, chewing down on the rubber ball, nearly panting with need.

  A voice at my ear says, “Do you know who I am?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Do you care?”

  I hesitate. No, I don’t care. I really don’t care. But is it safe to admit that?

  “Answer me truthfully. No matter what that truth is. Tell me the truth and I will suck you raw. I will make you scream. I will fuck you until you are good and broken. And then, I will give you to the others.” She waits. Then, “Do you care who I am?”