23

The Ram


The taste was salty, a little sweat mixed with the secreted tartness of the juices: more grapefruit than honey. Folds of texture demanded separate exploration – exploitation? – as did the springy mattress of coiled hairs, dark, sparse but still an important contributor to the overall sensory mélange. It was at once the most active and most passive of activities: active, because it demanded the use of facial muscles seldom consulted otherwise, save for a moue or a grimace; passive, because his body took no further part in it than that.

“That’s good. Don’t stop …”

He had almost forgotten the other witness, which was odd, as it was her wishes only he had meant to consult. Looking up, he saw her face looking down at him, complacency mixed, he felt, with a certain anxiety. His tongue probed further, encountering, in its passage, a small raised dot of flesh above the junction of the two sliced halves. At once, and with little warning, the taste came sharper, more urgent. A gasp came from above, and she pressed herself at him with no lingering reserve. The tongue flicked on, pendulum-like, as he paid minute attention to the reactions it inspired.

For a while he investigated the slippery bridge of flesh which joined her slit to the starfish hole behind. This appeared to please her also, though she resisted a little his attempts to probe the latter more deeply. In any case, the posture she was in, on her back, thighs apart, on the edge of the bunk, precluded the possibility of proper entry.

“More … uh. Up above … yes! Don’t stop.”

Her coaching continued with less and less precision as he returned to his original position. At length, after a good ten minutes or so, she gave a little buck and gasp, and subsided. He took that as his signal to cease.

Every minute detail of the room was, of course, registered in his mind, and he began to sort them idly according to origin. This sheet-fabric-crease was Ann’s, the result of a less than peaceful night; this odd sock was Julie’s, torn off just now as she hastily bared her lower half to facilitate the activity they had just enjoyed. He supposed that she had enjoyed it. So, really, had he, though she was now beginning to rouse from her lethargy and look down at him with a certain anxiety. With surprise, he realised that it was only now she had begun to wonder what services he might demand in exchange for this one.